DEEP DIVE

Last week Newsletter Marketing Summit brought together 320 founders, creators, execs, and marketers to Austin, Texas for our first-ever conference.

I got to meet many of mentors and friends in-person for the first time.

• James Altucher inspired me to drop out of college and start a business. I got to interview him on stage and learn about the $100M+ paid newsletter businesses he’s built. I would not be doing this today without James’ books and podcast.

• Alex Lieberman (co-founder of Morning Brew and StoryArb) and Sam Parr (co-founder of The Hustle and Hampton) pioneered the newsletter-first media company model. We got to hear about how they did it and what they think future of media will look like.

• Tim Huelskamp (CEO of 1440) and Erika Burghardt (VP of marketing at 1440) have built the largest and most engaged newsletter in the world (4.4M subs and 55%+ opens rates). They revealed metrics and tactics which were never talked about publicly before.

• Steph Smith (host of the a16z podcast) shared 10 AI tools and research tactics I’ll be using to take my content to the next level.

• Chenell Basilio (founder of Growth In Reverse) broke down the growth levers top newsletter creators used to hit 50k+ subscribers

• Jay Clouse (founder of Creator Science) delivered an opening talk so good, the CEO of a $50M+ media company told me (unprompted), "that was the best presentation I've seen at any event."

It was a blast.

• 73 people shared a 5-star review and video testimonial for the event.

• There were 200+ posts about the event on LinkedIn, X, and IG.

• Dozens of people shared recaps of what they learned.

However, Newsletter Marketing Summit is misunderstood.

It’s not “a newsletter conference.”

We designed the event to focus on founders and marketers building sustainable, profitable, and independent businesses using owned audiences.

• Owned audiences = channels with a direct audience relationship without an algorithm filtering your content from your audience.

• Right now that’s email, SMS, web, podcasts, and physical mail.

• Not just newsletters…

But, I get the confusion. It still has “newsletter” in the name. After a few more events, people will understand our mission.

Here’s why this is important:

Founders who win in the future will master multiple owned audience channels — not just email newsletters.

That’s why only ~50% of the content at the summit covered newsletters.

• Chris Hutchins shared the best podcasting growth hacks.

• Ryan Hashemi explained how to drive $50M in business with YouTube.

• Steph Smith and Sam Parr broke down how to build great communities.

• Neville Medhora even shared a client acquisition strategy using physical mail.

Newsletter Marketing Summit is also not a “media” event. Our event is just as much about marketing as it is about media.

That’s why it’s called Newsletter Marketing Summit.

We plan to continue having ~50% of the speakers be media founders, execs, or creators — and the other ~50% marketers.

This year about 25% of attendees didn’t have a media business. Instead they use media and newsletters to grow another business model. That’s awesome.

Here’s why our event focuses on marketing and media:

1) We will attract top marketers to the event. Marketers buy sponsorships.

We had some of the largest newsletter advertisers at this event. We’ll have even more next year. Ideally, 40-50% of attendees will be marketers who are actively partnering with media brands and creators to grow their businesses.

With this, the media founders, creators, and publishers at our event can walk with revenue in their pocket.

2) As a media founder or creator you need to be a great marketer to win.

It’s getting harder to “de-platform” your audience and move them to an owned and direct relationship channel. It's harder than ever to build an audience organically.

Marketing is a skill media founders, journalists, and creators need to master. The best media founders are also the best marketers.

3) The most successful media companies and creators sell a product or service to their audience.

If you’re building a company with sponsorships revenue only you’re doomed to fail. Yes, there are exceptions. But not many.

Most successful sponsorship businesses have been around for a long time. They have already scaled their audiences and built deep advertiser relationships.

If you’re starting out you must build a product to sell. The economics of a startup media company don't work anymore without that. Content is king, but you still need marketing to sell products — even if you have a loyal audience.

Our event is not just about the content on-stage

Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m biased but Newsletter Marketing Summit had the best content I’ve ever seen at an event.

Most events have a ton of crappy panels. We had 80% world-class presentations and 20% panels and interviews that were actually good.

Next year, the content will be even better.

But people come to events for connections. I’m proud there were 10+ attendee organized dinners and meet ups arounds the event.

We had an incredible speaker and VIP dinner we’ll do again next year. We designed extra breaks between content, long lunches, and post event networking.

Here’s what was most fun for me:

Most attendees who traveled to the event stayed at the same hotel. We selected a walkable area near the venue with dozens of bars and restaurants nearby.

I was constantly bumping into speakers and attendees. It’s little things like this that make an event worth attending.

Last thing

Over the next few days I’ll be watching the recordings of the summit. I got to watch most sessions at the event but there’s so much great content I need to revisit.

If you’d like to pre-order the recordings, go here.

The videos and slides will be available Monday.