How to Build a Successful Newsletter without a Massive Audience

These are the 6 elements most successful newsletters have — here’s how to do it.

(source: author)

Why do some newsletters have tens of thousands of subscribers — while others can’t seem to gain more than a few each week?

What makes these newsletters so successful?

And does the size of a newsletter list determine its level of “success”?

Well, some of the biggest newsletters are media businesses operating as newsletters (The Hustle, Morning Brew, TheSkimm). Others are content marketing plays from authors, podcasters, and digital celebrities leveraging their large audiences to build a massive subscriber list (James Clear, Tim Ferriss, Ann Handley, Justin Welsh, Polina Marinova Pompliano, etc.)

These newsletters are huge. And they make the publishers a lot of money. A lot.

So if a “successful” newsletter is one that makes lots of money, then many of the aforementioned are great examples.

But not everyone has the same definition of success. “Success” to you might mean:

• 100k subscribers (or some other subscriber milestone)
• a +50% open rate
• a high click rate (maybe it means a high…