Here’s a new perspective I found insightful, about who you sell to. Maybe it can save you some headache and even failure:
A few days ago, I was talking to a newsletter strategy consultant. He was telling me about his own newsletter, and the paid advertising he is planning for getting paid subscribers to it.
I won’t name this guy — I’m not sure he would want me to — and I won’t reveal the kinds of people he will be targeting with his ads — not so relevant to others but maybe very valuable to him.
So what’s left?
What’s left is the people he will not be targeting with his ads. And this I believe is relevant whatever your actual business is.
The newsletter expert said he will not be targeting independent newsletter creators. Why? Because, as he told me, they are “a little short term and flaky.”
How could it really be any other way?
If somebody has no employees, no office, no expensive and custom equipment, no contracts to fulfill, and in general no obligations, what’s keeping them going if things ever get bad? The answer is nothing.
That’s why it’s in general better to sell to, say, dentists, who are tethered by a million hooks to their businesses, than to, say, copywriters, who can decide from today to tomorrow to close their laptops and go work as a park ranger or to maybe roast coffee for a living.
That’s not to say you can’t make money selling to people who are a little short-term and flaky. But it exposes you to more risk, and it limits what you can sell and for how much.
That’s something to keep in mind whether you sell to other businesses (hopefully, chained and burdened dentists) or direct to consumers (hopefully, people with an unavoidable problem or an all-consuming obsession).
Last point:
I found an interesting new newsletter recently.
This newsletter gives the perspective of somebody who manages to profit from short-term and flaky independent newsletter creators. That somebody is Scott Oldford, who has been buying up independent newsletters and then investing in them and scaling them up. Scott writes about his adventures here: