How to Choose a Niche for Your Email Newsletter Business
If you haven’t heard, email is back.
That’s right. People are starting to realize that having access to someone’s inbox isn’t just good for marketing purposes, it’s good for content delivery too.
Newsletters, for various topics, offer creators a direct means of getting their content in front of their followers without needing to worry about a social media algorithm hiding it.
A collection of email addresses (i.e. a mailing list) is completely platform independent. Algorithms, account hacks, and shadow bans aren’t concerns for businesses that operate primarily through email. Instead, if a newsletter operator isn’t happy with their email service provider, they can just export their mailing list and take their following elsewhere.
Newsletters can also be very lucrative businesses with very little operating costs. Not only is it easier to get your content in front of your email subscribers, but it’s significantly less challenging to monetize this audience compared to a following on Instagram or Facebook.
But what should a good newsletter even be about, and how can you make sure you won’t pour your blood, sweat, and tears into a project that fails to gain any traction?
The basic steps for dodging these pitfalls and getting on the path to success are as follows:
- Formulation: idea generation
- Rumination: considering the pros & cons of each idea and how these ideas can exist & thrive in a newsletter format
- Execution: taking action on the best idea; the creation phase
Formulation
After reading case studies on newsletters like Morning Brew and the Milk Road, I decided starting a newsletter business was something I was definitely interested in.
I just wasn’t sure where to begin.
I had to assess my own interests and try to come up with a niche & concept for the newsletter that wasn’t already too saturated or already being done.
For those of you with no clue what to write about, I suggest you assign yourself at least a month to formulate a couple ideas. Give yourself permission to work on nothing else other than coming up with a good newsletter topic. You want to take pressure off yourself and allow your brain to expand a bit.
Don’t try to do everything all at once and become the next millionaire solopreneur overnight. Instead, free up some mental bandwidth so that the only task at hand is a relatively easy lift.
In this month or so, I suggest you devour content from successful creators.
Find articles, blog posts, podcasts, YouTube videos, books, and other newsletters that discuss running a modern small business, writing online, growing an audience, social media marketing, and anything else related to operating an email newsletter.
Some resources I found (and continue to find) useful:
- My First Million (podcast)
- Creator Spotlight (newsletter and podcast)
- The Tim Ferriss Show (podcast)
- The Beehiiv blog (newsletter and blog)
- YouTube (searching topics of interest)
This is by no means a complete list and you’ll find dozens of other useful resources once you start going down the rabbit hole.
The point is to get yourself thinking creatively; to fan the flames, so to speak, and to put yourself into a postion where inspiration can come easily.
Going on long walks each day was also really helpful for me. It was a time when I could listen to relevant podcasts or just think through ideas without any distractions.
Over time, I stitched together the idea for Stay Sketchy — a newsletter that helps artists grow their art business. My plan was to not only create a resource that could answer questions artists had about sales and marketing, but to interview a new artist each week to learn what it was they did to achieve success.
Surprisingly, I couldn’t find anyone else doing this.
Sure, there were some very broad art blogs and some artists-turned-gurus promoting themselves as art business coaches, but there wasn’t any easy-to-find resource that was focused on artist case studies.
Rumination
At this point, I had come up with what I thought was a great idea for a newsletter that I didn’t see anywhere else. Naturally it was time to start executing on it, right?
Wrong. Instead, I sat on the idea for more than 3 months.
I think this is actually the most crucial step someone can take to ensure they don’t waste their time, as well as make sure they get the early results that insprie them to keep going.
So, why did I do this?
Well it wasn’t because I was lazy — although I’m certainly known to procrastinate at times. No, the reason I didn’t act on this idea right away was because I wanted to make sure it was a really good idea. This should seem obvious, but I don’t think enough people ruminate on an idea long enough to determine whether it’s really good or not — especially when it comes to potential businesses & side hustles.
Over the course of those first few months (which can be considered months -3 through 0), I woke up each day mulling over the concept of the newsletter.
As I worked out what shape the newsletter would take, I constantly asked myself how it could go wrong.
- Is my idea boring?
- Is it actually useful to anybody?
- Will it become too repetitive?
- Is there enough content I can come up with for this idea?
- Am I going to get sick of it eventually?
That last question is the most important one and it’s exactly why I sat on my idea for those 3 months before actually executing on anything.
I told myself that if I still thought this was a good idea after a few months, that it didn’t lose its appeal and I didnt get distracted by other more promising projects, then it probably was a good idea.
This is a good rule of thumb to follow.
If a business idea (or an idea for any project, really) is still exciting to you after months of contemplation, then you’re probably not going to get sick of working on it.
At the very least, you’ll be excited about it enough to work on it until you start having your first few successes. These early successes will refuel your excitement along the way, and give you the energy to keep moving forward.
The last thing I’ll say in this section is that there’s a difference between choosing a “good” idea or niche and choosing an idea that actually excites you.
You may have discovered the best, never-before-done, concept for a newsletter that can very well get millions of subscribers one day, but this doesnt mean that it’s the right one for you.
If you don’t choose to create a newsletter around something that excites you, that you’re always thinking about, you’ll never have those little “aha!” moments when you’re in the shower, or commuting home from work, or walking your dog, that actually make a difference and grow a newsletter business into something truly special.
Execution
Most people will say that you should just get started when considering a new business or side project, and I think this is actually great advice.
Having said that, I think assigning yourself at least 1–3 months to complete the “Formulation” and “Rumination” steps I outline above, is the necessary place to start.
Without taking the time to do this, you may fall vicitim to Shiny Object Syndrome and immediately decide your time is better suited working on some other project that catches your eye after you’ve already spent some amount of time & energy on the current one.
However, when the topic for your newsletter has been discovered, and you’ve spent the requisite time exploring the shape it can take, how it might grow over time, the sort of value you can offer your readers, and you’re still excited about it, then it’s time to actually create.
Beehiiv, in my opinion is the best platform to start a newsletter on. It’s extremely easy to use and has tons of incredibly useful tools that help you grow, monetize, and understand your audience. You can even remain on a completely free plan until you surpass 2,500 subscribers — at which point monetizing to cover your monthly costs should be simple.
If you want to sign up for one of their paid plans, which offer additional features that help you grow and make money faster, this link will give you 20% off for 3 months after a 30-day free trial. That means you’re getting it for free or at a solid discount for 4 consecutive months.
Once you sign up, it’s time to design your newsletter and associated website where the previous editions can be viewed online. Beehiiv has dozens of videos explaining exactly how to do this but their website & newsletter design tool is very intuitive.
I suggest you seek out, and subscribe to, a bunch of newsletters that interest you. You can see what you like in terms of design and take inspiration from that.
Before I launched the first edition of my newsletter I also took a couple weeks to make a really nice digital guide on how to make high-quality art prints from home. This is obviously very specific to my niche, but I used this guide as a lead magnet to get people to subscribe.
I let potential subscribers know that as soon as they signed up, they would get this digital product sent to them in the Welcome email. This has worked well for me and I suggest you do something similar. You’ll likely see that creating digital resources around your newsletter topic is a great way to grow and earn additional income.
Another aspect of execution is establishing a social media presence for your brand. For this, I strongly suggest you only choose one platform to start. Generating content for Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and your newsletter can quickly become unmanageable.
Instead, just pick the one platform that makes the most sense for your niche and go full steam ahead. For visual/artsy topics, consider Instagram. For business and finance, consider LinkedIn (and so on).
Whenever you decide is the time to start, just know that nothing happens unless you’re working.
In the early days, the newsletter is a tiny ember that needs constant attention and fuel to grow into the raging bonfire you hope it someday will become.
Just stay consistent and focused and believe in your idea for as long as it excites you. Even when doubt begins to creep in, keep going for just a little while longer and you may find some small level of success that rejuvenates you and gives you new energy to carry on.
It’s amazing the opportunities that present themselves to “nobodies” that decide to start writing online.
Good luck!
