40,000+

Good day to you —

I’m three coffees deep and it’s 6:37AM so let’s get right into it.

Hot take: Subscriber acquisition is the easiest part of growing a newsletter and most people are overcomplicating this.

With that said, I’m going to break down the five tactics I’ve used to grow a newsletter to 40,000+ subscribers. And while the case study is for a local newsletter, the tactics are applicable to almost any niche.

1) Identify the pools where the fish (aka your subscribers) are swimming.

2) Chum the waters so the fish come to you.

3) Rinse and repeat until the pool dries up.

4) Find new pools or create your own.

In the world of newsletters, many people have many opinions on the hierarchy of difficulty. For me, growth is by far the simplest.

Crossing 40,000 subscribers has been insanely straightforward. Breaking through 100,000 subscribers will be just as easy if I opt to pursue that path. I cannot emphasize this enough.

To be clear, not all subscribers are created equal — that’s a convo for a different time.

But when I started Catskill Crew, I actually thought growth would be the most challenging part of this venture. Boy-oh-boy I was so wrong.

So I’m going to break down the 5 main ways that I have grown my subscribers and how tons of folks in The Newsletter Club have crossed thousands in a matter of days.

Lock in.

Just create content. Yup. That simple. Socials are the top of the funnel.

Create as much content as you are able to. Get help with AI if you want. Hire someone. Bring on a VA. It doesn’t matter. Just create content.

Each piece and each post comes back to the idea that we’re chumming the waters.

Even if you dislike social media, you sadly need to play this game (at least for now) because this is where the biggest pools are and it’s where you build an initial following which acts as social proof for new subscribers and even sponsors.

So drag yourself to the doomscroll arenas, post the posts, and then flee before the blackhole sucks you into the deep dark abyss.

Go to instagram, facebook groups, subreddits, tiktok, youtube, even the neighbors app. Whatever your niche, find the pools where the fish may be swimming.

Create videos, carousels, stories, and posts. Just be active.

Slap on a CTA to follow. Tag businesses or other accounts that will reshare and ride their coattails.

Add a link to subscribe. Integrate Manychat automations to convert new followers into subscribers. Create lead magnets with automation like “comment XYZ and I’ll DM you the link”. It is so freaking simple.

We live in the interest-era. The algo will do the work on your behalf. Not everything will be a hit. It doesn’t have to be.

I’ve watched members of The Newsletter Club quickly cross thousands of subscribers with ONE facebook post in the right group. One member (shoutout Price) added 2,500 subscribers in 48 hours from a single post. This is becoming more and more common.

Note: subreddit and facebook group mods may block you for self-promoting. Try to attack the castle from a few different angles. Add value to those communities – Don’t just shill. No one likes a shill. Don’t be a shill.

I have run paid marketing on facebook, instagram, and reddit. Meta is by far the most effective tactic for affordable and scalable subscriber acquisition in my niche.

Don’t over target or try to control the campaign too much. Let. Zuck. Cook. He will deliver.

Run multiple ads (5 is my go-to). Let them go for at least 7 days before you turn off your worst performer and replace it with a new one.

If Zuck opts to force-allocate your budget to one ad without giving new ones a chance — spin up what I call “a petri dish”. This is a new campaign with fresh creatives. It’s a testing ground with a dedicated budget allocation. I often allocate 25% of my main campaign budget to the petri dish.

Once I find a winner, I kill off all other creatives in the petri dish – brute-forcing budget into the proven front runner.

You can choose to take those winners and put them into the original campaign, but you risk the chance that they will not receive budget.

Once a front runner begins to climb in acquisition cost — simply turn it off. In 90 days cycle it back on.

In local I’ve seen acquisition costs as low as $0.08 and often I am between $0.25 and $0.50 with very little effort and that is with 40,000+ subscribers.

Do not forget… even though it’s cheap and highly effective, if your content is subpar, your new subscribers won’t stick around.

Your content is the product. Don’t skimp on that.

Ahh, one of my favorites. I sell A LOT of merch and a lot of products. All of these drive incredibly brand awareness.

Hats. Shirts. Hoodies. Stickers. Tote bags. Board games. All of it.

Walking around and spotting people rocking the Catskill Crew brand in the wild never gets old.

Entering a shop and seeing products on the shelves lights me up.

I even come across Catskill Crew in Zillow photos where the realtors set up my boardgames.

Physical goods is one of the best ways to drive brand attention in the real world.

And while it’s not quite measurable, I find it to be important and my instinct says this drives higher quality subscribers than the doomscrolling.

So get your brand out into the real world. Let others market on your behalf.

Bring humans together in the real world.

I host all types of events adn gathering. Some big. Some small. Some that last an evening and others that go for days.

If you don’t want to host an event, find someone that can do it on your behalf, or sponsor them.

Trade marketing budget for a logo on a poster.

This is top tier effective at not just driving new subscriber acquisition — but reaching an audience that may not be on social – these are the off-grid pools.

Host as many events as you possibly can.

Create human connection with your subscribers and potential subscribers.

The world will always be IRL. Don’t sleep on this.

P.S. this is a wonderful revenue stream that has generated six figures for me.

And by far the best method for acquiring new subscribers is word of mouth.

Ok so how do you get people to talk about your newsletter and your brand? Create good content, obviously. Like I said, don’t overcomplicate this.

If I see an ad for a newsletter that you run, ok maybe, just perhaps I’ll click subscribe — then you enter a multi-month marathon to earn my trust.

But, if a friend tells me that they love your newsletter and I need to subscribe… that changes everything.

The social proof there is tremendous. You bypass the trust building marathon, and you are instantly welcomed into my inbox.

And it is very likely I will share the good word with others.

You can also systemize this a bit. But I am not a huge fan.

Set up a referral program that rewards subscribers for bringing their friends.

Do swaps and recommendations with other operators in your space.

ord of mouth is the most powerful for high quality conversions. Personally, those are the ones I’m after.

Give me 1 A+ subscriber over 10 C subscribers.

The only way to earn word-of-mouth is through good content.

In the end, all this takes is time and a bit of budget.

You may hit subscriber acquisition gold with one post, or it may take you a little while to crack the nut. But keep looking for those pools where the fish are swimming and keep chumming. Then create the pools so the fish come to you.

At some point a pool may run dry — onto the next one.

When you combine all these tactics you are creating a systemized subscriber acquisition machine that you can fine-tune.

But, fair warning, as people spend less time doomscrolling, as people trust less of what they see on the screen, the online acquisition methods will become more difficult.

So build your audience while you can. Find new platforms where the fish are swimming. Create pools by hosting events.

But most importantly create good content people care about – because word of mouth will always be number one for high quality subscribers.

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