My Next $1,000,000 Newsletter Business
Over the last two years, I've built 3 newsletter businesses. They are ...
TimStodz.com (what you're reading now)
Copyblogger.com
YourBoulder.com
In total, these newsletters generate around $140,000 a year in revenue and about $90,000 a year in profit. Additionally, the nature of the business is such that the more subscribers I get, the more profit I generate WITHOUT needing to do additional work.
The scalability is off the charts. I've come to love the newsletter business model and that's why I'm creating another one.
In this article, I will break down my business strategy for a newsletter I am starting and I will give you the framework you can follow to build your own newsletter business.
Let's do this.
How It Started
Years ago, I had an idea to create a media company in the behavioral healthcare space. This company was going to be different than Sober Nation because it was going to speak directly to professionals in the space.
The target audience was ...
marketers
finance leaders
CEOs
business development reps
insurance agents
etc
Sounds incredibly boring doesn't it?
I never executed on my vision because I let insecurities get in the way. I thought "who is going to read articles about insurance billing or about the latest treatment modalities that are being used?"
Naturally, I spoke to myself about in a self defeatist way.
"what if no one reads it?"
"what if I get embarrassed in front of my peers and colleagues?"
"what if I fail in front of other people?"
For years, I've been sleeping on this idea and I never pulled the trigger on it. But then, something happened ...
I Discovered A Website Called BHBusiness.com
Bhbusiness.com is a media company and a daily newsletter that writes stories about the business of behavioral health.
The newsletter only has 15,000 subscribers, yet it is building a thriving business from the small audience it has. The reason they are so successful is because they targeted a very specific group of people who make for valuable subscribers. They targeted ...
bankers
private equity firms
real estate firms
finance bros who all wear the same outfit (see below)
Image source: https://eaishops.link/products.aspx?cname=finance+bros+vest&cid=44
Because of the high value subscriber base they've created, they've been able to monetize their brand well. They ...
sell ads in their newsletter
sell sponsored posts
create and host conferences (recently, I attended a conference called INVEST and I was very impressed with the speakers and the quality of the event.)
Watching BH Business grow is the wake up call I needed and the realization that I should have executed on my idea years ago. I knew in my heart there would be a market for this kind of content.
So, about 2 months ago, I finally built the courage to get started. Today, I am ready to announce my latest project.
It's called The Census.
What Is The Census?
The Census is a weekly newsletter that shares advice for marketers and entrepreneurs looking to make an impact in the behavioral healthcare industry.
My target audience is going to be CEOs, CMOs, and professionals who work within the space. These people are always looking for ways to improve their marketing, find new products to help reduce their costs, and increase their efficiency. Most importantly, a lot of these people are business owners who are looking for ways to generate more leads and find more people who they can serve.
The Opportunity
Behavioral Healthcare is still very archaic. It's always shocking to me how far behind the healthcare industry is, considering how much money is spent on investments.
Most of the industry is still managed with pen and paper. The billing aspects of healthcare are a complete mess, and the intersection of business documentation, patient documentation, and patient management have created a huge spiderweb of information.
That's my opportunity.
So where BH Business targets finance people, the Census will target professionals that work within the space.
I plan to write about ...
new software companies that are entering the space
patient billing and techniques to get the most out of your receivables
new marketing and lead generation techniques
interesting stories about professionals doing amazing work in the field
The Growth Plan
I have 1600 subscribers. My plan is to generate more interest and build my subscriber base in 3 different ways.
1. Deliver a great product - The people are begging for humor, entertainment, and new ideas to be injected into the space. I genuinely believe that if I focus on creating a newsletter that people love, they will share it amongst each other.
2. Build through cold outreach - My outreach team's main priority is to book appointments with potential leads for me to close and convert into clients. However, in the emails and the communications they send, they have a secondary objective which is to promote the newsletter. If someone is not interested in working with us on an agency level, we always end the conversation with a polite recognition and a form of free value via the newsletter. It's been very effective so far.
3. Facebook and Instagram ads - I've written a lot about my commitment to advertising. It's been a slow process, but I am getting better. In November, I will start the advertising campaign with the specific goal of building my subscriber base. My goal is to generate subscribers for $3 a piece.
How I Will Monetize
I predict this newsletter will be my most lucrative newsletter to date. The reason is because I don't plan to monetize through sponsorships (at least not yet), but rather, I plan to monetize by using the newsletter as a way to close deals for Stodzy Internet Marketing.
Here's my plan.
Treatment Leads
Each issue of the newsletter has a section in it that promotes my services. However, I am taking a different approach.
I believe that my business website (Stodzyinternetmarketing.com) is most effective through SEO. The site is content heavy and I don't think using that website as my CTA in the newsletter is how I will be most effective.
So I created a subsidiary brand called Treatment Leads. You can see it here at treatmentleads.net. You can also see the CTA in the issues below.
You will notice the landing page is much more focused on lead generation.
There's no blog. There's no case studies. There is simply a one page sales page with a clear objective of booking appointments.
How Is It Going?
Great.
So far, I've written and published six issues. Those six issues have generated 2 leads.
Both of those leads are still warm and I have sent proposals to both of them.
The first lead is a smaller deal and will probably close at around $24,000 a year. The second lead I'm working has a lower likelihood of closing. The price point in that deal is $96,000 a year.
None the less, it's proof of concept that my newsletter will be an effective means of generating leads for Stodzy Internet Marketing. If I've already sent two proposals from six issues to a small subscriber base of only 1600 subscribers, imagine how many deals I will close once I have 50,000 subscribers.
The Short Term Goal
I have no idea what will happen in the long run. I've come to appreciate newsletters because of all the flexibility and opportunity they present. In time, I'm sure I could build this media brand into a business with multiple revenue streams.
However, the primary objective is to hit $10,000,000 a year in ARR for Stodzy Internet Marketing. The best way for my team to achieve that goal is to continue developing the best services in the industry and continue growing our sales team to attract better, bigger, and higher playing clients that stay clients for years and years.
So the focus is to use The Census to generate leads and close deals.
The opportunities will be plentiful and in time, I'm sure we will discover how to expand.
But for now, I'm laser focused.
Everything is about closing deals.
$10,000,000 a year ARR is the mission. I won't stop until we achieve our goal.
LFG🔥
Congregation is waiting to say!
Copyblogger has been around for years, you didn't build it in 2.