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Happy Friday, Newsletter Festers!
Are you ready for next week? We’re practicing all the tech stuff and making sure all the speakers are good to go. I practically promise something will go wrong.
That’s ok, though.
Why?
Because we launched a Newsletter Fest Community on Slack. Join today to start engaging with attendees.
We created it to be a live resource during the event but also to serve as a place to engage after it’s over.
Any channel suggestions? So far we have some for use during the event (discussion, support, etc.) but we’ve also added an introductions and a newsletter jobs channel to allow people in this industry to interact and share. Reply and let us know if you have any ideas.
Also, Dave Verwer of iOS Dev Weekly (and founder of Curated), whose recent 500th issue was the impetus of this celebratory event will be joining us for a quick Q&A during our opening ceremony.
Plus, Curated CEO JD Graffam will be revealing information about our plans for launching paid newsletters (hint: we’ve decided not to take a commission). There’s a reason. Register for the kickoff and learn why.
The Fastest Way To Register For Sessions
The event links below now take you directly to Zoom’s sign up pages, which should speed up the process. You can use the links below and Zoom should save your info after your first signup, which makes signing up for more much less painful.
Note: Registration will stay open until the start of each session and we’ll be releasing on-demand replays in the weeks following the event.
Thank you to the people who helped us understand that the Notion embeds were slowing you down. Seriously. You know who you are.
Vote For Your Favorite Newsletters Of 2021
The winners will be announced on April 16 at the Newsletter Fest Closing Ceremony.
To vote
- Visit the voting page
- Find the category you want to vote in and toggle the drop-down (click the arrow to the left of the category name)
- Vote for your favorite newsletters
- Share the link with others to make sure your favorites win!
Register for the Closing Ceremony here.
Psst! Nominees: We've got graphics (like the one above) you can share to send your readers to go vote for you here.
Win A Year Of Curated
The Curated account contest is underway and waiting for your entry. This is a great way to test out how Curated helps users collect links, curate content, draft commentary, send, and publish a searchable web archive of their newsletters (this newsletter was quickly built using Curated).
Entering this contest is 100% free.
The three entries with the most votes will win 12 months of Curated. The three runner-ups will win 30% off a year of Curated. See the Official Rules for more details. This contest ends April 15 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.
So far we have one entry. 😯
If someone you know could benefit from unlimited use of software made specifically for newsletter creators, please share this opportunity with them.
Speaker Spotlight
Kirk Bentley, Intermission: How Arts & Culture Venues Are Using Email To Stay Alive
Kirk Bentley has working with email marketing for the arts and culture industry for 15 years. He’s helped hundreds of theatres, museums and music venues around the world create innovative email marketing campaigns that power ticket sales, engage audiences and drive membership.
Intermission: How Arts & Culture Venues Are Using Email To Stay Alive
Monday, April 12th. 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. (EDT)
The world’s museums, theatres, symphonies, aquariums, and zoos were some of the first businesses to close and will likely be the last to open. With no venues and no products to sell, COVID forced arts marketers to innovate new ways to engage with their audiences. Join Kirk Bentley from WordFly, the email marketing tool for arts & culture venues, to see how the world’s most beloved theatres, concert halls and museums have responded to the shutdown. You’ll be inspired by their passion and ingenuity as they reinvent their email programs with new engagement strategies that have proved more successful than they could have imagined.
Register for this event here.
Jake Schonberger, Paid, Sponsorships, or Both? What to Consider as You Decide How to Monetize
Jake Schonberger is currently the curator of The Premoney List & Co-founder of Swapstack, a creator marketplace that connects brands and creators to do highly engaged sponsored content. Prior to Swapstack, he built a peer to peer payments platform called Paywithme, spent ~5 years at Facebook building brand & agency partnerships, and completed a Design Engineering masters at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Jake lives in Boston with a black lab, Johnny Tsunami.
Workshop: Paid, Sponsorships, or Both? What to Consider as You Decide How to Monetize
Thursday, April 15. 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. (EDT)
Making the decision to monetize your newsletter is a big deal. There are many factors to consider before choosing the best route to monetize, and how to keep growing afterwards. This presentation & conversation will talk through many of the factors around what to consider when starting to monetize your content.
We'll cover:
- Subscriptions or Sponsorships?
- How to prep for "going paid"
- Pricing your newsletter
- Caring for your readers
- What we've learned while building Swapstack (a newsletter sponsorship marketplace).
Register for this event here.
The Lineup
Session Changes
You may have received a notification from Zoom if you were registered for one of the following sessions:
Josh Spector’s Classified Ads session was cancelled.
Russ Henneberry’s Lead Magnet session was rescheduled from Tuesday to Monday.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Monday, April 12
11 - 11:45 a.m. (EDT):
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (EDT):
Marketing’s Big Opportunity is the Publishing Model, April Mullen
2 p.m. - 3 p.m. (EDT)
Intermission: How Arts & Culture Venues Are Using Email To Stay Alive, Kirk Bentley
3 p.m. - 4 p.m. (EDT):
4 Newsletter Business Models, Dan Oshinsky
4 p.m. - 5 p.m. (EDT):
How to Predictably Generate Newsletter Subscribers with a Lead Magnet, Russ Henneberry from theCLIKK
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. (EDT):
Tuesday, April 13
11 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EDT):
Why Is No One Reading My Newsletter?, Margo Aaron
3 p.m. - 4 p.m. (EDT):
The Power of a Curated Newsletter, Scott Rogerson
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. (EDT):
Strategizing Content: How to Build & Test Topics in Curated, Curated Team
Wednesday, April 14
11 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EDT):
Selling Newsletter Sponsorships, Ryan Sager
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (EDT):
Copy Is Everything: How to Write a Newsletter That Engages Subscribers from Start to Finish, Liz Willits
2 p.m. - 3 p.m. (EDT):
The Daily Memphian: How We Used Email to Break Through 15,500 Paid Subscribers to Our Local News Site, Eric Barnes
3 p.m. - 4 p.m. (EDT):
The New Paper: How we built a $1M business in 24 months, Michael Aft
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. (EDT):
The Agency Model: How to Set Up and Sell Newsletters as a Service, Curated Team
Thursday, April 15
11 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EDT):
Leveraging Newsletters for Customer Success, Growth, and Advocacy, Megan Bowen
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (EDT):
3 Key Steps to Landing More Emails in the Inbox, Brian Minick
2 p.m. - 3 p.m. (EDT):
Paid, Sponsorships, or Both? What to Consider as You Decide How to Monetize, Jake Schonberger
3 p.m. - 4 p.m. (EDT):
How to Manage Your Newsletter Like a Product, Anum Hussain
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. (EDT):
Advanced Link Collecting: How to Curate Like a Pro, Curated Team
Friday, April 16
11 a.m. - 12 p.m. (EDT):
How to Position Your Newsletter to Land Lucrative Sponsorships, Sonal Mandalia, Paved
12:30 - 1:30 p.m. (EDT):
Blurred Lines: What Marketers and Journalists can Learn from Each Other When it Comes to Serving Readers and Growing Loyal Audiences, Hosted by Mary Ellen Slayter featuring Chris Kaundart and Rani Shah of Trello's Newsletter Team, Ryan Johnston (Co-founder and CEO) of 6AM City, Jenny Rothenberg of BACH (former Director of Marketing at Morning Brew), Sarah Ebner (future head of newsletters at the Financial Times in London, previously at The Telegraph), and others.
5 p.m. - 6 p.m. (EDT):
Closing Ceremony, Newsletter Awards, + Curated account winners announced!
Spread the Word
Sharing Is Caring
We would be really grateful if you’d help us out by sharing this COMPLETELY FREE event. You can forward this newsletter or share these media assets.
You’ll find different sizes of the promotional videos so you can choose the best ones to share on your social media accounts. Plus, there’s space for you to add your own wording on the video when you post (if you like that sort of thing).