Interview Date: April 28, 2024
Table of Content
CREATOR INTERVIEW
This is the story of how Joe Portsmouth found the courage to start a newsletter from scratch centered around a topic he’s passionate about.
This is the story of how, ultimately, he struck a balance between his full-time job and his newsletter as a side project.
This is the story of his realization that continuous progress is all that matters, regardless of whether it’s fast or slow.
In a nutshell, this is the story of how to pivot, delegate and calm down!
Joe Portsmouth has been reaching over 11,000 subscribers with Write On, where he shares copywriting tips as an experienced email marketer. He’s in it for the long haul, aiming to make Write On his main gig, focusing on building momentum.
His biggest regret? Not starting sooner!
In our interview, we discussed:
- Overcoming burnout
- Utilizing the power of delegation for consistency
- How changing the newsletter’s topic can stimulate growth
- Developing copywriting and storytelling skills for newsletter creators
Now, I’m handing the mic over to Joe Portsmouth.
Let’s get started!
NEWSLETTER IDENTITY CARD
TOOL STACK
- ESP → Beehiiv*
- Curation & Note-taking → Notion
- Productivity → Notion
- Design of visuals → Canva
- Social Media → Hypefury
- Online Courses → Kajabi
- Coaching Calls → Calendly
- Video recording → Loom
- Payment → Stripe
MEET THE CREATOR
Welcome Joe. Let’s start with getting to know you.
I work full-time at Beard Club as the Sr. Director of Customer Retention.
I’ve spent 8+ years working in the customer retention space for a variety of startup companies, including FanDuel, Hopsy, and PetHonesty. This role has a major focus on email and SMS marketing, so that is where I’ve gained most of my copywriting experience, which eventually led to the creation of Write On in January 2023.
“Growing Write On is my main focus outside of my 9 to 5.”
START
How and why did you start Write On in the first place?
Before Write On, I had been working on another newsletter focused solely on e-commerce email marketing and customer retention. I wasn’t seeing a ton of growth, and I felt burnt out from spending my 9 to 5 and 5 to 9 hours thinking about this topic. I was interested in learning more about copywriting and storytelling at the time, so I figured it would be a fun pivot for a newsletter topic.
So I started Write On from scratch, launched a few lead magnets on Twitter for my existing following and ended up growing pretty quickly.
“It took three weeks for Write On to reach 2,677 subscribers.
It took 11 months for my 1st newsletter to reach that amount.”
Once I saw that initial traction, I phased out the old newsletter and went all-in on Write On.
GROWTH
Which growth strategies did you utilize to reach over 10,000 subscribers?
0 – 10,000 subscribers
The overwhelming majority of my list growth of up to 10,000 subscribers came from giveaways on Twitter, where I would craft a lead magnet, promote it, and DM people who expressed interest in the comments with a link to get it.
10,000 – present
My list has reached as many as 16,000+ with the help of paid ads on X, but I’ve cleaned up my list extensively over time.
“With a background in email marketing, I know that quality is much more important than quantity.
As a result, my open rates have always hovered around 50%, but as growth has slowed, my total subscriber count has gone down to around 11K.“
Re: growth slowing down, I recently took a few months off from content creation on social media because I was burnt out. That pretty much stalled all newsletter growth (along with turning off paid ads). I still wrote a weekly newsletter but put 0 effort into growth during this ~2-month period.
I’m currently getting back into the groove of posting daily content with the help of a new team member and am focused on building out monetization funnels before turning on paid ads again.
We all agree on the power of storytelling and copywriting in content creation. Imagine that I’m not feeling good at it as a newsletter creator and want to improve myself.
What should be the initial steps I should take?
The first step would be to understand what’s important to your reader truly.
What fears, struggles, challenges, beliefs, dreams, etc. do they care about?
Chances are, if they’ve signed up for your newsletter, it’s because they think you can help with any of their problems or goals listed above. Which means you’ve probably experienced what they feel now.
So write about those experiences. Show that you’ve gone through those same challenges, emotions, etc.
You’ll become more relatable, credible, and trustworthy. That’s what makes people engaged and ready to buy from you.
MONETIZATION
What is your monetization strategy?
I’m currently focusing most of my time on this. I’ve done multiple course launches in the past. Now I’m focused on creating an evergreen funnel that leads up to my flagship course, The Storytelling Playbook.
I get consistent revenue from the Beehiiv ad network and other inbound ad requests, so building out an automated funnel for course sales is the big next step.
I plan to do this through lead magnets, free email courses, and other low-ticket products.
CONSISTENCY
“I read about copywriting every day. I work full-time writing copy for The Beard Club. I write about copywriting on Twitter and LinkedIn every day.”I took this part from your welcome e-mail.
Consistency and time management are real challenges for newsletter creators. How do you manage your time to make all these happen?
I mentioned earlier that I was burnt out, so I totally resonate with this challenge.
“What I’ve done to fix this is admit that I can’t do it all alone while working a 9 to 5.
My new team member, Emelie Jochems, helps me with newsletter topic ideas, social content ideas, repurposing of old content, etc.“
She’ll write an initial draft of the content, I’ll review it and add my unique voice, and then I’ll publish it. Without her, I’d be on the path to burnout again.
She’s open to new opportunities working with other newsletter creators, so feel free to reach out to her if you need such support. (emelie.jochems@hotmail.com)
Speaking of consistency, the risk of burnout, as you experienced, is the other side of the coin, especially while growing a newsletter as a side hustle.
In Dec’23, after 2 years of writing online on social media, you felt burnout and stopped for 2 months. It’s been a few weeks since you’re back. You wrote, “I’m rediscovering my love for writing.”
How are you feeling now? I would love to hear your thoughts on why this happened and how you eventually found a way to deal with it.
I’m feeling much better than I did in late 2023.
“I let go of a lot of the pressure I was putting on myself.
I was frustrated because I knew I could offer so much more if I weren’t working full-time.”
Now, I’m just focused on making the most out of the few hours I have per week outside of work.
“I’ve accepted that the growth will be slower, but as long as I’m making small progress each day, I can live with that.”
IMPACT & LEARNINGS
How did building Write On contribute to your life professionally and personally?
“The main thing that I’ve learned is that this is a viable business opportunity.”
One day, my time at Beard Club will come to an end, and I know that Write On will be able to replace that annual income. I’m not there yet, but I see the path to get there. I just need to keep making progress in the meantime.
If you had a chance to start over, what would you do differently while building Write On?
“I would’ve started it sooner.
So much of audience building and newsletter growth is consistency and iteration over time. Early movers have a massive advantage.“
I had been toying around with the idea of making a pivot from my first newsletter to Write On for months. I had every excuse not to do it: too busy, already working on another newsletter, etc. But in the end, I followed my passion, got started, and figured the rest out along the way.
What would it be if you had the right to give one piece of advice to aspiring newsletter creators?
Momentum and consistency are crucial. You can’t half-ass a newsletter.
“Every newsletter creator will have varying degrees of success. Some will take off sooner than others.
But all of the best newsletter creators I’ve met have the same things in common: they’re consistent, and they think in terms of years instead of months.”
If you can’t see yourself working on your newsletter for at least a year or more, it probably will not work out.
FINAL WORDS
If you haven’t started your newsletter yet, just do it. You won’t regret it.
If you’re just starting out, keep pushing.
“Your next big win could be right around the corner.”
Where to find Joe Portsmouth
3 Popular Issues from Write On
*includes affiliate links
