The secret to meaningful newsletter growth

“Growth” is a word we see all the time, especially as a creator with a newsletter.

Grow your newsletter fast.

Grow your audience in 3 simple steps.

Grow so fast that you break the internet.

Something doesn’t sit right about this. It feels too good to be true at best and like a cheap, greasy fast food restaurant at worst.

But you want to grow an email list. You want to be known, liked, and trusted.

Growth is a natural byproduct of success:

• Reaching your revenue goal
• Becoming a recognized author
• Finding the flexibility to be your own boss

At some level, all of those require growth. So most people latch on to the growth hacking advice and try to push their numbers as far as they’ll go by any means necessary.

I don’t believe you want to be most people.

You’re reading this because Creator Glue appealed to something more meaningful.

You want a quality newsletter that is meaningful and purposeful, but it seams like growth is slow.

Optimize first and growth will follow.

It’s taken me awhile to find these words, but this is my take.

Put your subscribers first, give them the best experience you possibly can, and growth will follow.

This is backed by real data.

Jay Clouse, Founder of Creator Science, has become prolific in the creator space.

Recently he said:

​“It took me 3+ years to hit 2,000 subscribers…now I do that in <2 weeks.”​

Jay focuses on quality and pours so much of his time and effort into caring for his audience.

He constantly tests and optimizes, but never compromises on quality experiences.

When you put that sort of emphasis on the people you serve, they can’t help but share what you’re doing, buy from you to support what you’re doing, and stick around to keep cheering you on.

Through my role at ConvertKit, I get to interact with prolific creators like Jay all the time. And for a majority of them it’s a very similar story. They created the best content they could, kept optimizing the experience, and after years of work the growth compounded.

Now they have a legacy.

You can build a legacy too

Stop focusing on the numbers and start focusing on your people.

Sure, celebrate wins along the way. It’s exciting to see your hard work pay off.

Just don’t get distracted by numbers.

Instead, get focused on these critical skills:

• Writing
• Storytelling
• Networking
• Design

If you pay attention to those skills, give your readers a great experience, and consistently show up, your email list will grow.

I’m not calling it simple.

It’s not a quick win.

This is the long game, but it will pay off.