Eddie Schleiner grew his newsletter by offering backlinks in exchange for testimonials. This created an overwhelming wall of social proof on his homepage, establishing instant credibility and attracting subscribers and clients, much like a product with thousands of five-star reviews on Amazon.
Sam Vanderweehlen uses ManyChat to automate Instagram DMs. When a user comments a keyword, they instantly receive the promised content. The bot then immediately follows up, asking them to subscribe to her newsletter and capturing their email directly in the DM conversation, eliminating friction.
Ollie Richards advocates for running paid ads for a lead magnet, then immediately offering a low-cost digital product ($50-$100) to new leads. Revenue from this product "liquidates" the ad cost, making lead acquisition essentially free and scalable, turning high-ticket coaching into pure profit.
Caitlin Burgoyne's company created a shorter, second newsletter featuring an interactive poll. When readers click an answer to enter a contest, they land on a thank you page that also functions as a sales page for a related product or a secondary ad spot, gamifying engagement while creating a direct path to monetization.
Nathan May built a $1M ARR business with a private, invite-only newsletter for just a few hundred key decision-makers. Instead of mass marketing, he manually invited high-value targets via LinkedIn, using social proof (mentioning their peers) to build trust and generate high-ticket sales.
Justin Moore's most effective early growth tactic was DMing new followers who fit his ideal profile. To stand out, he would watch a few seconds of their video content just to find their first name if it wasn't in their bio. This surprising level of effort built strong rapport and led to high conversion rates for his newsletter.