How I Started a Profitable Local Newsletter (EXACT PLAYBOOK)

Online newsletters are one of my favorite business models. People spend a lot of time reading email. And if you build a newsletter, you don’t have to worry about an algorithm.

So, I decided to create a local newsletter about things to do and events in Leinster, Ireland. That’s because I’m from Leinster so I know the area quite well. But, I wanted to use AI to help me iterate this project faster.

I’m going to walk you through some of the things I’m doing to start and grow this newsletter.

The newsletter is called leinsterinsider.ie. The content primarily features photographs that I’ve taken during my days out and about in Leinster, as well as roundups of things to do, the latest news, and upcoming events.

I write some of this content myself, but I also use AI to iterate and improve it.

The Leinster Insider has a pretty simple design. That’s because I built it with Ghost. I’ve experimented with other newsletter tools over the years, including Substack and ConvertKit, which I use for my personal newsletter.

I went with Ghost for this particular project because I like how easy Ghost is to use and I’ve also found examples of other local newsletters that have been built on Ghost.

Ghost is pretty affordable too. I got started on Ghost and it was only when it hit a certain subscriber count that I had to spend any money.

Once I’d set up my newsletter inside Ghost, I'd two jobs. I had to create content for the newsletter and also acquire subscribers.

In the past, when I wanted readers, I would publish SEO-optimized articles. But the SEO rules have changed and you can’t rely on traffic from Google anymore. So I decided to go a different route for my particular local newsletter.

To grow my local newsletter, I opted for Facebook lead generation ads. And I decided on a budget of $5 to $10 per day. Not enough to break the bank but enough to get things going.

Then I created a lead generation ad and decided to let Facebook handle all my targeting and sourcing of leads for me. I simply wrote some copy based on my copywriting skills and sourced some compelling creative.

I used compelling photographs from beautiful parts of the country like Glendalough in County Wicklow. For the primary text, I wrote “Need something to do this weekend?” and offered people a weekly guide containing fun things to do around Leinster in Ireland.

I started with $5 per day and once I could see I was able to get subscribers for less than a dollar, I slowly increased my ad spend.

To get my leads from Facebook to Ghost I used Zapier to connect Facebook to Ghost. Basically, when someone opts in on one of my ads in Facebook, Zapier will automatically send them to Ghost as a new email subscriber.

It didn’t take long for this to work. I started receiving email notifications several times a day that I had new subscribers in Ghost.
At the time of recording I have 1,151 members. If you have a thousand people in your email list you basically have a business.

Once I got this many subscribers, I was prompted by Ghost to upgrade. So I spent $480 upgrading to Ghost Pro. I did this because I feel like this project has merit. And I also feel like it’s something that I’ll be happy to work on for the year.

Of course I have a competitive advantage. I’m actually from Leinster so I can source unique and compelling content.

Once I had a thousand subscribers, I started writing and sending posts to my list. Some of these I wrote myself and some of these I used AI to help me with.

Of course I’m not doing this for free. I do want to monetize my local newsletter. So I started working on some soft pitches.

Firstly, I started featuring local businesses. The reason why I featured local businesses is later on when I get more subscribers, I should be able to charge businesses to advertise on my local newsletter. After all people will pay to appear in front of five or 10,000 people.

I also started to pitch some of my services softly. You can get featured in the local newsletter if you reply to this email. I can help you rank higher in Google. That’s because I have a good bit of experience in SEO.

I also created a barebones services page where I explained some of the services that I can offer businesses around Leinster.

Next up, I started planning some tiers that I’ll potentially roll out on the Leinster Insider. The newsletter is free to read. However, I’m planning on creating Leinster Insider Plus. This will cost subscribers $5 per month for now because I only want to validate the idea.

Basically, if people join Leinster Insider Plus they’ll get access to weekend itinerary packs, hidden gems filtered by county and also new guides. Once I get five or 10 people into this particular offer I can of course change the pricing, iterate and improve on it.

I picked Ghost because basically it’s great for publishing newsletters and also for creating premium or gated content.

I am using AI to help me with some of this process. To write content I created a dedicated Claude project for the Leinster Insider and I wrote a pretty detailed prompt.

I explained that Claude should create a comprehensive guide about things to do in whatever the town is, and then I provided details about the structure. The article should be at least 1,200 words long. It needs to feature key attractions. It needs to include an events calendar, family activities.

After all families are the ideal readers for this newsletter. I showcased some local businesses, as I plan to offer digital marketing services to them in the future.

I also provided guidelines on the writing style, which should include working links, and offered more specific guidelines on headlines, the conclusion, and repurposing the content for social media.

Took me a few iterations to get this prompt right. If you’re going to do this, I would recommend uploading some example articles that showcase what exactly you need from Claude.

I’m familiar with the areas I write about so I was able to fact-check most of the content myself. I rewrote some of it based on my knowledge of the area. I also used a virtual assistant to check things like broken links.

Once I got a version I was happy with I headed over to Ghost. The CMS inside of Ghost is pretty easy to use. I uploaded some photographs that I took with my phone or that I sourced from stock photo websites. And I scheduled the newsletter to go out.

My current publishing cadence is once a week, but now that I have over a thousand subscribers, I’ll likely increase it to twice a week.

I have an entire content strategy mapped out for the next three months. I intend to work on this with the help of Claude and a virtual assistant, as well as by utilizing my knowledge of the different counties in Leinster, Ireland.

It’s relatively easy to set up a local newsletter if you've a good understanding of the area, a budget for Facebook ads, and have chosen a newsletter tool like Ghost.

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