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.
Hi Reader, I was sitting in a pub a few days ago with a copy of The Power Broker by Ron Chernow. A man sitting beside me said, “Can you write a book report on that for tomorrow?” He was joking about the size of the book. It’s over 1200 pages. In between scoffing mince and polishing off a cheeseboard, I’ll spend the next few days making inroads on it. Wish me luck, I could still be reading it next Christmas. Here are the 5 best books I read in 2025 (4 new, one old). Shattered by Hanif Kureishi...
Hi Reader, I wanted to make a nice side income selling online courses back in 2015. So, I subscribed to email lists of the net’s biggest marketers to see how they promoted their wares. Before Netflix and X fame, Ramit Sethi was a big online course guru. I liked reading Ramit’s emails. I could tell he wrote them himself. And even though I’m from Ireland, I enjoyed his contrarian American-style take on personal finance. Ramit launched various online business courses over email every month. His...
Hi Reader, Designing a landing page trips many people up. I was on a call with a marketer who presented a landing page that looked like….a Gingerbread house! She explained to Zoom attendees, “Visitors can click on the windows on my house. We'll send them a PDF if they get the right one.” The team never signed off on her landing page. You see… A good landing page either sells or converts. It’s not a puzzle. And it’s not a work of art. Send traffic to your landing page from social media or paid...