Teri Holland (00:01.87)
Hi Destiny, welcome to the show.
Destini Copp (00:04.155)
Thank you so much, Terri, for having me. I am super excited to be here today.
Teri Holland (00:08.526)
Well, I'm excited to have you here because I have been looking forward to having a conversation about newsletters for a while and I was waiting for the right person to come along. And then our mutual friend Jody Bourne recommended you and I said, that's perfect. Destini sounds perfect for this. So.
Destini Copp (00:24.695)
Yeah, honestly, I could talk all day long about newsletters, so you're in the right place.
Teri Holland (00:28.91)
you
Excellent. I'm so glad to hear that. So I want to start with just the big picture question of why should small business owners prioritize a newsletter in their marketing strategy?
Destini Copp (00:42.965)
So that's a good question because I think a lot of people when they are looking at all the things that they can be doing in their business, right? Social media, just, you know, working with clients, setting up their website. There's a lot of things we could be doing. And I will say that starting your email list and actively emailing them, I would say at least once a week.
Teri Holland (00:59.843)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (01:10.693)
I wouldn't even mind if you did it more, but at least once a week is one of the most important things you can be doing in your business to make the revenue and to scale up the revenue in your business. Cause there's a lot of things you can be doing with emails, specifically with newsletters, which I know we're going to be digging into that today.
Teri Holland (01:32.204)
Yeah, yeah. And okay, so this might be a silly question, but what is the difference between, say, just email marketing and newsletters? Like, is there a difference? And then what would that be?
Destini Copp (01:44.197)
There is a difference and it's not a silly question and it's something that a lot of people really might not understand. So you have your email list, your email, maybe you're using, you know, flow desk or kit or active campaign. So you have this database if you would of people that have opted in to hear from you via email. Now there's a lot of different ways that you can communicate to them through this email.
You can run a flash sale, right? So maybe you have some, maybe you're launching a coaching program or maybe you have some digital products or maybe you have services that you're promoting. You can run a flash sale, right? Maybe like a two or three day flash sale, promote those offers and send it out. Or you could be doing like a welcome sequence. So somebody signs up to your email list and then you might be sending them
you know, a series of emails like over a week or two. That's like a welcome sequence. What I'm referring to is your weekly email newsletter. So this is the email that you send out on a weekly basis. Generally, you're gonna pick a specific day to send it out. I like to send mine out on Sundays. You can pick one that works best for your particular audience.
So this is your weekly email newsletter that you sent out that is nurturing, right? You're providing them a ton of value. It's one of the reasons why they want to stay on your email list and not unsubscribe because you're giving them really this solid gold in this email. But the other thing that a lot of people don't realize that they can do with their
Teri Holland (03:26.018)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (03:39.799)
email list in this weekly newsletter is monetize it. And we can certainly go into some of that here today.
Teri Holland (03:48.014)
Absolutely. Okay, so what would you say are some of the misconceptions about email newsletters that you would like people to maybe change their thinking about?
Destini Copp (03:58.415)
Yeah, so actually I was, and I'll put myself in this category too. So when I came into the online world, and I've been in marketing for many, many years, so it's not something that I absolutely knew about, even though I've been in marketing for so long. When I came into the online world, what I was taught with my weekly newsletter was,
your pillar content, whatever that pillar content is, maybe it's a blog post, maybe it's a podcast episode or a YouTube video, you take that pillar content, you send that out to your email list with the call to action to either go read it or go listen to or go watch it. And that will keep your email list warm so that when you're ready to sell to them, like you're ready to do a launch,
Maybe you wanna launch a course or a group coaching program or whatever. So when you're ready to do your launch, they're gonna be warmed up and they're gonna know who you are and they're gonna be excited to buy from you. That wasn't working for me. So what I did was last year, and I actually started a little bit before that, but last year I conducted a six month research study and really delved into these newsletters.
try to figure out what were businesses doing in some of these big newsletter type businesses that all of us in this creator coaching niche and digital product creator niche that I put myself in that category, what were they doing differently that all of us obviously, including myself, hadn't mastered yet? Because I knew that my strategy,
with this weekly newsletter wasn't working. And it wasn't working quite frankly for people whose list I was on. Like there were some big name people out there that I loved that I was following, but I wasn't even opening up their weekly newsletters because I knew when it came across my desk, I knew, that's just going to be talking about their podcast episode. I don't need to worry about that. I'll listen to that if I want to, when I'm in my car taking my kids to school or whatever. So,
Destini Copp (06:20.601)
It wasn't just me, right? I just knew that this strategy that we had with these weekly newsletters wasn't working. So I conducted that six month research study, really delved into these newsletter businesses. Now, when I'm talking about these newsletter businesses, I'm talking about like the hustle, the morning brew, you stack market, you know, all of these newsletter businesses that have, know, quite frankly, a lot of them have like over a million subscribers now.
Teri Holland (06:40.695)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (06:49.745)
and really dealt into what were they doing differently? Because they had created this business all around this newsletter and they were monetizing it. So people were getting on this newsletter and they were sticking around. So I was like, okay, so they're sticking around, they're monetizing this, they're not really doing a lot of other things. So their core business was really around this newsletter. So they were treating it like a product. And I was like, okay,
that's unique to me, that's different to me. And then I started digging into it and I was like, okay, here's what they're doing, here's what they're doing differently. And I kind of pulled all of those learnings from that research study and started applying them to my newsletter and things started to change.
Teri Holland (07:40.078)
I'm so excited to dig deeper into this because I'm in the place that you're describing you were in where I send out like this was the podcast this week and because I don't know what else to send them and I know that there's a whole world of content I could send them but I've had such a hard time focusing it in on what what should go into that newsletter
So maybe you could speak to that a bit. What kind of content should we be putting in there to make it enticing for people to stay on the list and engage with it?
Destini Copp (08:12.015)
Yeah. So that mean that's a great question. Honestly, that's what I was struggling with. Right. I did. I had all of this great content. I have a podcast that has 205 episodes. So I've been doing this for a while. I have a, you know, blogs and everything. And so basically how I have designed my newsletter. And again, this was based on what I learned in the, in the research study. I have designed it around what I call this mini magazine method.
So let me kind of walk you through this. So I'll take you back a few years. Like when I was in high school, I was still getting like Glamour magazine or Cosmo into the mailbox. And I would like run out to that mailbox and be super excited for that magazine that was coming. And then you would open it up to that section. Maybe it was that quiz or a particular editorial section that they have and you might dog gear it and come back to it. So I really wanted that.
Teri Holland (08:44.526)
Please.
Destini Copp (09:11.889)
of experience for my readers of my newsletter. And so what I have designed is kind of that mini magazine method. And really what it is, it's three to five is what I generally recommend for folks, three to five kind of sections in your newsletter that you can fill in with super valuable content every single week.
Now, sometimes I mix things up. One week I might not include one section. One week I might do something a little bit different. So it's not necessarily set in stone, but it's generally pretty consistent. So people know what to expect. But only for that, it helps me create that content. So I'm not sit there looking at a blank screen when it's, know, Saturday afternoon and I'm gonna know my newsletter needs to go out the next day on Sunday. And I'll give you some examples here.
Teri Holland (10:04.686)
Right.
Destini Copp (10:09.201)
and I do several different newsletters, but I'll talk about the one in my personal brand, which is my creator's MBA newsletter. So the sections I have set up there, I have one obviously for my podcast. So that's one that I have. I have one for events because I'm doing, in my business, I'm doing generally a lot of events. Like I will do some like free trainings and what have you. I have my quick,
tips section, which I can pull in some very, very valuable content to maybe it's something I've learned this week, maybe it's something I've learned related to AI and automations. I might pull in some of that content into that quick tips section. The section that I really, really love for this Creators MBA newsletter is my bookmark-worthy section. And that's where I really like to include
my super valuable juicy content so that they don't read anything else in this mini magazine, they're reading that particular one. what I also love about kind of this magazine method and kind of breaking these out in these different sections, it allows people to kind of pick and choose.
what they want in your newsletter because some sections aren't going to appeal to everybody, right? Some people might not care about that podcast episode or somebody else might not care about that event that I'm doing, but they really love that bookmark worthy section. And Teri, when I started getting feedback from folks, they're like, Destini, your emails are so good. I am saving them in a special Gmail folder. That's when I knew, okay,
I'm onto something, this is working, this design is working, and I just knew I was on the right track.
Teri Holland (12:08.782)
How long did it take you to sort of figure out your voice in that and to put those different sections together? Was it, I mean, I know you did the research, but was it instant when you just started applying there? Did it take a while for you to figure out how to implement it?
Destini Copp (12:25.233)
It really took at least three months because I had to kind of test things out, see what was resonating, folks, see what people were clicking on, see what they were replying back to, right? Because that's a big part of email engagement is getting people to reply back to your emails. So it certainly was not overnight by any means. And actually, that's interesting too that you asked me that.
because just this past week in my hobby school brand, I was doing some newsletters and I was going back to some of the old emails that I had done a year ago, because I wanted to pull some of that content because we're doing the same event again right now. And I'm like, these emails were so bad. I'm like, so I've definitely have come a long way even in the past year, but it really just comes down to you just got to start.
and figure out what's working.
Teri Holland (13:25.218)
love that. I think that is such great advice. know, so often as as entrepreneurs, we start something and if we don't get the immediate satisfaction of yes, this works, this is a hit, we move on to something else. And we're, you know, we tend to throw things out. And so I really appreciate you sharing that, that it did take time and you had to try things. And I especially love that looking back on your old emails.
you can see how far you've come because that's, I think, such an important part. And so many of us devalue that, that we have to be willing to start and be beginners at something and not be great at it at the beginning in order to get there. And so that's so valuable. Thank you for sharing that. Now, let's talk about growing the list because I think this is one of the biggest challenges is how do we get people on this list? And I know myself, my list is small.
They're engaged, but they're small. And I know that that's a big challenge a lot of my listeners have is how do we even get people there?
Destini Copp (14:29.443)
It is a huge challenge for everybody, even the big names out there, right? Cause I went to the newsletter marketing summit like two weeks ago and that's a discussion that everybody has, right? Even the ones that have a million people on their list, right? They're still trying to get more. So it's something that we're all kind of interested in and want to focus on. And there's a lot of different ways that we as online business owners can grow our list. And one of my
favorite ways is kind of partnering with somebody else in your niche and doing like a newsletter swap. And that's one of the fastest ways to do it is just to reach out to one person and say, I'll send out your free gift to my list. Will you send out, you know, my free gift to your list and just do that swap and just, you know, see, see what kind of results you get. So that's, you know, a very fast way to kind of start doing that. You can participate in bundles.
And I'm not sure if everybody understands what that is, but basically what that is is a group of people in your niche have gotten together and they pull together a bunch of free gifts and everybody goes shares that bundle to their audience. So it's really you're just growing together, right? That's one way to do it. Another thing that you can do is to participate as a speaker.
in like a virtual summit. So you're doing your presentation. There's a lot of speakers that are in this particular event. We do this a lot in hobby school in a lot of different type of hobby type niches, but we all get together. All the speakers, you know, have their, you know, their free gift there. They share that event to their audience. So everybody's growing together.
The other thing you can do, and I'm just gonna throw this out here, I know that there some people might not have the budget for this, but paid ads, like on Facebook and Instagram, I've been running paid ads just in the past two weeks. The term that people use there is cost per lead, but basically what you're paying for one subscriber to sign up for your email list has been less than $1.50. So it is not.
Teri Holland (16:47.554)
Thanks.
Destini Copp (16:50.097)
It can be a very economical way to grow your list fast.
Teri Holland (16:56.174)
And then when we have people on our list, how important is it to segment when it comes to newsletters? Like should our newsletter be going to everyone on our list or should we have different newsletters for different segments or how do we do that?
Destini Copp (17:13.435)
So I think it really just comes down to who's on your list and what offers do you have for them. Like for instance, on my creators MBA list, when I sent out an email there, most of those people are gonna be some type of digital product creator or online business owner, right? That's who they are. So I'm sending that email out to everybody. On my hobby school list,
I do have some segments there. So if I was gonna be promoting, let's say a summit to help them kind of monetize their hobby, I do have a subset of my entire list. My list there's about, it's close to 30,000 and I know that like 20 % of them are interested in monetizing their hobby. So if I had an event for them, I would probably only send it out to them. I wouldn't say probably, I would only send it out to them.
Teri Holland (18:04.451)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (18:10.063)
But let's say I'm promoting my organized living summit, which is what we're doing right now. That newsletter went out on Sunday. I had some other stuff in that newsletter. It went out to everybody on the email list, people who were only on our email list as an affiliate or a speaker. So those are, you know, separated, but everybody else was getting that email.
Teri Holland (18:30.606)
you
Okay, and so those are, so just make sure that I understand this. So you're sending, have different newsletters that you're sending out or are these different email, like marketing emails that you're sending out?
Destini Copp (18:42.819)
Yeah, so I might send out a newsletter that goes out just like to affiliates and speakers. So that obviously wouldn't go to, you know, the wider email list. So I do have it, you know, kind of segmented there.
Teri Holland (18:49.442)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (18:57.524)
Okay, just out of curiosity, how many different newsletters are you sending out weekly?
Destini Copp (19:04.185)
We are, I have seven that I work on. Yeah.
Teri Holland (19:06.754)
Wow, that's incredible. Absolutely amazing, amazing. Okay, and what would you say, what are some of the mistakes that you see small business owners making when it comes to building the list?
Destini Copp (19:12.133)
Yes.
Destini Copp (19:24.343)
say that finding your ideal customer. So you don't want to have a lot of people on your list that aren't going to be interested in what you have to say or sell. So that is one of the number one things.
that you need to really focus on. So let's say, and I'll go back, Teri, to something we talked about earlier, which was maybe participating in these bundles or these summits. So when you go out to find those type of events, we definitely wanna make sure that they are filled with your ideal.
customer if they're like more general or you're like maybe some people but not most people it might not be worth you participating in because you certainly don't want a bunch of people on your email list that aren't going to be interested in what you have to sell so that's one of the things that I would focus on the other thing that I would focus on is making sure that you are emailing them on a regular basis I highly highly recommend that to be
weekly because that will help you stay on top of their mind so that when you're ready to do that flash sale that we talked about or you're ready to launch that group coaching program that you're you know, they are warmed up and they know who you are because if you're gonna be emailing them out of the blue about a flash sale First of all, they're not gonna buy they're probably gonna unsubscribe and you know, it's kind of a waste of your time So you definitely want to be emailing them on a regular basis
Teri Holland (20:59.086)
Gotcha. Okay. Good to know. And that kind of goes into this question. So I reached out to my Instagram community and asked, what do you want to know about newsletters? I am bringing on the expert Destini Copp. And what do you want to know? And this question came from Lizzi and a lot of people agreed with it. They're like, yes, that that's what I need to know. So she said, I'm afraid of alienating customers by starting a newsletter. How can I change my approach? So doesn't annoy anyone or have them unsubscribe for my mailing list.
Would it be better to set them up as a separate thing to sign up or to opt in? So I think what she's asking there is should she have it separate from her regular mailing list and just start a separate one for the newsletter? And how do we not be annoying?
Destini Copp (21:44.017)
Here's the thing, if you are sending out super valuable content, you're not going to annoy them. If you are giving them value and sending that out and making it so that they cannot wait to open up your email, you're not going to alienate them. And if people unsubscribe, that's not a bad thing. That means that they weren't going to buy from you anyway.
I mean, let's just be realistic there. So we only want people who want to be on our list. And the more you email them, actually, you know, I'm okay if you want to email them every day, right? If you have that capability and you're ready to do that, you're not, mean, the people who are going to buy from you are going to want your information. They're going to want to hear from you. So I would not worry about that at all.
Teri Holland (22:36.43)
you
Destini Copp (22:41.606)
one single bit.
Teri Holland (22:43.104)
Okay, that's so good to know. I think that's in a lot of our minds is like, I don't want to annoy them, I don't want to send too much. But that totally makes sense. And I'm thinking as you're talking, I'm thinking about some of the newsletters that I subscribe to. And some of them are daily, or at least Monday to Friday, they send something. And if I don't feel like reading it that day, I just don't read it. But I stay on because most of the time I do want to open it and read it. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Now, I know, you know, I'm sure you're the same way. I get so many emails every single day and so many different newsletters. How do we stand out in someone's inbox and create a newsletter that they want to open that kind of stands out from all the other email in the ways that they're getting?
Destini Copp (23:32.081)
This actually came up a lot in the newsletter marketing summit. And really the key there is you have to have good content that people want to get in their inbox. At the end of the day, that's it. You wanna have that bookmark worthy content, right? That's kind of what we're talking about. You want them to run out to that.
Teri Holland (23:50.689)
You
Destini Copp (23:58.353)
mailbox when the next Cosmo comes in and grab it and read it and dog-eat it. You want the good content. Hands down, that's the best advice I could give anybody. Now to take it a little bit step further, We need ways to get them to open up your emails. So we have to pay attention to subject lines, preview text, but really the main thing that's going to get them to open up is your name. So.
Teri Holland (24:03.337)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (24:21.718)
it.
Teri Holland (24:26.594)
Okay.
Destini Copp (24:27.353)
you want them to know who you are and basically relate that email to you. And quite frankly, if you're not emailing them on a regular basis, they're not gonna remember who you are. So you want to email them. Like I said, I would be fine if you wanted to email every single day, but I know a lot of us, myself included, we don't have that capability. But emailing them once a week, you want them to know who you are. And definitely A, B, test.
subject lines and you can use AI to help you figure out what they should be. And don't put the name of your newsletter in your subject line. That's valuable real estate. You want to have a really good subject line that's going to kind of step out, get their attention and have that preview text.
Teri Holland (25:18.23)
Can you give us some ideas of what makes a good subject line?
Destini Copp (25:22.555)
So my best tip right now is to use AI to help you. Because I can say that some of the subject lines that I have personally thought would do well, and I put them in there to A-B test, the AI one came up on top. So what I do is I will upload my entire newsletter into AI. And you can use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whatever you're using.
upload your entire newsletter into AI and basically say, can you give me 10 plus email subject lines for this email? And then, you know, it'll come back and we'll give you some suggestions and then you can say, can you rank these on a scale of one to 10? And then it's gonna come back and say, well, this one's gonna rate, you know, 7.5, this one might be 9.2. Generally, what's interesting about this is when I see the
the list from the AI, I can kind of pick out and say, I think these are going to be some of the higher ones and I'll say, rank it. And then, you I've gotten so good at it now. I'm like, okay, I was right. So, you know, have it ranked, A, test some of the top two that the AI gives you. And generally you're going to be pretty solid there. Sometimes what I'll do, Teri, I'll tell the AI what section of the newsletter I want it to focus on.
Teri Holland (26:33.507)
Nice.
Teri Holland (26:48.142)
Oh, so you're not to have
Destini Copp (26:48.207)
Like for instance, if, cause you know, in the mini magazine, you're gonna have different sections. So there's gonna be various things maybe that the subject line could focus on. So I might give it a little bit of direction there if I feel like there's something that I want to focus on or I think it's gonna really stand out in the inbox. Like for instance, in my creator's NBA newsletter this past week, I had a pretty big name guest.
on the podcast and he had given us a really hot tip related to newsletters. So I knew that was gonna stand out in the inbox. So I told the AI, focus on that for the email subject lines.
Teri Holland (27:27.087)
I'm going to have to check out that. I'm so curious now. What's the best subject line that you've read?
Destini Copp (27:28.248)
Yeah
Destini Copp (27:36.293)
You know, there's so many good ones out there. You know, sometimes shorter works, sometimes emojis work. I've been told to not put the subscriber's name in the subject line anymore. Like that's like 1990 or whatever. That's like outdated. Like don't use that anymore. So I don't know. I have used it in the past this year and it seemed to do okay. But I've been told that that's, know.
Teri Holland (27:53.24)
Okay.
Teri Holland (27:57.826)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (28:05.009)
Don't do that anymore. So that's just old news. the thing to remember is they're only gonna see, especially because most of them are gonna be opening their emails on the phone here, they're only gonna see a small portion of it. So you want what they're gonna see to be the most important thing.
Teri Holland (28:25.974)
Okay, good to know. That's great. Now how about platforms? Because there are so many newsletter platforms out there and I know I get overwhelmed trying to figure out which one is best, what should we be on? And do you have some advice on that, on what we should be using and some maybe pros and cons of different ones?
Destini Copp (28:48.763)
So here's what I generally say when it comes to all things tech. All of this works, right? Your success in your business and in your marketing is not going to be based on the tech system that you personally use. So that's kind of my blanket general advice. Now I personally use Kit.
Teri Holland (29:06.05)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (29:14.733)
Okay.
Destini Copp (29:14.843)
But I will tell you, I have clients in the newsletter profit club that use all sorts of systems out there. Active campaign, flow desk, beehive, sub stack. mean, MailerLite, I mean, you name it, it's out there and they all work. So.
Teri Holland (29:31.15)
Okay, good to know. Good to know, I like that. Okay, so now let's go a little bit deeper into the content now. So if we're setting up like this mini magazine that you were describing and talking about and these different categories within it, how can we create a compelling voice and style? How do we, yeah, how do we do that? How do we create our content in a way that's compelling?
Destini Copp (29:59.814)
Yeah, so I think having your brand voice, your brand style for your business in general is important. So what you communicate in your emails shouldn't be any different, like in terms of the voice, right, that you have on your social media, that you have on your website. It all should like seamlessly be the same. Now, I...
personally use like AI to help me create content, whether it's my website content, I use it, you know, even like doing the transcripts and creating the stuff for the podcast episodes. I use it for helping me kind of refine my email newsletters. Generally kind of the process that I do and you know, you got to pick what works for you. But what I do is I'll generally kind of type it up and say,
you know, this is what I want to communicate and it's really rough, really raw, most definitely a draft. I'll upload that into AI and tell it, know, using my brand voice, using my brand tone, you know, can you help me improve this? Now, again, I'm using AI day in and day out, so I've kind of trained it, so it's working very well. But I think, you know, once you get into that rhythm, it's definitely gonna help you.
Teri Holland (31:21.258)
yes, and I'm glad you mentioned that about AI because that's, I know I use it regularly to help generate ideas and to help me refine my concepts and it saves so much time. So I'm glad to hear that. Do you ever run out of ideas? I mean, you're writing seven newsletters a week. Do you ever kind of wall and go, I don't know what to say this week. And then, and if so, how do you get through it? How do you generate more ideas?
Destini Copp (31:52.205)
So, you know, this is something I think that we all kind of run into at some point. How I generate ideas is I keep what I call a content bank. So whenever I see something that maybe I see it in another newsletter, maybe I run across it online, maybe it's a question I get from one of my clients or one of my members in one of my, you know, various memberships that I have.
lot of content and a lot of ideas from that. I'll put this in a content bank, basically saying, I wanna talk about this in a future newsletter, or I'm gonna take this concept from this other industry and walk them through how they can apply it to the digital product creator niche or the coaching niche. I do that a lot. And I would say generally,
I have a huge kind of bank of content that I'm working from, but it really is coming from a lot of different places. I would say the biggest place is coming from my clients and my customers and the questions that they're asking me. And some of it's just my own curiosity, right? So, you know, going back to that research study I did, I know what problems I'm having in my business. And I know if I'm having these problems.
other people are too. Like one of the things I'm like personally kind of digging into and working on right now is all about these like AI agents and chatbots and you know, creating these agents and doing all this automation. And I know like this is a huge struggle for me. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm still doing research on it and kind of going through it. I know that once I kind of feel like I master it, I'm going to be like communicating it to
the people on my email list.
Teri Holland (33:45.302)
Okay, yeah, that's good. Because I think that's, I know that's something that I always struggle with is like, now what? I'll tell you, I did have a newsletter. I did a daily one for a while. It was during lockdowns and COVID, because I had time and I wanted something creative to do and I was doing a daily email and people were opening it, loving it. And I burnt out on it where I just was like, I don't know what to say anymore. I'm out of content.
And so it stopped being five days a week, and then it was like three days a week I sending it, and then two days, and then sporadically, and then it was just gone. And I know I can hear my clients listening to this and saying, well, but I'm already creating so much on social media, and I'm already creating so much content, and this feels like one more thing I have to create. Can we...
Destini Copp (34:24.175)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (34:38.463)
use some of that content we're creating, say on social media, and include that in our newsletters? Can we simplify all the creation? Or should our newsletters be completely separate content or different content than what they're getting on our socials?
Destini Copp (34:53.103)
I think everything needs to be repurposed. Absolutely. So if you're doing something on social, it can go in the newsletter. If you're doing something in the newsletter, it can go on social. I think anything that you have can be repurposed.
Teri Holland (34:55.926)
Okay.
Teri Holland (35:08.046)
Excellent. Okay, now let's talk about monetization because I know this is what they want to hear. So let's talk about that. you know, I downloaded your free gift that you're giving the audience, your newsletter profit calculator, and that was very eye opening to go through. how do we, can you talk about the different ways we can monetize these newsletters and
Destini Copp (35:22.683)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (35:36.266)
then maybe that makes it a little more enticing too to keep doing it when we start to see the monetary reward or the potential to make money.
Destini Copp (35:43.875)
And that's kind of the problem that I was having, right? When I was doing the newsletters a year or two ago is I was sending out this content, right? And I felt like it was great content, right? I was doing great content on my podcast. People love that. But I wasn't monetizing. I felt like I was doing a lot of work there and I wasn't getting any return from it. So when I was doing the six month research study, it was very eye opening. I'm like,
Oh my goodness, there's so many more ways I could be monetizing this newsletter. So, and that's kind of what I dug into, but let me just walk you through some of the things that I found. One is just newsletter sponsorships. So that would be when somebody like sponsors your newsletter. sometimes you've seen them at the top, I'm sure. This newsletter is sponsored by XYZ and there might be a link for you to go to their website or their free gift or whatever. Newsletter ads.
Teri Holland (36:14.825)
Hahaha
Destini Copp (36:42.991)
So this might be like a classified listing, like at the bottom of one of the newsletters, know, check out this or, know, very good, you know, kind of good marketing copy, if you would, you it's really check out this, but you get the idea. So there might be like three different links down there. People are paying to put that in that newsletter. So there's a lot of different ways that you can monetize where people want to reach your
Teri Holland (36:56.62)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (37:12.881)
audience and that was you know extremely eye-opening to me. The other thing you could do is like affiliates. So let's say that you are and we'll just talk about you know I'll just throw out Flodesk. So let's say that you are kind of an affiliate for Flodesk which is an email marketing system. You could do like an article, promote it on your website, promote it in your newsletter and point people
Teri Holland (37:17.324)
Yeah.
Destini Copp (37:40.463)
you know, to that. So that's another way that you could monetize. You can sell like your digital products, obviously your coaching services or stuff like that, very seamlessly in this mini magazine style newsletter. So basically what you're doing here, you're providing, you know, super valuable content. Maybe it's in the quick tips.
section, super valuable content, and you can seamlessly slide in one of your digital products there, slide in your coaching program there. So very easy to promote things like that in your newsletter. Let's say that somebody has an event and they're going to pay you to promote it. I actually did that in hobby school earlier this year where I sent out in my newsletter.
to promote this particular event that they have coming up. So they paid me an upfront fee to actually send out that in the newsletter.
Teri Holland (38:37.41)
Very cool. How do you find sponsors for your newsletter?
Destini Copp (38:42.105)
Yeah. So sometimes it's just people reaching out to me. So that's happened quite a bit, but there are websites out there and I'll throw one out here. It's called passionfroot.me and it's spelled passion and then fruit is spelled F R O O T dot me. So if you go there, you can input the information about your newsletter and their sponsors can reach out if they want to, you know,
sponsor your newsletter. And I've done several different sponsorship deals by doing that. What I love about that is, or what I prefer to do is like a series of sponsorships where they might promote like a series, three newsletters in a row, because I think with something like that, I can get on really good results.
Teri Holland (39:16.781)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (39:33.602)
And do you have to have a certain number of subscribers before you can start getting sponsorships?
Destini Copp (39:42.865)
say that I have seen people do this with smaller email lists like 3,000, 5,000. Obviously it helps, you know, if you have a little bit more but really what it comes down to and what you need to kind of measure there is the clicks that you're going to be getting to that sponsor. That's what's very important because that sponsor will know
Teri Holland (39:51.768)
Yeah
Destini Copp (40:10.297)
let's just say they get a hundred clicks to their landing page. They know what their landing page is converting at. Let's say it's converting at 50%. So they know that they'll get 50 leads from that. And in their mind, they know, okay, I can either pay you 50 or a hundred dollars to do this, or I can run a Facebook ad to, you know, and pay, you know, whatever their cost per lead is on Facebook. So they're going to have a very good
idea in their mind what that will be worth it to them.
Teri Holland (40:43.662)
Right. And I'm guessing, I mean, I don't know, but my guess is it's more beneficial for them to run the sponsorship on your newsletter because you have an audience that's trusting you so that if you're sharing this, that's gonna be more beneficial to them than I would think a Facebook ad would.
Destini Copp (41:01.753)
Yeah, for sure. And that definitely came up in the newsletter marketing conference that advertising and other newsletters, they got a better ROI than it was running ads to cold traffic.
Teri Holland (41:16.086)
Yeah, I can definitely see that.
And okay, so you've mentioned that we could definitely do more than once a week. there a sweet spot of how many times a week, like if someone wants to go all in on this? I mean, I guess you've said that you can do daily, but is there like a sweet spot that you find of if you are doing like three a week or two, or where you really maximize your engagement?
Destini Copp (41:45.017)
Yeah, I really think it just comes down to what do you have the bandwidth to do? Because going back to your example earlier, you certainly don't want to get burned out, right? You want to do something that's good for you and what you can handle. And that's probably where I would start. And if you felt like, okay, I have, you know, capacity to do one more, then add one more to it. But I wouldn't do that in the beginning unless you knew.
Teri Holland (41:53.304)
Good night.
Teri Holland (42:08.193)
Okay.
Destini Copp (42:12.677)
this is something I really wanna do. I mean, I have business friends that do it every single day. And to me, that's a lot. I don't have that capacity to do that for me, but it works if you can do it for sure.
Teri Holland (42:28.334)
Excellent. And now I have some rapid fire questions for you if you're in the audience to get to know you a little bit outside of the newsletter world. What is your favorite book or your favorite book to recommend?
Destini Copp (42:33.101)
Okay, hit me up.
Yeah.
Destini Copp (42:44.037)
favorite book to recommend. You are putting me on. I'll just tell you what I read recently because I love books. I probably have over a thousand books. So I don't even know where to put. I love Jana Ivanovich, you know, from that perspective, you know, fun type stuff. But from a business perspective, I just got through reading Bye Back Your Time by Dan.
Teri Holland (42:47.112)
Hahaha
Teri Holland (42:58.574)
Okay.
Destini Copp (43:08.739)
Is it Martell? I think it's Dan Martell is his last name. But Buy Back Your Time is the book that I read because I clearly need more time. Everything does so and it has some really good tips in it.
Teri Holland (43:16.49)
Hahaha
Teri Holland (43:21.688)
Excellent, great choice. Favorite food?
Destini Copp (43:25.669)
Favorite food, so much, so much. think Mexican would be my, Mexican would be my top pick there and I love spicy margaritas.
Teri Holland (43:30.338)
No.
Teri Holland (43:37.198)
fun! What's your biggest pet peeve?
Destini Copp (43:42.641)
laziness probably, which my teenage boys are really driving me crazy with. So I'm making them get jobs because they're playing video games all day. I'm like, that is not being productive. You're being lazy. You're 16 and 15 years old. Go out and get jobs.
Teri Holland (43:45.236)
Here it
Teri Holland (43:51.118)
Good!
Teri Holland (44:02.38)
Nice, good for you, good. And who's a celebrity that you would like to have dinner with, dead or alive?
Destini Copp (44:10.073)
celebrity I would like to have dinner with? That's a good question. I don't even know where to answer that one. I don't know. Maybe...
I don't know, maybe one of their friends actors. I'll just throw that out. Cause I did see them live one of their episodes years ago. I'm dating myself right now when they were filming friends. was the one with Charlie Sheen was on it and Phoebe got the chicken box. So would love to see one of the friends actors.
Teri Holland (44:27.31)
Huh.
Teri Holland (44:42.424)
be very cool. And the last one, what is your go-to karaoke song?
Destini Copp (44:47.813)
Go to karaoke. You are definitely putting me on the spot. I don't even know how to answer this because I've never done karaoke. Shower song
Teri Holland (44:54.687)
Thanks
Teri Holland (44:58.582)
your favorite like shower song if you can tell from any song in the shower what we did
Destini Copp (45:04.611)
I like the Shaboosie song that he has out right now. What's that called? You know what I'm talking about. I love that song. He did such a good job with that song.
Teri Holland (45:08.224)
No, I know the song. I know the song. Yeah, that's a fine line. Very fun. And my last guest, Jaime Bell, passed along this question to ask you, what was a moment that shifted your perspective that sticks with you to this day?
Destini Copp (45:29.815)
say because I waited so long to kind of start my own you know my online business to go on my own and really become an entrepreneur I would say that the shift that I had was just you know pushing forward and kind of just taking that leap I wish I had done it earlier so that I get maybe that's a regret so that would be a regret that I have
Teri Holland (45:52.365)
Wow.
Teri Holland (45:57.772)
Yeah, and then what's one question that you would like to pass along to the next guest without knowing who they are?
Destini Copp (46:03.247)
without knowing who they are. What's one thing in your life that you would change for your future self? So five years down the road, what do you think you should be doing today to make your future self better?
Teri Holland (46:04.93)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (46:17.838)
Well, that's a fantastic question. I love that one. And any final thoughts you want to leave the audience with today?
Destini Copp (46:25.827)
Now, I would just say if you are thinking about starting your email list, thinking about using that as part of your marketing strategy, jump in. It's one of the most important things that you can do and focus on in your business. All of my revenue comes from my email list, every piece of it. And that's multiple six figures. It all comes down to my email list.
jump in, start sending out that weekly newsletter, you will start generating revenue from your newsletter, even if it's not immediate. So give us some time, you're gonna have to refine things, you're gonna have to warm up your audience, allow them to get to know you, but you will start getting revenue from it.
Teri Holland (47:17.006)
That is such great advice. Thank you so much, Destini, for coming on today. I really appreciate it.
Destini Copp (47:23.075)
No, thank you Teri for having me. It was a fun conversation here.
Teri Holland (47:27.36)
Yeah, it was fun.
