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Dr. Destini Copp is back with us to talk about turning newsletters into real money-makers. After finding her newsletter wasn’t doing as well as she wanted, she spent six months researching how successful newsletter creators make theirs so effective.
Now, she’s here to share those lessons, focusing on treating newsletters like a key product in your business. She also lays out easy steps to improve your newsletter’s performance, aiming to help you make more money without being tied down by constant work or social media stress.
Watch the previous episode ‘Earning 6 Figures Teaching Email List Monetization with Dr Destini Copp’
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Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
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Dr. Destini’s Links:
- Connect with Dr. Destini Copp on LinkedIn
- Visit Dr. Destini’s website
- Join the Newsletter Profit Club (collab app with free lifetime access)
- Newsletters That Don’t Drive Revenue? Effortlessly Turn Your Newsletter into a Strong Income Stream with Dr. Destini Copp’s Free Profit Calculator (even if you have a small list)
Speaker 1:
Welcome back to another episode of the Art of Online Business podcast. I got Jamie, the new-ish co-host, here. New-ish, yeah Thanks for being here with me, love.
Speaker 2:
You’re welcome, yeah.
Speaker 1:
And if you can’t see us yet, please go down to the show notes and click over to the YouTube channel so you can see our guest, Dr Destiny Kopp, who is back with us for her second episode. Hi, Dr Destiny.
Speaker 1:
Hello, super excited to be here again, as are we because, after our first episode, which is linked up in the show notes below, you shared so many things along your way to building this. We’ll call it a well-rounded business with a couple of memberships and the summit, and you have coaching through your personal brand. And then you teased that in this episode you were going to talk about how to turn your newsletter into a profit generating asset and, as the listener will hear in the bio in a moment, you do help business owners 10X their digital product revenue and you discovered how to make your newsletter profitable. After surprise, surprise, it wasn’t profitable and you went into six months of research to turn it around. And then people saw that it was turning around. Who were on your newsletter Like this is awesome. What are you doing? And here we are to talk more about that. You ready?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, super excited to get started. This is one of my favorite subjects out there to chat about Nice.
Speaker 1:
I’ll read the bio really quick for the listener who didn’t listen to the previous episode yet, and it’s like who is Dr Destiny? Well, she’s a certified business growth coach for digital product entrepreneurs. She helps business owners 10x their digital product revenue without the need to be glued to their desk constantly live launching or worrying about social media algorithms. And I love this because Jamie and I right now are in the middle of actually doing an email list, right.
Speaker 1:
Because, it occurred to me that, although I have courses and they’re kind of they play second or third fiddle, to like my Facebook ad management. They’re there and the only thing I was doing with my email list was sending them a weekly podcast email update. And since selling and serving, I definitely have not been serving enough people with my online course that teaches folks how to get, like, cut their lead cost in half. So please, with that context, what is the first and most important thing? That if somebody were to, I don’t know, get distracted by a young kid and not be able to listen to the rest of the podcast right now, what is the thing they must know about turning their newsletter into a profit generating asset?
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So if they did, the one thing that I want everybody to walk away from is to start thinking about your newsletter differently. In the research study that I did, what I found that all of these best in class kind of newsletter operators and we can get into a little bit more detail about it they were treating their newsletter like it was a product in their business, so they were monetizing it. And that was a huge mindset shift for me, because I was at, you know, and I’ve been in marketing for I’m dating myself, I’ve been marketing for like 30 years now. That that was not how I was thinking about my newsletter. I was thinking about my newsletter as like a marketing channel. If you would, where I would like, every single week, I would send out my newest podcast episode and say here it is.
Speaker 3:
That just wasn’t getting the job done. And why wasn’t it not getting the job done? Let’s talk about human behavior and think about when you get an email from your favorite entrepreneur out there and I’m thinking about mine that kind of jump-started all of this. I saw that email coming in. I knew it was about her latest podcast episode and it just had all the information really good information in there about the show notes and everything. But I could just go to my podcast app and listen.
Speaker 3:
There was no reason for me to open up that email and that’s what was happening with me and I’m like I have this huge asset but I’m not doing anything with it, and I knew I was doing something wrong. I just didn’t know what I was doing wrong, and that’s when I went into the six month research study.
Speaker 2:
So little fun. Fact side note is that she is actually a professor and teaches at the university level in an MBA program, correct, and so go ahead and take her research. She did six months of research and so you get these like gold nuggets here from her taking her time to do this. So how often do you send emails now, and are you the one writing them for the person that’s like? I just hate writing email Me.
Speaker 3:
And that’s the thing too. I used to hate writing them because I felt almost they were a waste of time. I’m like why am I? You know why am I doing this? Why am I sending this out? It’s not going to do any good, you know. So, yes, I’m the one that’s actually writing my email newsletters and I send out four. I have four email newsletters that I’m sending out every single week For a week.
Speaker 1:
Four emails to one.
Speaker 3:
No, no, no, Just newsletters.
Speaker 3:
So I have my hobby, school one that I write and do I have my creator’s MBA one that I write and do I have one for the newsletter profit club? That comes in for the collaboration app that I do. Do I have one for the newsletter profit club that you know? That comes in for the collaboration app that I do. And then I have a separate email that I sent out for my newsletter profit club members. So that’s kind of like a you know some membership, but it’s. I treat it as a newsletter type thing. But yes, I am writing those every single week and I have a very like systematic process to do it. But it changes the way you think about it when you have a process and you know what you’re going to be writing about and you know that you’re actually going to be getting like income coming in from that, from sending that out. That’s what makes it work. That changes things right.
Speaker 2:
Well, how do you?
Speaker 1:
know that you’re getting income coming in. If you could share.
Speaker 3:
Yeah. So let’s just take Hoppy School as an example. So in the newsletter that I sent out this past week, I had several different areas in there where I knew I was going to be getting some income. One is we were announcing that registration is open for one of our upcoming events. So we definitely saw, you know, registrations coming in from that, and I just want to take a I’m going to take a little bit of a tangent here.
Speaker 3:
We are talking about your weekly newsletter. I’m not talking about any like solo emails that you’re sending out to promote a webinar or a flash sale that you’re doing or if you’re in the middle of a launch. Those emails are different. I think the strategy for them is different. Those are going to be like one call to action here’s the flash sale, go buy this type thing. What I’m talking about in the newsletter is a newsletter that you’re sending out that might have multiple call to actions in there. It’s going to have like different areas that people can, you know, hone in on and you know, say this this is something I’m interested in. I want to dig into this more. So in that particular newsletter, I had several different areas in there that they could click on and I had ways to monetize that particular click.
Speaker 1:
Click on the wrong button there. Speaking of click, okay, so I feel like the listener might also be wondering. Maybe they’re in the same boat as me. I have a super tiny newsletter, so like I think 400 people, maybe 500. Email list, email list, newsletter, email list. I feel like an email list is the same as a newsletter, or maybe a newsletter requires an email list, but is much more so. Before I ask my question, here’s a different one, because I like stacking these questions what is the difference between a newsletter and an email list? But is much more so. Before I ask my question, here’s a different one, because I like stacking these questions what is the difference between a newsletter and an email list?
Speaker 3:
I think that’s a great question. So your email list is a group of subscribers that have opted in to say I want to hear from you, and there’s multiple ways that they can hear from you. So when you think about this, there could be a weekly kind of newsletter that you send out. It could be a launch that you are going to be promoting. So maybe it’s like I’ll give you an example.
Speaker 3:
So in my personal brand, I’m doing a webinar type workshop training. In a couple of weeks, webinar type workshop training in a couple of weeks I’m going to send out some solo emails to promote that particular workshop to my email list. But I’m also I’ve done, you know, in the like the newsletter I sent out this past week I’m promoting that workshop in there in several different kinds of ways, if you would. So it you know these, these people are basically signed up to hear from you. But that newsletter is that weekly kind of email and some people send them out more often, but I like to do weekly, that weekly kind of email that you send out. That’s part nurture, but you’re also inserting ways to monetize it in a very non-salesy type way.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 3:
All right.
Speaker 1:
So then my second question, which was my original question that led into this one, which thank you for clarifying how many people do you need on your email list before you have a newsletter that is profitable or that makes money?
Speaker 3:
So I would say, as soon as you have, you know, anybody on your email list, start sending out that weekly newsletter and we can go into details about how to structure that newsletter, because I think there’s a very, you know, specific way that you can do it to monetize it. But start it immediately and, you know, get into the kind of cadence of sending that out on a weekly basis.
Speaker 1:
Please tell us about the structure.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, let’s hear about it.
Speaker 3:
So I like to think about our newsletters as a kind of a mini magazine. If you would so, think about, like when you were in I might be dating myself a little bit, but I’m thinking about when I was like in middle school or high school and the mail person was delivering that latest like glamour magazine. I was so excited I would run out there, grab it. I would go to the areas in the magazine that I knew that they had and, like you know, maybe even dog ear it. That’s the type of experience that you want your readers to have for your weekly newsletter.
Speaker 3:
So what I like to have is different kind of sections in your newsletter. So, for instance, for you, maybe it’s a section for your podcast, maybe it’s a section for a quick tip related to Facebook ads, maybe it’s a section related to I don’t know, I don’t know a lot about what you’re doing there but maybe it’s a section related to a customer success story. So there’s a lot of different kind of sections that you could have in that newsletter and provide a huge value, like in that quick tip section. You know, maybe you could go in and here’s the latest stuff that’s working in Facebook ads. I’ll give you an example from the newsletter I sent out yesterday for the Creators MBA. I have a bookmark worthy section in there and it’s really the section that I like to use.
Speaker 3:
That makes people want to save the email in a special Gmail folder, and that’s what was happening as I was going through and making all these changes and like, for instance, yesterday, what I included in that section was a tip on how to get testimonials, and it was based on something I had done recently in one of my particular memberships that had worked like gangbusters. And testimonials are hard right, they’re hard to get, but I had a system, I had a template that was working. I let them, you know, I gave them for free that template, walked them through how to use it and you know. So that was an example of something that you can include in your newsletter. That is a ton of value that makes people want to open your newsletter the next time.
Speaker 1:
Okay, all right, even with sections. Value that makes people want to open your newsletter the next time. Okay, all right, even with sections. So a newsletter can work with a bunch of sections. Because I’m trying to connect the dots in my mind from doing what I’m doing wrong, which is like I have a weekly email that goes out but it’s just podcast episode summaries, but because there’s three podcast episodes a week, it has sections. So I’m like how do I change these sections so that it becomes a proper newsletter? Or am I thinking about it wrong? And the weekly podcast summary email should be different from the newsletter email.
Speaker 3:
I mean I think you could definitely do it in your weekly newsletter and there’s and I’d have to analyze it and look at you know exactly what you were doing but you know, are they different topics? Are they all the same topics? I mean there’s different ways you could set it up, you know. Going back to your point earlier about your course, you said I think you mentioned that you have all these courses that you aren’t promoting and I think there’s ways too that you can promote those in your weekly newsletter to. You know, get sales consistently on a regular basis from that.
Speaker 1:
Okay, all right.
Speaker 2:
So I have a question what were maybe the top, other than the sections?
Speaker 3:
I’m assuming that’s one of the things that you learned in your six month research project Other than the sections, what are maybe two, or possibly three, even other, like major changes that, from learning all this that you made, or biggest mistakes that you realized that you were doing, or other changes that you made, I guess mistakes that you realized that you were doing or other changes that you made, I guess, yeah, the other thing I wanted to point out is what I learned in this study is that these newsletter operators were monetizing their list in a lot of different ways, like a ton of different ways that I was like okay, I didn’t even realize that that was an option, and I’ll just throw out some of the options here because I think people listening could probably benefit from this. Some of it we’ve actually tested, like in Hobby School and my personal brand, and it has worked very well. One might be a complete newsletter takeover, so when somebody can sponsor your entire newsletter and they pay you to send that out to your audience. So in hobby school we’ve done this. So maybe we did a podcast episode with that particular person and highlighted them.
Speaker 3:
Maybe we, you know, linked to one of their free gifts in our featured product section. Maybe we, you know another thing, maybe we linked to a blog post that they had which had some products, you know, or free gifts or whatever. So just you know, kind of the whole theme was related to that. Sometimes it’s just somebody sponsoring a section or just sponsoring the newsletter where you have, you know sponsored by at the top, the newsletter where you have, you know, sponsored by at the top. Another option is to have like classified ads, like in your newsletter, where people want to get in front of your audience. So maybe it’s just a few links here and there. It’s kind of like a classified ad type thing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
The other way is have like a tools you know review section you can word it differently, but like a tool section in your newsletter where you might be reviewing a tool but you’re getting you know you can get affiliate income. Now all of these we’re talking about sponsorship. So obviously you need to follow any you know FTC guidelines. Let people know this is a sponsor type section in your newsletter. So there’s a ton of different ways to do that. Like in hobby school, we have an events and workshop section in the newsletter where we might be promoting another event if we don’t have something going on that time where we’re getting affiliate commission from that, or maybe even somebody’s paid us to. You know, put that in the events and workshop section. So there was a lot of different ways to actually monetize the newsletter that I had never even thought about so a lot of affiliate kind of things.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, the sponsorship thing, I definitely had never thought of that before.
Speaker 1:
Me neither. I’m taking notes right now in our document. He’s frantically typing I’m taking notes here. This is really good.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and there’s websites out there which I didn’t know this until I did the study. There’s websites out there that you can input your newsletter information and if you’re open to sponsorships, people can contact you. The other thing is, if you are interested in sponsoring somebody else’s newsletter or you want to get like your event in their newsletter so they can promote it to their audience, or your free gift, you can go there and that’s another way you know to kind of get your message out in the world. If you would so there was, you know a lot of different ways that you could connect and find people to actually do, you know, sponsor your newsletter.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
Very cool. Can we have that link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I can definitely give them to you. There’s, you know, several websites out there that people can look. Okay, great.
Speaker 1:
Your favorite one. So if somebody wants to hear more about how to monetize their newsletter and turn it into something that’s profit generating, because you’ve talked about turning it, you’ve talked about viewing the newsletter as a product and you’ve shared like four ways that I, at least, took notes on ways to do this and it was based off of I’m just going to say it what you had shared could be a failing newsletter and you’re like your newsletter wasn’t working like you wanted it to, so you dove because you’re a professor into six months of research to turn it around, and you did in a big way.
Speaker 1:
If somebody wants to know more about this or just like learn more about you or get in touch with you, where’s the best place they could go and we’ll link it up about you or get in touch with you where’s the best place they could go and we’ll link it up.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so check out the newsletter profit calculator. So this is a Google sheet and also did a custom chat bot with this particular Google sheet. So you have both of those resources and it will. You know. You can just input information about your newsletter. You can input, like you know, click through race, open race, number of email subscribers and different ways that you’re interested in monetizing it. I have all of those in there too and it can help you calculate and figure out how much you can make with each newsletter you send out. So that’s the newsletter profit calculator. You can go to destinycopcom forward slash calculator and just grab that and that’ll kind of get you kind of thinking about you know ways that you can actually monetize and make money with each newsletter you’re sending out, so you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time.
Speaker 2:
Right right.
Speaker 1:
Love it. That is destiny d s, d, I, n, I and then cop with two piececom forward slash calculator. That link will be in the show notes below. I really like how it says here effortlessly turn your newsletter into a strong income stream with the free profit calculator, even if you have a small list like us. So we’re going to have to go there and take a look. What’s one final thing you would like to leave the listener with before we say goodbye for today?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I would just say that your newsletter is truly and I think a lot of people say this, so this is anything that’s, like you know, crazy or anything. Your email list is one of your best business assets, and there’s a lot of different ways that you can use this. And the reason why this newsletter is so important is you want to, on a weekly basis, stay on top of people’s mind and nurture them, and the way that I teach in the Newsletter Profit Club is to nurture your audience. Give them a ton of valuable information so that when they see your newsletter or, quite frankly, any other promotion that you’re going to be sending to them maybe you’re going to be inviting them to a webinar or training or your next flash sale when they see your name pop up in their inbox, they want to click to open it, and that’s what you want them doing. And this newsletter will not only help you monetize and definitely teach that, but it’s also going to nurture your audience.
Speaker 1:
I love it. Thank you, Dr Destiny, for sharing and being here on the podcast episode today.
Speaker 3:
Thanks so much for having me. Thank you, thank you, definitely a listener and being here on the podcast episode today.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much for having me. Thank you, thank you, definitely a listener. Hop down to the show notes below. Get some more info. If you have a newsletter, an email list, that you don’t quite have ready yet to be a newsletter. Be like us Learn. Apply it right now so that you can serve the people on your email list better. Until the next time you hear from us or see us, take care, be blessed, and we’ll see you in the next one bye, bye, bye.
