Newsletter & Email Growth: Growth In Reverse

AUDIO - Segment Video - Tom Orbach
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[00:00:00]

Tom Orbach: So I think like my biggest advice is to. Send multiple emails, if you send just like one launch email and Oh, here's my paid plan, some people will will read it, some people will, will not read it, but most of the people will read it and then forget about it.

Chenell Basilio: A mix of those and some other growth tactics. I'm sure I've gotten you to, you're 44,000 subscribers at this point. You've recently launched this paid side of things. I'm curious when you decided like, okay, it's time to flip the switch.

I'm ready. The time is now. How are you thinking about that?

Tom Orbach: Sure. So I had two, two things in my mind. First is to have a big enough mass of subscribers before I flip to switch. Flip to paid. I don't know why. I just felt like I wanted to make it first, like to see if I can actually make a big enough newsletter, even like, only if I prove to myself that I can, collect, , so, so many, uh, subscribers.

Then it'll be like, I, I will be worthy [00:01:00] enough to start a paid newsletter. And the second thing is that I wanted to wait until I have a really good plan for launching the paid newsletter. Like I didn't want to do it like, oh, okay, by the way. New, new, new tier, you can join the paid, like plans if you want.

If you don't want, that's fine. I didn't want to do it like, by the way, as I said before, you must be mindful about what you do. You must really care. Mm-hmm. So building up this plan took a long time, and only when I felt confident enough that, uh, it's good. Then I flip this, the, the switch to paid.

Chenell Basilio: I love that.

And I, uh, just from seeing it and like hearing you talk about it, like behind the scenes, like it is a serious plan. Like you were not joking around with this. Like you had this full email sequence built out. You created a whole book around like the same time the launch. Oh, nice. You have the book. Just insane.

Yes. Sweet. I have the book. You have the book?

Dylan Redekop: Yes.

Tom Orbach: Um, yeah, it was a, I saw other newsletter authors and [00:02:00] how they launched their paid, plans and it really seemed like a missed opportunity because they didn't really, like, they didn't remind people enough about it, and they didn't like have a sequence that makes people think like, it's like, you know, gradual learning about what's, uh, in the offer.

So yeah, I build this plan and with the book. With everything I do, I try to, like every offer that I provide, the offer must be tangible and non calculatable. So tangible makes sense. But non calculatable, meaning, let's think about another newsletter that sends four emails per month and it costs, uh, $20. So in people's brains, everyone is, is thinking, okay, so $20 for emails per month, it means I'm paying $5 per email.

Which is like a cup of coffee, and I don't want people to make those comparisons. So I thought about what tangible offers I could provide that will make the newsletter a bit more non calculatable. Okay. So the book is one of them. And the community that I'm starting in the newsletter for, like the marketing [00:03:00] leaders that are paying is also part of it.

So it's like making the offer much more, uh, holistic and again, not non calculatable.

Dylan Redekop: So like offering things that they can't actually say, well, this is worth X amount per issue. You've like added so much value there that you can't just break it down like five bucks per issue. That's, that's really smart.

Tom Orbach: Exactly. I do it with everything by the way. Like for example, I give workshops and trainings for companies, which is like a 90 minute zoom call with their team. So like I don't want them to divide the amount of minutes by the cost. So I give other things like, uh, a 30 minute one-on-one with the leader and also follow up AMAs with the entire team via email and like to make the offer much more like holistic and less, less, uh, calculatable.

Yeah.

Dylan Redekop: Hmm.

Chenell Basilio: I love that. Okay. Can we talk about exactly what you are including in the paid subscription offering? Sure. Just to start and then we can kind of dig into the launch and like how it's gone and that kind of thing.

Tom Orbach: Sure. So as I said, I send one, marketing idea every [00:04:00] Friday. I actually kept my best marketing ideas until I could get, , the, of course you did.

Course. Wow. I know. But, but it does, it's not really for monetization reasons, because some of these ideas that I send, every Friday now are like, if everyone started using them, they will lose their power. It's like, it's like the love declining, uh, growth channels. So I wanted to keep those specific marketing ideas to a smaller audience base.

So I, I, like, I wrote a lot of articles during those two years and just waited before publishing them because, I didn't want to send those for everyone. So that's what I offer. And I also, give. Archive access. So you can read all of the past marketing areas, which is something that I know people really love.

And, they want to have like this library of marketing areas. And it's, this is what going on right now in, marketingideas.com. I also give the book a free PDF copy, copy of the book that, Chenell has a physical version of. And, uh, starting September, [00:05:00] there will also be a community. So basically it's like a group chat with me and others, and I plan to do it really well.

So I, I plan to really have a schedule and like, uh, you, you'll know in advance, uh, what are we going to discuss in the community every single day And people will share ideas and I will post interviews and AMAs with my friends that will be there too. So it's gonna be like a whole thing and that that's the offering of them.

The paid tiers of marketingideas.com.

Dylan Redekop: That's awesome. I, I have, I love it. I have one question before you, before you decided to go paid, just for, for some context, were you monetizing the newsletter in any other way prior?

Tom Orbach: Mm-hmm. No.

I don't know why, but it felt. Wrong to monetize, like with ads or, stuff like that.

But, um, like, it's just a hunch because I wanted to build trust with my audience, so I wanted them to, uh, really like, really enjoy free. And it worked when I flipped the switch, the to paid people really loved it.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, you did, you did the ultimate like give, give, give, [00:06:00] give, give, give, give, give, and then ask basically right?

Like two years basically of, of providing really. High quality, engaging free content. And then when it was time to flip the switch, which obviously you put lots of strategy and thought behind. It was an easy and a much easier ask for people, which is why it was so successful. I know you don't wanna share exact numbers, but we can say that safely.

Say that you have over 500 paid subscribers, right to the newsletter now. And,

Tom Orbach: uh, all, all of those five, 500 joined in the first few days after launching the paid newsletter, which is amazing because it means that. Like 500 people joined the premium plan before I even sent a single paywall article. So, so it's great.

Uh, people trust me and it shows because 500 people pay for a product that I have not experienced yet. Yeah. So it's great.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah. I'm included in that. I, I definitely joined. Same. Especially, especially, and the one, Tom, honestly, one of the tactics that worked, on me was like, Hey, I'm offering this entry [00:07:00] level price.

It's gonna go, it's gonna basically double at a certain period. And so I was like, yeah, I want to get in on the, the entry level price. So I mean, I dunno how much thought went even into that, but that, that was, uh, thank you. That was something that worked on me. That's, that

Tom Orbach: was actually Chenell's idea. I actually met with Chenell before flipping the switch and

Dylan Redekop: that's Chenell a hundred bucks.

Tom Orbach: I actually actually said like, wow. I actually like told Chenell, okay, I'm going to charge 100 bucks, and she said, no, it's too cheap. You should increase the prices and only of the $100 for the first day or two. So that that's what, that's what happened. Yeah. Amazing. That's, yeah, that's

Dylan Redekop: very amusing how that went full circle's.

I made sure to buy in this conversation right now. My god. Yeah.

Chenell Basilio: That's why I made sure to buy when it was a hundred bucks because I was like, I know this is coming.

Dylan Redekop: I love it. Thank you.

Chenell Basilio: That's great. Um, okay, so this launch, just seeing it like we had talked and you had mentioned a couple of other things, and so I'm just curious, like, can we talk through like your strategy for launching, like all of the pieces of the puzzle?

Like there's so [00:08:00] much going on in this. Uh, I think a lot of people see, you know, a Lenny Rachitsky or someone who has a paid newsletter and they get so overwhelmed of like, how do I even begin? Like, where do you start going from a free newsletter to a paid newsletter? Like how did you. Think through the process, like what was involved in the launch.

I'm just curious of like how you even started with that.

Dylan Redekop: Well, I'll also add just one more follow up question to that is you mentioned sequences and with Substack you can't mm-hmm. Really quite do that. So I'm curious if you had any other software that you're using as well?

Tom Orbach: Yeah, it's not really a real sequence, it's like a manual sequence.

It just planned out in an Excel sheet beforehand and like, and then every single day or a few hours I go ahead and send the emails. So I think like my biggest advice is to. Send multiple emails, you know what I mean? Like yeah. If you send just like one launch email and Oh, here's my paid plan, like some people will will read it, some people will, will not read it, but most of the people will read it and then forget about it.

So you need to send a lot of emails, like [00:09:00] my plan and

Chenell Basilio: real quick, where you keep going. When did you start sending emails, like hinting at this? Like was it early on? Was it just a couple days before

Tom Orbach: hinting? Never like it was a surprise. I think, sorry.

Chenell Basilio: No, but you never, like

Tom Orbach: before, before you actually opened the doors

Dylan Redekop: though, like open the cart, if you will.

Chenell Basilio: Yeah.

Tom Orbach: Never like no one knew, like except for 10 friends like Chenell who helped me with the advice no one knew before. I think that's so interesting because you

Chenell Basilio: always hear people, marketing people say like, tease it beforehand. Let people know

Tom Orbach: why. Like if I tease them and they cannot pay, how will it help me?

I'm wondering, like, interesting.

Dylan Redekop: Yeah, that's the whole, uh, Jeff Walker's like product launch formula. I, there's something along those lines. I can't remember the exact name of the, of the book, but he's always like, so you gotta seed your list or, or seed the pre-sell, the, the thing that you're going to be launching, um, with people basically at the most, being able to sign up for like on a wait list or maybe add their names to like a pre-launch, um, sort of [00:10:00] list.

Um, and then. They're kind of primed once you actually like open the doors. So you didn't do anything along those lines.

Tom Orbach: Yeah. That's smart. What I, what you said. I didn't do it. Mm-hmm. But, uh, it's a smart, it's a smart area. I think people should do it, but I think it's a mess. Like especially in Substack when there, there is no automations, it's a mess to keep a separate list of wait list.

But it's a smart, like conceptually, I like it. It, it should work. Well, what you just said. Anyway, no, I, I didn't tease anything. I just dropped the bomb one morning. It was a Wednesday morning and I said, , here's everything that I offered. It was a very long email with a lot of social proof and tangible things, and, if you join in the next 24 hours, you will get, uh, a very discounted price.

So that was the first email. And again, of course, after 12 hours in the evening of that same day. I sent a reminder, and each reminder is not like a, you know, ChatGPT generated email, like, oh, reminding you about things. It's usually with added value, like my feelings, my experience, or like, hinting at another thing [00:11:00] that is coming and et cetera.

Dylan Redekop: Mm.

Tom Orbach: The day after there was, uh, it's unfortunately I had to extend the sale. I had an issue with the Stripe. Again, first time charging anything online, so sale extension. Uh, for another 24 hours and then that evening, another like reminder that, the, the sale is going to end soon. So that's the first 48 hours, Friday morning book launch.

Uh, I initially wanted to launch the book with everything else, but Chenell smartly told me not to do it, like to wait with the book for Friday. So, so that's great. So I, I launched the book and I said that each, uh, paid subscriber gets the book for free, like a PDF copy. So that's Friday, and then Saturday, like an FAQ about the book.

Sunday, the first chapter of the book for free, and then if you want more, click here to subscribe and read the rest. Uh, Monday social proof that I generated within the last, uh, five days. Like, uh, social, social proof of the paid [00:12:00] subscribers and the things that they've been saying in the last four days.

So that's like a lot of, uh, testimonials and quotes. Tuesday, is another like sale that's going on like a smaller sale than before and only until Friday, Wednesday, uh, another Monday. Reminder, like, so as, as you can see, it's a lot of emails and like the entire lunch week or campaign ended the Friday after.

So it's like nine days, where each day, was about one or two emails. Now, not all of the emails were sent to everyone. Some of the emails, I only send them to the most engaged subscribers because I didn't want to, um. Like people to unsubscribe. So some of the reminders were only sent to the top 2000 most engaged readers.

So that was part of the strategy and yeah, that's how the launch plan, uh, looked like.

Chenell Basilio: So what, because Substack shows you, which emails drove the most. Paid subscribers. Can you see like, was it the beginning of the launch, the end, the middle? Like which emails had the biggest impact?[00:13:00]

Tom Orbach: The, the, the one email that had the biggest impact is the reminder email of the first day. Why? Okay. Because it had the most urgency. I think it was like 10, 10 hours left. For the one time, or like one time sale. Also, the book launch was big. People really want the book. Uh, yeah, the cover looks good. And, uh, it's a PDF copy.

It's like 400 pages. You get to keep it forever. Like why not? Mm-hmm. And I anticipated it. A lot of people will just do one month and then cancel just to get a book, which is fine. Like if they, it's your, their choice. But today, exactly 30 days after that launch, I see that, uh, all of, like, most of the subscribers, uh, are still subscribed, like the paid ones, so almost no one unsubscribed, which is great.