Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

Growth In Reverse Podcast - Hobby Card Life Newsletter Roast Review
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Chenell Basilio: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another Growth and Reverse Newsletter Roast. Today we're gonna actually go through the Hobby Card Life newsletter that was submitted by Cameron and yeah, I'm excited about this one.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, this is gonna be fun. We do newsletter roasts once in a while. We've done a few in the past. If you do want to get your newsletter roasted , we will share a link in the show notes to where you can do that. I believe we have a URL set up for that as well. Growth and reverse.com/roast if I'm not mistaken.

And you can fill out a form and, um, we prioritize people who have actually rated and reviewed the podcast either on Spotify or on, , , apple Podcast. So do that and you have a better chance of us roasting your newsletter.

Chenell Basilio: Awesome.

Dylan Redekop: Let's get into it.

Chenell Basilio: So Cameron submitted this newsletter and he actually has 3,500 subscribers so far, which is a great start. I think that's an awesome, place to be in. Like, that's a, that's a really solid number.

Dylan Redekop: If you go in his archive, he's only been publishing for, since like, I think the calendar year. So not even a full year.

Chenell Basilio: started on January 3rd.

Dylan Redekop: [00:01:00] Yeah. There you go. I.

Chenell Basilio: So congrats Cameron. Well done. I do think there is quite a bit of room for improvement, which is always the case. So that's exciting that we can, uh, kind of jump into this. This is the landing page he gave us. If you're listening to this, uh, we actually have this video up on YouTube and we will put it on Spotify as well.

But if you're on Apple, sorry, they don't have videos yet, as far as I know. So, , you can come over to YouTube if you'd like to, and go ahead and watch this. We'll drop the link in the description as well,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, it's gonna be a pretty visual reliant episode, but we'll try to be as dis descriptive as we can as well.

Chenell Basilio: Yes. So unless you just like listening to our beautiful voices it might, it might be

Dylan Redekop: Put you to sleep. Sleep at night.

Chenell Basilio: Yes, exactly. So his landing page says the only sports card newsletter you need. Join thousands of card collectors, getting strategies, tips, and news each week for free. And then he has a box to enter your email and the button says, sign up.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: about this?

Dylan Redekop: I kinda like the only sports card newsletter you need. That's, , that's a good [00:02:00] call out. , Join thousands of card collectors getting strategies, tips, and news each week for free. That's fine. I would, I, I like deferring to like. Kind of a problem, solution sort of statement. So like and, and like in, I, we've talked about this a hundred times, but like get smarter in five minutes a day kind of thing.

Like around that sort of framework, like telling people what they're gonna get and how quickly they're gonna get it, I think is very valuable. So I think you could probably improve on that for sure.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I always like to pull out like the unique angle that you offer inside of the newsletter. So pretty much any card collecting newsletter is gonna have the same. or could have the same tagline, strategies, tips, and news is just like, all right, but like, what's the real meat? Like what's, I don't know, like maybe you're, you're helping people save money on trades, or you're showcasing like the top picks that week, or.

I dunno, something like juicier, if you will. That's, that's not so bland, but it's a good [00:03:00] start. It's better than some other ones I've seen. I just would love to see this improve just a little bit to get people over the hill to sign up.

Dylan Redekop: And I think the other thing too is like, what's the, the, I like thinking in the job to be done framework too. So like, what's the job of your newsletter? Is it to help card collectors make more money with their collection or to what cards they should be collecting? Or all of the above. So you could call out one of those, one of those things in your, in your sub headline too.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. , I like that. Okay, so i'm gonna actually sign up real quick so we can check out what happens after someone hits subscribe.

Dylan Redekop: Sign up in real time.

Chenell Basilio: All right, cool. So there is a redirect, which gets me excited. Welcome to the number one newsletter in the hobby. Check your inbox for your first email. In the meantime, I have a question for you.

Are you interested in learning how to make money? And then he has his book. So Cameron has written a book all about. Collecting cards, sports cards. So I think this is an interesting way to, even if nobody buys from this page, you're letting people know this exists, which is a good [00:04:00] thing. The one set thing I will say is this definitely distracts people from going to their inbox to check the email.

So you're going to drop a few people here probably that might not actually convert back and like, reply to your email or click the confirm button or whatever the case may be. But I do like showcasing, especially , a lower tier product on the, the next page.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I, I like this too. And I think if you don't have double opt-in set up, I think this is okay actually as your, as your next page, right after a subscription, if you do have double opt-in, meaning people have to go into their inbox, find your, confirm your. Email, subscription email, and click on that button before they receive your newsletter, before they're like officially on your list, then you might want to not distract them with this.

But again, that's kind of, that's up to you. But I, I think the main goal would be to get them on your newsletter. Make sure they've confirmed your subscription first, if they're on double opt-in.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And then if you set up a false double opt-in, which I like to [00:05:00] do where it looks like a regular double opt-in, they think they have to click the button to confirm, but it's really just telling you like, Hey, they actually have confirmed, and if not, you can still email them and say like, Hey, are you sure you don't?

I wanna like confirm and get your free thing. So after, after you do that, like once they click on the button, you could then also send them to this page if you'd

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: an alternative. 'Cause then you're getting both, you're hitting both angles, right? So you're getting them confirmed to your email list, you're showing them, or they're showing you that they are interested in continuing to get this they didn't sign up by accident and then they're still going to this page.

So that's another option.

Dylan Redekop: And do you know how much the book you charging for the book

Chenell Basilio: It's on Kindle Unlimited or paperback for 1599.

Dylan Redekop: Okay. Or audiobook too, which is an interesting application for this kind of thing.

Chenell Basilio: that is, I like it.

Dylan Redekop: Okay.

Chenell Basilio: got good reviews. 32 5 star reviews.

Dylan Redekop: We're done. Okay. So this is a very low ticket, sort of almost trip wire that he's using, which is, which is nice [00:06:00] because. If you want to start going down, sort of paid growth. He's got this kind of on the backend that he can try to fund a bit of his paid growth with. But yeah, this is this is a really good first step for

Chenell Basilio: I love that there's something I, I see so many folks like make the mistake of just having it, a popup. Say, you're confirmed, you're subscribed. And then it's like, cool, what do I do now? So I'm really glad that there is something he's redirecting to. It doesn't like we're getting in the weeds here with this, but I just wanna call out like, good job, Cameron, for actually having something.

On your welcome page. So

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I like the social proof as well.

Chenell Basilio: Mm-hmm. Totally. Okay, I got the welcome email, so maybe we pop into that.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Can you drag it over? Yeah, there we go.

Chenell Basilio: Okay. So. I guess I can show images, but I usually like to keep them off of first. Okay. So he says, welcome to Hobby Card Life, the best community on the web for sports cards. Okay.

Here's what I would say. The [00:07:00] email is kind of saying, you're confirmed, you're in, here's what's next. I could take that subject line and it would work for my newsletter, so I almost might find like an emoji that is close to your logo or. Like a card? Like is there a playing card emoji? I feel like there is,

Dylan Redekop: Good question.

Chenell Basilio: . Okay, so there are like the spade, the diamond, the heart, st that or a Joker card.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, a joker card could be interesting. So I like that. I'll also notice too, if you minimize just that card emoji thing. It says, Cameron at hcl. I do not know what HCL is. Nobody's gonna know what HCL is so. I would highly recommend extending that out to Cameron at Hobby Card Life.

And then what you could do even is put your probably should do and I know. Yes, exactly. I know some Gmail inboxes, sometimes we'll show them, sometimes they won't. It can be kind of a hit and miss thing, but throwing your logo, 'cause your logo would fit perfectly in the [00:08:00] Gmail. Was that like a avatar or avatar kind of thing?

Which you can set in your Google workspace settings or Google admin console I should say.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, totally. So you could do that. You could also do your face like holding up cards or something.

Dylan Redekop: Turn into a gift to make it look, to make it move and catch people's eyes. I had that going for a while.

Chenell Basilio: I do enjoy when I see like a person, especially 'cause you're, you're going forward with like Cameron at Hobby Card Life, not just hobby Card Life. If you wanted it to just be the brand, I would use a logo. But since you're going with your name, I would probably go with your face and like, maybe there's like a fun color around your.

Profile picture, just to like, make it stand out a little bit. But yeah, definitely would recommend looking that up and doing that.

Dylan Redekop: Cool.

Chenell Basilio: Cool. Okay, so you're in, here's what's next. I would, again, customize the subject line, but then once you actually get into the email, I feel like reply with your all time favorite card.

That's a good question. I think although if someone's just getting started, they might not [00:09:00] have a favorite and they might be like, I don't know. I'm always a big fan of like, trying to find a question that people can like no-brainer reply to. And maybe that is like, I don't know the full audience, so I could be totally off on this, but for me to reply, I'd be like, I have no freaking clue what my favorite card is. But again, maybe you're, you're customizing this just for people who are like super deep into the space,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, you may not want newbies. Maybe the other thing, or you could just say, what does he say? Reply with your all time favorite card, or what's your favorite sports team or something like that. At least something to get people 'cause that they should be able to reply with. Another thing he could have added here, which might be fun, would actually seeing that he replies to his own question, saying, my favorite is my national treasure's, magic Johnson auto slash 99.

So a picture of that card would like. Would hit really nicely. You have no other images aside from your logo in, in this email. And I know some people like Chanel have their images off, but I'd say the majority of people don't. So having that image would be really cool and show that you are legit, that you actually have these cards that you're [00:10:00] not just I don't know, a schemer or anything like that.

So I think you holding it as well, just like Chanel was mentioning for the, the Gmail image too. That could be a cool personalization angle that you could do here.

Chenell Basilio: I love the idea of him, a picture of him holding the card. I think that's such a good call out because Yeah. I mean, we're talking to you. So let's show your face. Let's show how excited you are about this card. I think that's really just gonna build some affinity for your brand.

Dylan Redekop: And trust.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So then you have second check out my most popular content.

You have three options. I like this. I almost wonder if you could rephrase this and be like, here are some awesome posts, depending on like what stage you're at. So you could write like just getting started, how to pick the best sports cards to invest in. Or something like, I feel like it would be interesting to have people self select of like their stage.

I don't know. What do you think about that?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I like, I like being able to sing my people. [00:11:00] If, if it's very clear that those are segments and you, you could even, depending on, I think you're using beehive here. Yeah, you are. But what you could do as well is tag those clicks with a, if you wanted to, you could take those clicks with like beginner, intermediate, advanced sort of tags if you ever wanted to segment those people later on.

Just to get, give you an idea of how the type of people that are signing up for your newsletter, if everybody's clicking on how to pick the best sports cards to invest in, then you'll know that, you know, there's a much larger subset of people that are geared towards that content. So I think that is definitely not a bad way to go about it.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. And then you reiterate the book down with number three. Grab a copy of the

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Love

Chenell Basilio: That is a good call out. Again, just reminding people this exists. I think that's great. Super smart. If you reply to any of my emails with a copy of your receipt, I'll send you a freebie. Okay. I feel like this is kind of getting to be a lot.

Because then we have like, check out a post, reply to this email, buy the book, and then once you buy the book, reply [00:12:00] again. I don't know. What do you, what, how do you feel about this? Like, I like the call out of this,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. I think there. I think there's too many call to actions in this email. Kinda distracting people with too many things. You want to, I think we are both very big fans of getting the first email to get a reply to that. That's, that's kind of the most powerful thing you can really do. Like making a sale on your book is great, but and that, that might be your goal.

But a lot of people getting a reply to their first newsletter just is so strong for your. I don't wanna say your send reputation, 'cause I'm not a deliverability expert, but it's so strong to make sure that people keep getting your newsletter and keep getting it in their inboxes as well when you reply to an email.

So that's the angle I would maybe go for. And then this could be a really simple three day sequence where the first email they're replying, the second email you're sharing either the book or the best content that you've created and why it's great. You could elaborate on it a little bit more. Or be really selective with the, with the links that you're [00:13:00] sharing.

And then the third one can be the last one of your choice. And in the book one, that's when you can mention the receipt thing and you can bring that more to the forefront too.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. Yeah. I would probably just have them reply, like, cut this other stuff. Like, like Dylan was just saying, and that was my first inkling too, is like, let's just simplify this. You could even, you know, if you, if you're really, he like stuck on selling the book right away, like have them reply to the email and then the next email like four hours later or the next day or something, just send them the book email, I think. You're probably gonna get more people taking you up on it because it's the only thing in that email. And B, it's just like keeping us focused on getting the replies instead of trying to sell something right away.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. I like it.

Chenell Basilio: But again, like this is a much better welcome email than a lot of the ones we've seen.

So

Dylan Redekop: It is,

Chenell Basilio: you're doing things right. We're just getting picky here.

Dylan Redekop: It is, and I, I'm guilty of like putting too much in my welcome email as well. So it's like, you know, do as I [00:14:00] say, not as I do as well. So I think generally this is pretty strong.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, the one thing I will say, I would have it just be the reply, and then number two could be, if this didn't make it to your primary inbox, grab it now and drag it over. And then the PS is, make sure you hit reply and tell me what your favorite card is. And maybe, maybe you put the image below the PS as like, remember, here's my favorite.

Because then you're drawing attention to it. I did this with mine and like my PS line says, make sure you hit reply. And that is the one that people like copy and paste most often. And I can tell 'cause I format the text a little different and most people will just copy and paste without removing the formatting.

So it's an interesting stat to see. So I would highly recommend reminding people to reply in the PS line.

Dylan Redekop: Nice.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: That's a good tip.

Chenell Basilio: Cool. Okay. So. That was a good thing. I don't think he sent another email. I just wanna double check before we keep moving on here. No. Okay. Sometimes people do that. So all right. So if we [00:15:00] go back to this beehive landing page I am a huge fan of actually customizing the beehive, URL.

Right now it says Cameron's newsletter, a bunch of gobbly number and letter situation.beehive.com. So I would. I would recommend redirecting this to, it looks like you have hobby card life.com, so I'd probably change it to like newsletter dot, hobby card life.com or something as a subdomain. The other thing here, especially if you're sending people to this page, which you sent us here, so I'm just going off of what you did already.

These images are all the same and the title is not helpful. I would definitely put your face here. So Cameron Smith, instead of just having the beehive logo, have like your actual profile picture and just like customize this page a bit more.

Dylan Redekop: A hundred percent. I, it's, it looks like, I think you lose a lot of the credibility and trust that you may have built up in the [00:16:00] initial. In the initial welcome email and stuff like that, when people are redirected here or come to visit this just 'cause it, you're like, and going through your content, it's very good.

Like it's, it's, it's in depth. You have good, you have good formatting, everything like that. So it's clear that you're spending a decent amount of time on this. So I think the real, real low hanging fruit, like Chanel's talking about is like, when people see your URL, it looks like a, almost like a phishing website, URL.

It's, it's a little bit like with all the numbers and random letters like it. That's gonna make me question whether this is a legit newsletter. So I think top priority would be creating that hobby card life dot beehive.com, or just what, however you wanna do that subdomain, and then adding your Cameron Smith profile image and images for those posts, even if they are.

I think, I mean, obviously pictures of, I'm sure you've got pictures of

Chenell Basilio: he has pictures in the post, so he could literally take this

Dylan Redekop: pull Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: and Yeah, it's super simple, like it's standing out so [00:17:00] hard.

Dylan Redekop: we're at the stage where anything is better than what you've got in terms of the imagery.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Also I will say, like, I started reading this and I was like, this is a great story, but I really wish there was an image up here. And then there there was one, it's about a third of the way down, which is good. I just, I feel like this is such a visual game and like thing that I would love and you have them later down the post, so I would just like try and add them up a little bit higher.

But yeah, I mean, this is great. So you're starting with a story. This one is about how you got started becoming a sports fan, getting started with cards and then now it's like, what do you collect? You have some pictures of what you collect and then you have the buy sell section, which is like what you're seeing in the industry and like what's happening, which is good.

I think that's interesting.

Dylan Redekop: I.

Chenell Basilio: other thing I'm gonna get really picky about right here is this divider is very blurry. I'm so picky with my screenshots and like my images and like even this chart is a little [00:18:00] blurry. I would love to see you figure out a way to make that less. So I've had people comment on mine because they're always crisp and like, I've actually had people reply when I've dropped the ball and there's a blurry image in my article.

Like, not kidding, people notice this stuff. So it seems silly, but I would definitely try and especially the divider That's should be simple.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Go ahead. I'm being picky. What are you gonna say, Dylan?

Dylan Redekop: I was gonna say one thing I do also like in some of the newsletters I read on a regular basis is even a quick breakdown at the very top. Like in today's issue we have, and then you could like just tease some of the content just like a really quick 1, 2, 3 bullet points, like best if you wanna scroll up there just for a second.

Chanel, like buy, sell targets, right? Like, I'd be like, oh, I wanna, I wanna see what that's about this week. And you probably have that every week. But you might say like, buy, sell targets, hyphen Vlady Guerrero or, or Derrick Henry, or something like

Chenell Basilio: or the superstar that I no longer would consider a buy,

Dylan Redekop: [00:19:00] Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: that could be a really cool,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Like show ani. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: yeah, that would be a really cool, like subject line for this email. Like pulling out some of the content, like you're so close with this, and I really, really hope that this is not your subject line. At the top, the title of this post is Newsletter nine slash four, which is the date.

I really hope that that's not the actual subject line. So,

Dylan Redekop: We will find out. Well, you will when when you get his next email, like in a two days or something like that. Yeah.

Well, he mentioned in his submission here that he also has generated about 75% of his leads, or I guess when he says leads, he means subscribers from meta ads. So I, I alluded earlier to having a tripwire that can help fund these. But I, I guess my whole thought is getting meta ads to, if you're driving them here versus your website, I, I feel like that's a huge missed opportunity.

So, my guess is he's probably driving to his website if you wanna pull up even his website, [00:20:00] Chanel, unless you're gonna say something quickly about his beehive page.

Chenell Basilio: No, we can move on to the actual hobby card life.com, which is a much better page. Still has some things I would say to work on, but I think it's much better than what the other one has. And it's funny 'cause these have

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: but they're ai and I don't love AI necessarily, especially when you have high quality images in your post already. I would say just pull those out and have those be the forefront image.

Dylan Redekop: they're probably, it takes probably less time than trying to come up with a prompt for these ais. I hate, like honestly, AI image prompts are, can be a pain in the butt at least Sometimes you get lucky and it, it hits it outta the park the first time. But yeah,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: and those, all the, all those issues as well, like, those could be great subject lines too.

So. My gut is, is telling me you probably are using some of those as your subject lines for your emails, but if you're not, you've kind of got them right there. Are these [00:21:00] dated as well? Chanel?

Chenell Basilio: No.

Dylan Redekop: No. Okay.

Chenell Basilio: So, okay. Lots of things are jumping out at me here. So the website is much better than the beehive page, so I'm guessing this is where you're mostly doing this. Okay. One thing the title you're talking about, which players in the hobby have the most to gain from an NBA championship.

That's the title of this post. And then you call out these people and then there are no images of these people. Like, please, I'm begging, like it makes it so much scroll, more scrollable and I feel like the image would be much better if you had like some of these bigger names on the actual image.

You don't have to have them all, but maybe one or two, like controversial ones

Dylan Redekop: Yeah,

Chenell Basilio: I don't know.

Dylan Redekop: the, again, my, my mind goes to like, you've got LeBron James on this list, like a picture of a lump drop LeBron James rookie card or

Chenell Basilio: right.

Dylan Redekop: incorporate that you're talking about cards with these images. I mean, the, the easiest way would just be a picture of them playing basketball. Like a, a sports like Getty Images shot or something.

Chenell Basilio: Other, the [00:22:00] other thing that's jumping out to me is on the right side, there's a, a call out for the newsletter and it's a different

Dylan Redekop: Oh

Chenell Basilio: hobby Hits newsletter, be entertained, informed, more profitable in just 10 minutes per week. I'm gonna sign up for this one and see if it's the same newsletter or if he's using a different, if

Dylan Redekop: also, can I call it that the sub headline is better? Oh, redirection to the same spot.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, it does. Okay. So

Dylan Redekop: think about that? That's that head sub headline, be entertained, informed, and more profitable and just 10 minutes per week. That's kind of what I was getting at earlier when I said like, what you can gain and adding a time to that.

Chenell Basilio: , I don't know, it doesn't feel like it goes together. Maybe not. , But like hits newsletter,

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Well, most people I would assume, who are in card collecting and take it relatively seriously then are trying to make money from it, right?

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. But then I would lead with that instead of trying to do three jobs at once, I would just say like, make more money with your hobby card whatever [00:23:00] collection or

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Point.

Chenell Basilio: I. Okay, so he has this. Okay, let me go to another one and just see why patch cards are the hobby's biggest problem. Okay. Okay, so there's images here, which is good. I like that he's calling out numbers. I think that was another thing on the other one. He didn't have them numbered. I feel like people love lists and if you can, if it's already a list, like just add numbers, like it just makes sense.

How do we fix 'em? Yeah. I would love some more images in this. Oh, here we

Dylan Redekop: one.

Chenell Basilio: Like this would be a great cover image. I think it's like the right size and everything. Because then like tell five, tell tone signs. You should sell your sports cards. And it's like an AI image of two people shaking hands,

Dylan Redekop: Hmm. Or stock image or something. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: I'm sure you have a picture. Yeah, like this [00:24:00] is great Picture of cards in a box. This one's probably can go away, but.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: Like any sports card picture would be perfect.

And I'm sure you could even have a default picture that like, if you don't have something good for that week, you can just throw that up on the article. I think that would work so much better than like these random AI handshake images or like this girl carrying bags. Like I don't,

Dylan Redekop: She's not buying cheap baseball cards.

Chenell Basilio: to do, zero to do with that unless she's holding like bats and baseballs like, no.

Dylan Redekop: yeah.

Chenell Basilio: I would definitely

Dylan Redekop: But then look at the one in the middle there, right? Like the complete

Chenell Basilio: Right. So good.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, that's

Chenell Basilio: So good.

Dylan Redekop: that's what you want.

Chenell Basilio: You're gonna add more trust to this. Like I look at this and I'm like, okay, this guy's trying to make money and just like pump out content, but when you actually have images of your cards, your collection, I'm like, okay, no, this guy is actually really into this sport.

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: The other thing you've dropped on the actual. Site is your name and your image. So I would a hundred percent [00:25:00] just put your face up here. , People love, especially with this kind of thing. Like they wanna see the person behind the site. Who are they learning from to make their card collection better or get better at this hobby.

Dylan Redekop: So become the Pat Flynn Deep Pocket monster of Hobby Card Life. Don't, don't actually like you can for sure that's going really, really deep into this. But if you're not familiar,, I dunno how fast he grew, deep Pocket monsters, YouTube channel to over 3 million subscribers, but it wasn't super long.

It was like three or four years. So, and it's all based around collecting cards. Of course it's Pokemon, not. But sports a lot of, I think there's a lot of overlap for the content he's creating and how he's going about it that you could probably replicate to some degree.

Chenell Basilio: And I know it's like, it feels weird to put your face out there online, but this content's pretty good. Like, I would want my face like with, with this content so that people know it's from me. Like I think that's, and then like on your, are you doing social? Like I'm [00:26:00] wondering He's growing with Facebook ads, which makes me nervous.

Only because. I really love when people can grow something without Facebook ads before they actually start implementing paid ads. However, if it's working and you're getting good results, fine but I would love to see you lean more into. I feel like Instagram's probably begging for something like this.

I have a bunch of fantasy football. Instagrams popping up in my feed these days 'cause it's right on schedule

Dylan Redekop: the season.

Chenell Basilio: But like, they're so good. Like these guys are creating. These carousels of like top five people to draft this week or top five people to drop. And it's like I swipe every time 'cause I'm like, okay, are these people on my team?

Like, do I have any of these guys?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: So it'd be interesting if you could share on Instagram, you know, the top five cards selling for the most this week, or the top five that have like completely lost their value or something. And then people are like, oh my God, is this in my collection? I think that would do really well.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's so much content. I think an [00:27:00] opportunity for so much content with this kind of thing that you just need to invest a bit of time in it, see what other people are doing, and, and kind of. Take a cue from, from what's been working or what you're getting in your feed content you enjoy.

Like Chanel said, you know, the fantasy football people are really good at that sort of stuff. And this is kind of in that same ballpark too.

Chenell Basilio: totally.

Dylan Redekop: The other thing I noticed as well in one of your recent editions was you had an image of your son in the picture.

So I'm guessing if you're comfortable putting. Your son in your newsletter, you'd probably be comfortable putting yourself out there as well. So I would, I would recommend personalizing this as we've already mentioned a few times.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. I'm just, the images are killing me. 'cause it's like you are talking about 17 must have supplies for collecting and I'm like, just take a picture of them all. Like put or like have five of them in an image and like throw it up as the featured. Especially 'cause it's like physical things like penny sleeves, top loaders, magnetic card holders, like those are easily going to have, and you could put [00:28:00] images in this post too, to keep people scrolling.

Yeah, I think you're so close. The content seems super good. Like I'm not a card collector, so I can't tell if it's like accurate, but it seems pretty good. So I think you're super close to just like having something you're, you can hit on really quick. The other thing I will say, if you do create a carousel or something on Instagram, you can use that as an ad to get people into your newsletter.

Dylan Redekop: Yep.

Chenell Basilio: that could be super

Dylan Redekop: You could, you could use MiniChat to automate that for like 12 bucks a month kind of thing, like make it really smooth and like hands off almost,

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, I don't see any, like, he has a share buttons for social, but I don't see any social links, which kind of feels like a missed opportunity to me.

Dylan Redekop: Such a visual. It's such a visual medium with

Chenell Basilio: And you don't have to do, you don't have to do video. Like I know a lot of people are very hesitant to do video. Well also though Pat Flynn, he said he doesn't put his face in the videos 'cause they do worse.

So , you could just [00:29:00] have yourself messing with a card or talking about it like with a voiceover. If you wanted, you don't have to, like I was saying, you can do totally just do images and I think it, it would still do really well on these visual mediums.

Dylan Redekop: The big question is what are you building up to, like what is your ultimate goal with the newsletter? So my guess is, is probably not just selling more of your eBooks, there's probably something you're scaling up for. So I would be curious to know what that is.

And that would probably help guide some of our insights here and some of our, suggestions and, and tips too. But if this is a play to like, you know, like an off, like you have an offer, app plan where you're gonna sell this there's lots of opportunity to do that, but I would be curious . Growing it to the point where, you know, I can put sponsorships and, and that sort of thing in there. Or maybe you wanna build a marketplace. I don't know, like there's, there's a lot of ways you could go, but that'll also depend on or dictate how you should, I guess, go about continuing and building this and paying, because you're paying, I think you said roughly $10 a day to opt people in.

[00:30:00] So how are you making that money back? Why are you spending that money to get subscribers as opposed to going organic? I know it's easier, but it's more costly.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah, and like of course the book sales probably help, but. I still think having some sort of social pre presence, like is going to seriously help you and it will be so much cheaper and so much more effective. Instead of having to pay, you know, three, $5 or whatever to get a subscriber, I think you could do a lot better with organic stuff.

And then you have like an asset that you're building.

Dylan Redekop: He, he also mentions he's paying about 60 cents per lead, which isn't too bad with roughly 50% opt-in rate or just over 50% opt-in rate. So that's not too bad at all. But

Chenell Basilio: Well, yes, but the caveat is like, are they buying, are they opening, are they doing anything? Are you just getting like random email addresses that aren't doing anything? Because yeah, I mean, Facebook ads, you can optimize them to a point where you're just getting a bunch of like low quality leads. Hopefully that's not the case, [00:31:00] but.

Again, like open rate and cost are not the end all, be all metrics.

Dylan Redekop: No, they are not. I'm actually curious to see if we can pull up.

Chenell Basilio: All right, so we actually were able to pull up some of the ads.

Dylan Redekop: Sweet.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, these are good. I like this.

Dylan Redekop: Can you meet those bigger by chance? Okay. Okay. This picture made you drool.

Chenell Basilio: If this picture makes you drool, you should put it as your featured image

Dylan Redekop: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chenell Basilio: I'm just messing. I'll stop talking about it. No, but I think these are pretty good. I, I'm, I'm into it. I just wanna see like, make sure that you're capitalizing on, you know, building raving fans like. There's a world where you could build a newsletter with 40,000 subscribers on it.

[00:32:00] And it's like, okay. And people are, they like it enough. But I am such a big fan of creating like insanely valuable content and having people be like, oh, you also like hobby sports? Like trading cards. Like, go follow this guy. Like that's what you want. And that's the fastest way to grow, the most sustainable way to grow.

And so if you can lean into that and get people built, bought into your. Ideology in your system like that is huge.

Dylan Redekop: And even your passion, like if you can, if you can emote that passion to people in audio or video writing you is a little bit harder to, but like you can really get people bought into your your vibes, for lack of a better word, with that sort of thing. So that's gonna really help spread the word.

'cause a lot of people will follow people just on, you know, vibes alone to, to some degree. Right. The other thing I see an opportunity here too is one you could potentially. Figure out how, but I could see this like becoming a paid newsletter at some point. If you have like if [00:33:00] you want to do some sort of you know, the, the best cards, the most expensive cards to just, to get right now, or I'm sure there's a way you could offer some premium content for people Whenever there's a, an opportunity to I don't know, pay wall content that's gonna make people money.

It seems to be like a good way to go about it, but. Again, that's a little bit tricky. You'd have to think that through. And then the other thing I was thinking is having a lead magnet for your Facebook ads. That, and Chanel, you, you've done more Facebook ads than I have, but if there was like a way to have like the, the top 10 list of 20, 25 sports cards like you need in your collection or that you, that are making the most money or you know, something like that where people be like, oh, I'll sign up for that, or I wanna know what that is.

Chenell Basilio: You can do that. I think actually the newsletter could be valuable, but on its own, especially if you have the same types of content every week, which you do with that. I forget what the section was. What did he call that?

Dylan Redekop: Was it the buy, sell?

Chenell Basilio: or sell. Yeah, that

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: I think that's valuable enough on its own. [00:34:00] The, I click through on his Facebook ad to see what the landing page is and he is actually going to the subscribe page on the beehive thing.

So it is using that ugly URL, I don't love it, but it's not bad. But this page actually, I think it's better. It does get smarter on sports cards.

Dylan Redekop: And I'll counter your point saying it's okay. It's not bad. I don't think that URL is okay, especially if you're driving paid traffic there. I would call out that you should, you should change that as soon as you can because I, I would wonder how much higher your conversion rate would be.

Chenell Basilio: The one thing I feel like on mobile you probably don't see that as much, but yes. People like me and Dylan, we look at that stuff. So if I see that pop up as the URL, I'm like I don't know if this is actually like a good place to be.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. And, and it might be okay, but just having that little hesitation, like you don't wanna have, you wanna. Make sure people trust you and you don't want to have any seed of doubt when be, when you're paying for people to click through. I guess that's where I'm coming from. Like I feel like this would be some money that you're kind of just throwing away.

Because when [00:35:00] people go over there and they see that URL, it's gonna be off putting to say the least, instead of just a nice clean subdomain or hubby card life.com/subscribe. You know, something like that.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah. Yeah, totally. No, I think it's good. I think we. Would definitely wanna change that. URL. The ads look good enough to me. I think you have something there, but I would definitely recommend like changing out some of this beehive archive

Dylan Redekop: got another idea.

Chenell Basilio: Go ahead.

Dylan Redekop: Why wouldn't you just drive them to, since you own hobby card life.com, why wouldn't you just create another page and embed the the beehive form on that page?

Chenell Basilio: Bi forms embedded, I feel like aren't. When I did it, when I was testing it, it didn't work super well, but no, but he could totally make this like news dot hobby card life.com. It doesn't have to be the one thing we didn't go through and I was, as I was going through my tabs, I forgot I saw this you have a popup on your [00:36:00] main, like homepage, hobby card, life.com and the images.

Broken. It does say join the best sports card newsletter period, which I like that call out. It's just saying like, you're confident with your content but the image is broken. So I did wanna call that out.

Dylan Redekop: Yep. The best Sports Garden newsletter would have an unbroken image.

Chenell Basilio: Nice. Also, there is no X on this, so if someone hits us on mobile, they're gonna

Dylan Redekop: Do you think it's that if you move that X in, they'd be able to hide it? The shop

Chenell Basilio: Probably, but that shouldn't really be a, this shouldn't really interfere with it. So,

Dylan Redekop: good point.

Chenell Basilio: Oh, weird.

Dylan Redekop: The other thing, would you put that social proof below the email and subscribe line?

Chenell Basilio: And we got distracted. So we were talking about featured images. So coming back to this form on the homepage, totally. I would, this call out box makes it, it makes it feel like it's. A separate thing I would put this below the form and just have like his image, his name, and then like the text over here.[00:37:00]

Or have it like a section with more than one of them and then say like, join 3,500 subscribers, or join 3,500 hobby card collectors or

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I like that.

Chenell Basilio: But yeah, this feels like you're breaking up the, the form in a way that feels kind of weird.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I'd just, at the very least just flip 'em. Put the form above the social proof.

Chenell Basilio: Well, cool. Well, we spent so far, like 40 minutes on this, so I think we've killed this one here.

Yeah. Main takeaways stop using AI images when you have super compelling imagery already.

Dylan Redekop: And then use more of

Chenell Basilio: Instagram. Yes. Use more of those. Start an Instagram or some sort of social visual.

Platform that you can showcase your experience and then lean more into who you are. Especially with hobby cards, I feel like they want to know kind of who they're talking to, that this is a real person, I would probably lean more into your personal brand and like let people know who you are so you can build trust and let people see your experience and how long you've been doing this. And [00:38:00] I don't know, they just resonate with a real human instead of someone hiding behind a screen.

So I think that could be a big, big takeaway. What do you think anymore?

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, I just add on making your welcome email more succinct and more focused on getting them to do one main thing. And maybe then turning that what you have for your welcome email into a short welcome email series. Two or three emails that can do do the other call to actions that you have.

And then the other thing that I've been harping on is that URL that looks like super sketchy. Change the URL to something. More hobby card life.com, like as opposed to Cameron's newsletter D 0 9 3 4 kind of thing.

Chenell Basilio: Totally. Awesome. All right, well if you wanna get your newsletter roasted, you can head over to growth in reverse.com/roast and we will check it out maybe in a future episode. If you enjoyed this, go ahead and hit the subscribe button on YouTube or leave us a rating and review on Apple or [00:39:00] Spotify.

We always appreciate those. It helps other people find the show and us keep doing these. But until next time, roast on,

Dylan Redekop: roast away.

Chenell Basilio: roast away. Go get your marshmallows.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah.