Send & Grow by SparkLoop

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Matt Brown of Extra Points, a paid newsletter for the college sports industry. 

Matt was laid off from working at Vox during the pandemic. He started the Extra Points newsletter as a business experiment. And it's paid off. With 16k subscribers, including 3k paid, Matt's leveraged his experience, business savvy, and network to build & sell a newsletter in under 3 years. After selling to D1 Ticker, Matt's remained as head publishing for Extra Points. 
 

In this episode, Louis & Matt discuss…

• Starting a newsletter as a business
• Matt's philosophy for free vs. paid content
• How to leverage earned media for growth
• Using a video game as a lead magnet for paid subscriptions 
• ...and much more!

Other Links Mentioned
Extra Points newsletter
Athletic Director Simulator 3000 (video game)
D1 Ticker
Matt on Twitter
Louis on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Jon Elder of Amazon Insiders, a super niche newsletter set to hit $100k in revenue. 

Jon is an ex-Top3000 Amazon Seller who grew his Amazon business to over $10M in sales—and then sold for 7 figures. Now he publishes Amazon Insiders — the fastest-growing newsletter for Amazon sellers. 

In this episode, Louis & Jon discuss…

• The key strategies he used to go from 100 to 10k subscribers
• How Jon is leveraging his expertise to monetize to $100k
• His strategy for hitting his 100k subscriber goal
• What makes his newsletter stand out among the competition
• ...and much more!

Other Links Mentioned
Amazon Insiders newsletter
Jon's Consulting business (Black Label Advisor)
Jon on Twitter
Louis on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Eric Lam of Exploding Ideas, a fast-growing newsletter about business start-up ideas on trending topics. 

Eric is always looking for business ideas. So he started the Exploding Ideas newsletter where sends curated startup ideas in "million dollar niches" to all his subscribers. But for paying subscribers, Eric sends a second weekly edition with an even deeper dive (more information, tips & resources) for that week's business idea.

In this episode, Louis & Eric discuss…

• How Eric's newsletter has grown quickly since starting up 4 months ago
• His Reddit growth playbook: how to organically grow your newsletter with Reddit
• Eric's newsletter monetization funnel anyone can replicate 
• ...and much more!

Other Links Mentioned
Exploding Ideas
Eric on Twitter
Louis on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Ryan Carr of the Blakely Digital: an agency dedicated to helping newsletter operators grow their audience & revenue. 

And Ryan knows a thing or two about newsletter growth. Ryan was the Growth Lead at The Hustle when they were acquired by Hubspot and now — with his agency — helps drive growth for newsletters like Bankless DAO and Matthew Berry's Fantasy Life, to name a few. 

In this episode, Louis & Ryan discuss…

• 3 common traits of newsletters creating "high-quality content"
• The first—and most important—question Ryan asks new growth clients
• The best channels to test the waters with paid growth
• What's working right now for paid growth on Twitter
• ...and much more!

Other Links Mentioned
Blakely Digital
Ryan on Twitter
Louis on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop content marketer Dylan Redekop sits down with Joe Pulizzi of The Tilt Media. 

Joe is considered the "godfather" of content marketing, founding Content Marketing Institute in 2007 and selling it 9 years later. In addition to writing a number of content marketing books, he's founded The Tilt Media, a growing newsletter & education business, along with its own live event: the Creator Economy Expo. Joe has been in the media game for a long time and has a lot of lessons to share. 

In this episode, Dylan & Joe discuss…

• How to make a newsletter model successful for your business
• How to leverage the "Subscriber Hierarchy"
• Why most operators should only focus on ONE platform   
• 10 different ways to monetize a media business 
• Why right now is the best time ever to build a content or media business 
• and so much more!

Other Links Mentioned

• Joe Pulizzi on Twitter
• Joe Pulizzi on LinkedIn
• Dylan on Twitter
• Content Inc. Podcast
• This Old Marketing Podcast

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Ryan Sager & Jesse Watkins of Who Sponsors Stuff. 

They are the co-founders of Who Sponsors Stuff—a database that tracks which brands & businesses are advertising in email newsletters and brings the data straight to you. Ryan and Jesse have a wealth of combined knowledge and success working in the newsletter ad space.

In this episode, Louis, Ryan, and Jesse discuss…

• The best ways to prospect for ideal newsletter sponsors
• What you should include in your rate card
• How to increase repeat advertisers
• What you should do if a campaign doesn't perform well
• and so much more!

Other Links Mentioned

• Who Sponsors Stuff
• Newsletter ad calculator 
• Louis on Twitter
• Who Sponsors Stuff on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Katelyn Bourgoin of the Why We Buy newsletter.  

Katelyn's newsletter is earning over $300k in annual revenue—and it's not even her full-time business. She founded Customer Camp in 2019 where she helps businesses figure out what triggers customers to buy so they can market smarter. 

In this episode, Louis & Katelyn discuss…

• How she leverages social media to grow & promote her newsletter
• How Katelyn created gamification inside her newsletter
• The lessons Katelyn learned from selling newsletter sponsorships
• Her #1 piece of monetization advice for new newsletter operators 

Other Links Mentioned
Katelyn on Twitter
Louis on Twitter

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Manny Reyes from Workweek Inc. 

Manny was on the Morning Brew team before joining Workweek in a paid acquisition role.  

In this episode, Manny & Louis discuss:

• the key differences in marketing & publishing a B2B newsletter vs. a B2C newsletter
• the best way for creators to get started with paid newsletter growth
• the most important metric Workweek looks at to determine paid growth budgets 
• what Manny would do to get 100,000 subscribers starting from scratch
• ....and much more!

You can find Manny Reyes on Twitter, and Louis is at @louisnicholls_ . 

Other links mentioned: 

Workweek 

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Emanuel "Manu" Cinca of Stacked Marketer—and now also of Psychology of Marketing. 

Manu is the first returning guest to the Send & Grow podcast, back for round #2 (listen to the first episode here). We invited Manu back after he & the Stacked Marketer team acquired the Psychology of Marketing (PoM) newsletter, started by Abhishek Shah. 

In this episode, Manu & Louis discuss the acquisition, including:

• how the acquisition talks evolved from a brief message to closing the deal
• the #1 reason why they acquired PoM
• the positive signals & red flags Manu looked for during the process
• Manu's advice for anyone interested in selling their newsletter 
• ....and much more!

You can find Emanuel Cinca on Twitter, and Louis is at @louisnicholls_ . 

Other links mentioned: 

Stacked Marketer newseltter
Psychology of Marketing newsletter
Tactics newsletter
Emanuel on LinkedIn

Welcome back to another episode of the Send & Grow podcast. This week, SparkLoop cofounder Louis Nicholls sits down with Nathan Barry, founder & CEO of ConvertKit. 

Nathan started ConvertKit 10 years ago and has since grown it to one of the largest creator-driven newsletter platforms in the world. On top of running an 8-figure business, Nathan's a consistent creator who writes several newsletters, including a new paid newsletter.

In this episode, Nathan talks about the state of creator-driven newsletters today and how creators can build—and are building—massive  6-to-7 figure businesses on the backs of their newsletters. 

We also discuss:

• how Nathan thinks about paid newsletters and his publishing strategy (1:09)
• 3 things he sees the most successful newsletter operators have in common (12:00)
• what the ConvetKit Creator Network is and how it's helping Creators grow & monetize (20:33)
• how Nathan believes newsletter operators can grow & monetize most effectively (26:36)
• ....and much more!

You can find Nathan Barry on Twitter, and Louis is at @louisnicholls_ . 

Other links mentioned: 

• ConvertKit
• Nathan's Paid Newsletter
• The ConvertKit Creator Network
• Upscribe by SparkLoop