Interview Date: January 19, 2025
Table of Content
- Meet Adriana Tica
- Newsletter Identity Card
- Tool Stack
- Why she started a newsletter besides her agency business
- Growth strategies she used to reach over 3,900 subscribers
- How she monetizes her newsletter with sponsorships and courses
- Personal & professional impact of running a newsletter
MEET THE CREATOR
This week, I’ve talked with Adriana Tica, a marketing strategist and writer with 18+ years.
She made it her mission to teach people how to build a highly profitable business without selling their souls and without resorting to bro hacks after seeing her fair share of good and bad marketing during her time in the trenches.
Today, she runs her own business generating almost $65,000 a year, and her newsletter “Ideas to Power Your Future” stays at the core. She shares her ideas and bits of advice on the marketing world every week in her newsletter.
In this interview, we’ll discover:
- Why she added a newsletter as a channel for her business
- How she reached over 3,900 subscribers and achieved 230% growth this year
- How she monetizes her newsletter through different channels such as sponsorships and courses
- How running a newsletter changed her way of perceiving the business world
Enjoy!
NEWSLETTER IDENTITY CARD
TOOL STACK
- ESP: Kit
- Writing: Google Docs
- Curation & Note taking: Google Keep
- Digital Products: ThriveCart, Kit Commerce
- Testimonials: Senja
- Payments: Stripe, PayPal
START
You have been running your own agency for 10 years. How and why did you start a newsletter in the first place? How does it contribute to your agency business?
I started Ideas to Power Your Future because I wanted a space where I could write in my own name, not under an agency brand.
“This newsletter started out as a selfish need to express myself freely and to write about what matters to me.”
However, it turns out that I’m not the only one who’s sick of bro hacks and sleazy marketing, so Ideas to Power Your Future has a nice community of readers how have been duped at least once and now want to market themselves more strategically.
It was never my intention to use the newsletter to market my agency and I’ve rarely mentioned it — only to set the context. Still, people love to dig stuff up, so they found it via LinkedIn 🙂. My newsletter now constantly brings in agency business too.
GROWTH
Which strategies did you use to grow over 3,900 subscribers?
0 – 1000 Subscribers
Social media, mainly LinkedIn and cross-promos with fellow newsletter operators.
1,000 – 3,000 Subscribers
Same as above, plus Kit Creator Network. And I’ve been a guest on several podcasts and spoke at a few online conferences.
3,000+ Subscribers
All of the above, plus paid growth (with not-so-stellar results, though. Organically-gained subscribers are still the best fit.
You used different growth channels such as Kit Creator Network, cross-promos, social media channels, Medium, etc. Of all your growth strategies, what do you think you did differently this year to reach 230% audience growth? (see here)
I enhanced my reputation and grew my audience, so getting people to sign up became easier. People are more likely to sign up to someone’s newsletter if that someone has a 10k+ following on social media rather than 1k+.
The audience growth and reputation boost also helped me get podcasts, interviews, and conferences invites. It’s a virtuous circle — growth breeds growth.
MONETIZATION
You launched sponsorship in October 2024 and now you are sold out till April 2025. What are your key strategies to find and get new partnerships? (see here)
Since it’s a relatively new offer, I honestly didn’t have to do much so far. I announced it in my newsletter and told a few friends about it over Zoom coffees.
“After each sponsored ad, I place a short CTA that says “Want your name up here? Book a slot for an upcoming issue.” This gets me more visibility and helps keep my pipeline full.”
It helps that my clients have had great results, so a few of them bought again after the first ad ran.
You offer services and products such as 1:1 strategy sessions (see here) and an Audience Accelerator course (see here). What is the role of your newsletter to find new clients and increase sales?
“The newsletter plays a HUGE role in client acquisition for me. It’s hands down my best channel. Most of my clients buy directly from my emails. Even those who buy from a social media post are already subscribers, so they know me.”
In fact, I’ve had clients tell me that they found me on social media but it was the depth of my newsletter than convinced them to buy from me.
You publish your content on Medium where you earn up to $400 and gain 5-10 subscribers monthly. (see here) How do you use Medium to convert new subscribers for your newsletter?
I use Medium as a syndication platform. I re-publish my newsletters there, a few months after they initially went live. It’s a very low-effort tactic and, even though the money isn’t life-changing, it’s a nice additional revenue stream.
Since I’m all about growth loops, I add CTAs inviting people to subscribe to my newsletter in each Medium article — this is how I make sure these two channels fuel each other.
IMPACT & LEARNINGS
How did building Ideas to Power Your Future newsletter contribute to your life professionally and personally?
“My newsletter got me out of my shell. I used to be a lone wolf, running an agency on a skeleton crew and rarely interacting with my peers.”
Since I started writing Ideas to Power Your Future, I had to be more visible and that led to making friends and business partners.
My life is better and richer thanks to them. I don’t think I could have run two businesses all alone and keep my sanity intact.
What would you do differently if you had a chance to start over Ideas to Power Your Future?
“I’d start doing cross-promos as soon as possible and I’d promote it more aggressively from day one.”
It took me far too long to understand how much work growing a newsletter really is.
What would it be if you had the right to give one piece of advice to aspiring newsletter creators?
“Focus on finding your WHY, your BIG IDEA. Don’t write just another “marketing” or “AI” newsletter.”
People looks for shared values, not re-hashed content. So, before your start writing, figure out what big change you want to see in the world. Then write like that change depends on your newsletter.
3 Popular Ideas to Power Your Future Issues
- The rise and fall of social media platforms (and why you should care about it)
- Why the heck is it so hard to build an audience today? [how to build it anyway]
- The “1,000 true fans” theory doesn’t work anymore
