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Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

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Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#21

Post by tomp »

thematrixturtle wrote: post #18
tomp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean “you own your newsletter”? Your newsletter is owned by a massive corporate platform such as Mailchipm, which will ban you for wrongthink/wrongspeak just like other massive corporate platforms like Facebook. Just the first news story I found: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1017221 - keep in mind that “antivaxxer” doesn’t mean what it used to mean but could simply mean you’re pointing out that va…

You're conflating the medium (newsletter) with its distribution mechanism (mass mailing). If you have the content and the destination addresses, it's trivial to switch to another provider.

Other providers can still ban you.

Switching providers sometimes requires all existing subscribers to “opt in” again.

Regardless you’re still owned by a platform. Gmail ain’t gonna let you deliver 1000s of emails yourself.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#22

Post by jasode »

>So many blogs promote their newsletter, [...] What is the rationale behind it?

A website (and also RSS) -- that is not hard paywalled with account login -- is a "pull" by anonymous webbrowser clients. The website's content creator doesn't have a direct relationship with readers because you'd only have web browser IP addresses or aggregate statistics with Google Analytics, etc.

In contrast, newsletters can be "push" by content creators because you have collected email addresses that want the newsletters and therefore have a more direct relationship with readers. Building the audience via email addresses is valuable because it works outside centralized platforms like Youtube, Patreon, etc.

My previous comment dissecting example of Tim Ferris website-vs-newsletter : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27716442

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#23

Post by asicsp »

They do work to some extent (which is greater than zero). I have a newsletter to share links related to Python, Linux, Regular Expressions, Vim, etc. 38 issues later, I have close to 500 subscribers (I don't do pop-ups, but thanks for the reminder - I should at least add them in the footer of my blog posts, been promoting mostly to my readers on Gumroad/Twitter).

Based on Gumroad stats, open rates are above 40%. I send 10-15 links per week, and the total link clicks average around 150 (not sure if adblockers affect such stats). I try to optimize links to share based on interest shown in topics so far.

And as others have commented, one of the reasons to start a newsletter is to have your own platform for sharing content.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#24

Post by dr_kiszonka »

Tangent: do web push notifications work?

A lot of websites ask if I want to be notified via a web push, which I personally find very annoying and have never tried it. But perhaps people (consumers/users and sellers/creators) find them useful?

Bonus question: are you subscribed to any web push notifications? Which ones and why do you like web push vs. a newsletter or RSS?

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#26

Post by codeptualize »

It's a "push". If I go to your website because I see an interesting article on Hacker news or Twitter I'm unlikely to return for newer articles, even if I'm interested I will simply forget. However if you get my email you can push content to me.

If you have enough people in your newsletter you can increase your traffic and keep it more consistent, more traffic is more ad revenue. You could even get your newsletter sponsored and make it a source of revenue.

I have not worked on newsletters specifically but I can attest that sending emails is generally very effective.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#27

Post by livelace »

Email is a great thing, I use it heavily. Why newsletters doens't work for me:

1. I don't want to give my email. 2. I don't want to receive spam. 3. I don't like long letters with massive amount of different news (even in single domain).

In my view newsletters/digests take more time to read and I prefer to receive small pieces of topics more often (what I'm interested in specifically, not whole the editor choice) than to recevie bunch of them on weekly basis.

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#28

Post by MrDunham »

meibo wrote: post #3

Yes, they work and people do actually check their emails. Even if you have a 20-30% click rate, that's 30% of people that may read your headline, click through to your blog post, product announcement, etc. If you're smart about your strategy (don't spam, think twice about when to send a mail, lead with interesting content, visually appealing), a mailing list can be a huge asset to any business. People tend to not wan…

> People tend to not want to follow companies

Also many companies got burned thinking the smorgasbord of free traffic on social platforms would never end.

It turns out that when your primary business model is selling traffic (via ads), giving it away for free is antithetical to your margins.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok (sometime soon) started off giving creators (and businesses) tons of free traffic only to eventually suppress it to push people towards paying to reach the followers they worked so hard to get.

On the other hand, once someone has given you permission to email them then it really doesn’t matter if you do it from your own mailserver, mailchimp, or anything else… They are still expecting you to be in their inbox (hopefully delivering great value).

Source: I was reading the internal newsletter in the bathroom of a major social network's office ~6 years ago when they were announcing (in celebration) that they had suppressed organic reach to sub 5%

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#29

Post by mooreds »

meetingthrower wrote: post #12

Same question? Anybody know advertising RPM that newsletters could generate?

Depends on the audience size and makeup.

I've seen tweets like this: https://twitter.com/petecodes/status/1548983470805876737 which talk about $400/month for a newsletter ad.

Cooperpress has a lot of dev subscribers and I believe charges thousands of dollars for an add: https://cooperpress.com/advertise/ (run by https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=petercooper ).

Re: Ask HN: Do newsletters work? Why do websites push them so much?

#30

Post by franze »

Channel Hedging

If you depend on SEO, SEA, Adsense you depend on Google.

If you depend on Facebook, Insta, you depend on Meta.

If you depend on Linkedin, you depend on Linkedin.

If you depend on Newsletters, you depend on Spamfilters.

Every channel has its risk. So hedging your traffic channels is the best thing you can do. And Newsletter is the least annoying one, as Google and Facebook maximize for ad-spendings. Spamfilters don't.

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