Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
Am I ditching my newsletter for this weird app?
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Hi Reader, For a few years, I was a content strategist for a Fintech. One of my projects was improving a newsletter for small business owners. The newsletter enjoyed a lousy 5% open rate. The back of a cereal box was more engaging than the boring product content inside the newsletter that a developer banged out between coding sessions. So, we stripped out the boring product content and started sending customer stories and how-to guides. And open rates slowly climbed towards 20%. My open rates for this list average about 30%. I can hit 50–60% if I send a targeted email to a segment of my list, e.g., welcome emails to new customers. For newsletter owners, 25–30% is a good benchmark. It’s more than doable if you regularly turn up in people’s inboxes with engaging, story-driven content. As much as I love newsletters, I still wonder about that other 60%. Sure, some email addresses within that 60% are cold or belong to bots. And yes, some readers don’t check their emails, forget passwords, or lose interest. But who are they, why did they opt in, and are they getting these emails? I regularly subscribe to newsletters I love reading only to find their latest edition buried in my spam box next to one from a rich Nigerian prince who needs my bank details and a crypto bro who’s strumbled across a crazy 1000% coin that he wants to share. I regularly try other distribution tools, particularly mobile-first channels that aren’t subject to an algo. Enter Telegram. I’ve launched a new Telegram channel with insider content for creators. It’s easy to join and doesn’t cost anything.
Telegram is a private mobile app and doesn’t cost you anything. No one, including me, can see your phone number. I’ll post bonus insider content several times a week about how I run my content business. Content that will help you add $3–5k to your business in 2025. Click here to join my Telegram channel Write on, Bryan Collins PS No, I’m not ditching my newsletter for the Telegram channel. You’ll continue to get these email insights about building a business with content…as long as you’re subscribed and don’t want my bank details ;) |
Letters From the Desk of Bryan Collins
Do you want to grow a profitable content business? If so, join 25,000 readers. I share daily insights about personal brand building, writing online and growing a profitable business. It's for creators, coaches and business owners.
I tested Google Gemini’s content creation capabilities. I wanted to see how it stacks up against ChatGPT and Claude for creating business copy. Google Gemini offers two interesting “gems” (think custom GPTs) for content creators: Copy Creator and Writing Editor. Copy Creator helps write taglines, mission statements, and social media posts. Writing Editor focuses on fixing grammar and improving content structure. I put both through their paces using content from my daily newsletter. When I fed...
Your existing content is like an untapped gold mine - most creators keep digging new holes instead of mining what they already have. I’ve spent years writing online, It can easily become a full-time, low-paying job if you keep digging. One method for getting around this problem is building a content library of your greatest hits. It’s easier to repurpose content if you have a library that you can draw from. Another method is tracking a few key weekly stats across each channel so you can see...
I spent years obsessing over niche selection. When I was a Forbes columnist, branding myself as “the productivity and leadership guy” seemed like a safe bet. I covered topics like time management, leadership, and getting sh*t done at work.I mapped dozens of hot niche-specific topics in a spreadsheet and published articles like: The Fastest Way To Accomplish More This Week How To Use The 4 Ds Of Time Management 4 Common Mistakes New Home Workers Make I wrote about these topics not because they...