building a newsletter business from scratch

WARNING: this is a long ass post.

But I have a sneaky suspicion it's the most valuable post you'll read all week.

I condensed 10 years of work on @MorningBrew into a 6-step process to build a successful newsletter business from scratch.

Today, I reveal steps 1-3...

Step 1: Pick your Niche

Is your niche valuable? [must answer YES to continue]

1) Is it a high-need audience?

- Personal passion (think: gardening, cars, luxury art)

- Prosumer (think: retail investing, alternative investing)

- Professional need (think: sales, software dev, therapy)

2) Is it trending up?

- Will the audience for this niche be bigger in 5 years? (look at 1 & 3 year trends in Google Search Trends & reddstats)

- Will the audience’s need/passion for the information be higher in 5 years?

Is it a valuable audience?

1) Is there a strong advertising model? [must answer YES to continue]

Is it high CPM?

- Rule of thumb: higher-earning audiences command higher CPMs; niche audiences command higher CPMs than general audiences; professional audiences (industry/job function-specific) command higher CPMs than consumer audiences

Is there advertiser depth?

- If you listed out every possible advertiser that would likely be interested to get in front of this audience, how long is that list?

....<25: bad

....25-50: average (typical in b2b)

....50-100: good

....100+: great

- Two types of advertisers:

....Endemic: consistent with the content type

Example: Fidelity in Morning Brew

....Non-endemic: inconsistent with the content type

Example: BMW in Morning Brew

Is there a strong direct monetization model? [not a required YES, but huge plus]

- Would a large enough portion of the audience be willing to pay enough (for access to information, product, the community) to drive 7-figures?

....Community: Pavilion

....Premium Content: The Free Press

....Investment: Not Boring

....Events: A Media Operator

....Digital Products: Money With Katie

....Physical Products: Linus Tech Tips

....Affiliate: The Points Guy

The Content Pyramid

This is one framework I use to determine the value of the niche...

Step 2: Develop the Content Strategy

[answer all questions]

1) Who is your market of 1?

- Who is the one person you’re writing this newsletter for? Describe them in excruciating detail. If they’re a real person even better. Pull their linkedin URL and write down everything you know about them.

2) Are you (newsletter creator) the market of 1?

- If yes: answer the following questions as your market of 1

- If no: interview 4-6 of your market of 1 with the following questions:

....Where do you get your favorite content about this niche?

....What makes your favorite content so good?

....If we could create the perfect newsletter for you, what would be in it? And what job would it do for you?

....What are questions/challenges/topics within your niche that you find keep you up at night or you talk constantly with peers about?

3) What is the problem your newsletter solves? (the more painful the problem the better)

- Examples: failing at my job, losing money in the markets, becoming an outsider in my community

4) What is the goal of the newsletter?

- You should be able to easily fill in these blanks: We help [market of 1] avoid [problem] by [solution].

- Example (Morning Brew): We help the emerging business leader avoid looking like a schmuck in front of their boss by giving them a 5-minute, conversational read about the most important stories in business today.

5) What is the ideal frequency?

- If news-based: minimum 2x/week. Ideally daily so you can build a habit.

- If evergreen: minimum weekly. Quite difficult to build a habit if less frequent.

6) What are the content sections (in your newsletter) that keep the reader engaged & satisfy the goal?

[this should be informed by market of 1 conversations]

Options:

Intro: 50-word warm-up, opportunity to build connection with reader & flex voice

What’s coming up: table of contents, creates skim value

Curate & comment: this is a deadly weapon as search costs go up & consumers want the best content surfaced to them (with a trusted POV)

Short news story: ~150-200 words - what you need to know & why it matters

Long news story: ~300-400 words - what you need to know, broader context, why it matters

Link dump: could be news-y. Could be service-y. Worth the reader’s time, but not enough space to write dedicated stories about.

Short news combo: in-between of short stories & link dump. Combo of ~50 word quick hits.

Brain food: games, visuals, quotes, ideas, etc. Complementary to information dense content. Gives reader reasons to get to bottom of the newsletter.

Visual story: provides content diversity. Some ideas/stories are better told through images. One downside: email load time/rendering in places without wifi.

Guest op-ed: expert voices provide differentiated commentary to reader & can act as a growth lever for the newsletter.

Think piece: deep analysis on a topic that you’ve researched & your audience wants to know more about.

Playbook: think HBR case study within a modern context in your niche.

Referral card: if you have content-market fit, you should have a referral program & market it in each newsletter, no questions asked

In the ecosystem: if you offer content/value outside of the newsletter, this can be a permanent/rotating opportunity to plug your other “stuff”.

Short evergreen piece: a valuable story for the reader that will still be relevant 1 week from now.

Long evergreen piece: same as above, just in greater detail.

From the audience: could be reader Q&A. could be a reader shoutout. But it’s a good way to both engage with your audience in the inbox & use UGC to add value.

Primary sponsor: different ways to do this, but simplest is logo at top (under newsletter name) and ~200 words of editorial below the fold.

Secondary sponsor: a number of options here. Could be ~50 words of editorial after last story. Could be sponsored link if you have a link dump card.

7) What is the voice?

Similar to market of 1, you should be as specific as possible about the voice of your newsletter.

There are 3 steps to nailing your newsletter’s voice:

a) Build a persona

- Think of the person that your market of 1 wants to be.

If it’s the mid-level marketer, then maybe the persona is the CMO. If it’s the weekend golfer, maybe it’s the golf obsessive who built an at-home swing simulator. Once you have your persona, write down every habit, quirk, and behavior you can about them.

Example: at Morning Brew, our persona was a 30-year-old equity trader named Stephen who lived in NYC and commuted from the East Village each day. Stephen has a passion for the markets, he loves listening to Planet Money & How I Built This, and splits his weekend activities between meeting friends at bespoke cocktail bars & going for hikes north of NYC.

b) Boil down to personality traits

- List out the three most pronounced character traits of your persona

Example: at Morning Brew: conversational, witty, deeply-informed

c) Have examples of each personality trait

- The best way to train your editorial team is to show them what is on vs. off voice for your persona.

CONVERSATIONAL

WITTY

DEEPLY INFORMED

Step 3: Pick the team

There are three legs to the newsletter stool:

- Content

- Growth

- Monetization

There needs to be an owner for each leg of the stool (but the same person can own multiple legs).

How you staff your newsletter depends on content needs (frequency, length), financial runway, and goals.

Here are a few options for staffing, based on the above variables [pick one]:

1) Newsletter-as-a-hobby

One person owns editorial, growth, and monetization (if applicable)

2) Newsletter-as-a-side-hustle-to-business

....Option A: one person owns editorial, growth, and monetization (if applicable)

....Option B: two people - one owns editorial & one owns growth and monetization

....Option C: two people - one acts as editor & oversees growth and monetization, one is a junior writer (intern, offshore, etc) who handles much of the writing

3) Newsletter-as-a-company-content-product

One editor, one writer, one PM that liaises with growth/design/product

4) Newsletter-as-an-ad-based-business

- If daily: two writers, one editor, one growth/tech lead, one sales lead

- If weekly/bi-weekly: one writer, one editor, one person who PMs and owns growth/tech/sales

5) Newsletter-at-scale

- 2-4 on editorial, 2 on growth (one organic, one paid), 2-8 sellers, 1-2 design/tech support (or external agency)

Example with Morning Brew:

1) College team (newsletter-as-a-hobby)

- Alex owns editorial

- Austin owns tech

- Austin/Alex co-own growth

- 1 college student acts as Managing Editor

- 1 college student acts as voice editor

- 4-8 college students act as part-time writers

2) Initial full-time team (newsletter-as-a-business)

- Alex owns editorial & sales

- Austin owns growth

- Two full-time writers

- One tech/growth employee

- One junior salesperson

3) Morning Brew today (newsletter-at-scale)

- Editorial: 1 Managing Editor, 3 Writers

- Growth: 3

- Sales: 8 sellers, 5 account managers

exhales.

That was an insane amount of content, but I hope it was insanely valuable.

This was Phase 1 (Niche, Content Strategy, Team) of building a successful newsletter business.

Phase 2 (Launch, Growth, Sales) will be posted next week.

Throw me a follow Alex Lieberman if you want to see Phase 2 when it comes out.