Summary of "The TRUTH About LinkedIn Newsletters in 2025"
Takeaways on LinkedIn Newsletters (2025)
- LinkedIn “newsletters” are not a real email newsletter:
- You don’t get subscriber email addresses.
- It’s mostly a LinkedIn-delivered notification experience that may sometimes send as an email from LinkedIn.
- The speaker’s claim: LinkedIn newsletters rarely produce tangible business results (leads/clients/revenue) compared to focusing on high-performing LinkedIn posts (images/carousels/videos).
- Operational issue: publishing a LinkedIn newsletter also generates a LinkedIn post that tends to perform poorly.
- Platform constraint: LinkedIn may penalize multiple posts per day, making newsletter-post duplication inefficient.
- Recommendation:
- Don’t build around LinkedIn newsletters.
- Use LinkedIn posts + lead magnets/CTAs to move people off-platform to an email list you own.
Framework / decision rule implied
If a channel can’t help you build an owned audience (email list), it’s likely a weak growth lever.
What “Newsletter Businesses” Really Are
- A newsletter is described as a channel/strategy, not the business model.
- The actual model is usually:
- Media/creator business (content)
- Often paired with an adjacent monetization business (e.g., selling services/agency, sponsorships, paid products)
- “Winner-take-most” dynamic:
- There’s limited room for mediocre content.
- You generally need 1–2 strong winners per category.
Actionable positioning
- Pick a niche/category aligned to:
- your experience
- your passions
- your ability to publish unique insights
- Examples/benchmarks mentioned:
- B2B newsletters with ~19,000 subscribers can sell sponsorship packages for $20k–$40k when the audience is highly engaged (executives/founders/leaders).
Example business outcome
- Using a newsletter as an acquisition engine + adding agency services led to ~$1M+ ARR (“seven figures in annual recurring revenue”) relatively quickly (for their prior experience mentioned).
Starting Point: Content Strategy + Distribution “Discovery”
Platform guidance (where to start)
Beehive vs Substack vs Kit
- Clavio: only for e-commerce contexts.
- Substack:
- Useful for discovery
- Risky/limiting as the “bedrock” because of:
- limited brand/site control
- no email marketing features/segmentation
- no open API / weak integrations
- platform dependency (“platform risk”)
- Substack can work if you already have built-in distribution via other big Substackers or your network.
- Long-term “bedrock” recommendation:
- If building a serious owned-email business: choose Beehive or Kit
- Beehive: stronger all-in-one website/blog/landing page tooling
- Kit: great email/newsletter capability, but many successful users pair it with another site tool (e.g., WordPress/Webflow) because Kit’s website features are “not quite as good yet”
- Beehive is newer and may be more buggy, but issues are usually resolved.
Organic discoverability priorities (general)
- Use the platform where your target audience already lives:
- B2B/professional: LinkedIn suggested
- broad mainstream: YouTube/Instagram
- Substack discovery: fits writers/journalists/politics/business professionals
- Evergreen content preference (team example):
- YouTube is their main discovery engine because content keeps generating demand over time (“evergreen content doesn’t disappear after a day”).
Concrete content longevity example
- They claim older YouTube content can still bring meaningful weekly/monthly views and continues to generate leads/customers (they cited older content still getting thousands of views per week, with unclear cadence in subtitles—the point being evergreen performance).
Content Production System (“Hub and Spoke”)
- Their newsletter is positioned as the hub:
- Publish a weekly newsletter
- Repurpose into:
- LinkedIn posts
- tweets
- future Instagram infographics
- YouTube video scripts
- possibly podcast topics (Q&A style)
- Target operating model (“in a perfect world”):
- 1 newsletter/week
- → 1 YouTube video
- → 5 LinkedIn posts
- → 5 Instagram posts
- Alternative hub model acknowledged:
- Some creators use YouTube/podcast as the hub and repurpose into written posts via transcripts.
Operational constraint
Don’t “scatter” across every platform simultaneously; choose a hub + repurpose.
Using AI in Newsletter Creation (Without Losing “Human Touch”)
- Approach: AI acts as a delegator/editor, not a content originator.
- Workflow:
- Write a first draft yourself
- Put it into AI for:
- proofreading/copy editing (grammar, misspellings)
- clarity improvements
- content strengthening (ask for more detail where a section feels weak)
- improve intro/outro
- Philosophy:
- AI-written “full output from a topic” tends to be weaker than the writer’s original insight.
- Best use is punching up.
When to Pivot vs Stay Consistent (Newsletter-Specific)
- They use signal metrics rather than gut feel.
- If after 30 days (assuming at least ~1,000 intentional subscribers) you see:
- no growth
- weak engagement
- no feedback
- no sales then pivot likely needed.
Suggested experiment window
- 30–60 days max before adjusting:
- topics
- format
- length (longer/shorter)
Key emphasis
- Iterate more on your social discovery channels (faster daily feedback).
- Newsletter feedback is slower; use social/customer conversations to inform newsletter changes.
Practical trigger
- If you hear the same customer pain repeatedly (e.g., multiple customers describing it in a week), create content about it—“what’s personal is universal.”
Rebranding a Publication (Name Change) Playbook
- Recommendation: keep messaging simple, like explaining it in person.
- Avoid name sprawl:
- Too many names across newsletter/company/product/podcast becomes confusing.
- Aim for 1–3 names total across the business.
Communication rollout timeline
- 1–2 reminders before
- 1 announcement at the change
- 1–2 reminders after
Example cited
- ConvertKit → Kit:
- Executed well by pre-announcing for ~3 months
- Updating bios/emails/social messaging
- Then announcing the final change
- They also noted ConvertKit tried once before (around 2020) and faced backlash, then corrected with a better rollout later.
Pricing Newsletter Sponsorships (Supply/Demand + Click-Based Pricing)
Pricing logic
- Sponsorship pricing follows supply and demand.
- Start conservative to win early sponsors, aiming to sell out ad inventory for:
- 2 weeks to 30 days to 2 months (inventory windows mentioned)
Pricing rule of thumb
- Base pricing on average unique clicks from your newsletter links to advertisers.
- Example math given:
- average 100 unique clicks per ad
- price target $5 per unique click
- flat fee ≈ $500
- (they also suggest starting even lower: $2–$3 per click)
How to sell/package for better advertiser ROI
- Don’t sell single ads early:
- A single ad yields limited conversion opportunities.
- Conceptual example: 100 clicks with typical conversion rates could yield ~one customer or less.
- Instead, sell packages:
- 3–5 ads minimum
- discount for bundling
- Typical starting package price range:
- ~$500 to $2,000
- emphasize lowering advertiser risk for first-time sponsors
Feedback loop / scaling
- If inventory sells out quickly for 30–60 days, raise prices.
- If struggling, lower prices until you can reliably sell out for 30–60 days.
- As unique clicks and demand improve, increase pricing over time.
List Cleaning + Deliverability (Email Performance Operations)
Core principles (KPI impact)
- Most people don’t do list cleaning, which harms:
- open rate
- click-through rate
- deliverability
- inbox placement for engaged users
Churn/engagement thresholds (explicit rules)
- Unsubscribe inactive recipients:
- If someone has not opened or clicked in 90+ days, unsubscribe/stop sending.
- Define an “active sending segment” (base segment) so sends go to engaged users.
- Example “active” criteria (sent to those matching at least one):
- signed up in past 30 days
- has ≥1 click in past 120 days
- has ≥1 open in past 90 days
- Example “active” criteria (sent to those matching at least one):
Re-engagement sequence
- After 21–30 days with zero opens/clicks:
- send 1–2 gentle reactivation emails
- goal: move email to primary inbox or generate a click
- Don’t send many reactivation attempts:
- after 3–4 weeks of disengagement, more emails likely become spam
Warning against late reactivation
- If re-engagement happens only after 60–90 days of inactivity, returns are poor:
- cited example: ~5% open rate and minimal reactivations (“terrible”), likely harmful.
Presenters / Sources Mentioned
- Matt (speaker answering questions)
- Spencer (co-host/colleague)
- The Hustle (referenced as a newsletter employer with a “big exit”)
- Growletter / Growletter team (referenced as their team)
- Kit (also mentioned as ConvertKit’s later name)
- ConvertKit (historical name)
- Beehive, Substack, Kit, ConvertKit, Clavio (platforms discussed)
Category
Business
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