A couple days ago, I started receiving a gentle barrage of email notifications like this:
“The John Bejakovic Letter: A new contact has been added to your list”
“The John Bejakovic Letter: A new contact has been added to your list”
“The John Bejakovic Letter: A new contact has been added to your list”
…
I checked where all these “new contacts” were coming from.
It turned out to be a website that promotes itself as a discovery platform for newsletters. And sure enough, on the front page of the site, there was the “John Bejakovic Newsletter” with the following nonsense description:
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“The John Bejakovic Newsletter is not simply another regular publication; it is a vibrant, information-rich tool that provides a unique entryway to the corporate and commercial worlds.”
“Pros: John Bejakovic’s newsletter provides subscribers a tactical advantage in today’s fast-paced business environment by delivering industry-leading insights.”
“Cons: Persistent follow-up emails from John Bejakovic’s newsletter may be sent to subscribers who unsubscribe, and over time these emails may start to annoy you.”
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In case it’s not clear:
This has nothing whatsoever to do with this newsletter you’re reading now.
I’m guessing the above fluff was generated by AI.
And I’m guessing the “new contacts” who subscribed to my list were all bots — based on the email addresses, the associated first names that were put in, and the behavior of the contacts after subscribing.
So that’s the bad part, the skeleton that I trotted out of the closet and made dance at the top of my email. Now here’s the good part:
These bot contacts came via Sparkloop. I’ve written about Sparkloop before. It’s a newsletter-recommendation marketplace.
Other newsletters (and occasional scam websites, like the above) can find you on Sparkloop and send you newsletter subscribers you pay for.
Or don’t pay for — because Sparkloop allows you to set your own criteria for who is an engaged, worthwhile subscriber, including location or activity or your own intuition.
For example:
I deleted all the contacts that came via that newsletter discovery website, prolly close to 100. This won’t cost me anything, except a bit of time, which I’m trying to recoup by writing this email.
On the other hand, I have been getting a trickle of actual engaged readers via Sparkloop. (It’s only a trickle, because I’m not using the co-reg functionality, but am only accepting leads who were sent to my optin page.)
I’m also using Sparkloop to grow my health newsletter, and I’m getting good results there.
Point being, you gotta keep an eye on Sparkloop, because it’s a shiba inu that will eat from the trashcan from time to time.
But if you’re willing to keep an eye on it, then it’s as close as I’ve found to an automated way to grow your newsletter with the kinds of leads you yourself want.
If you wanna try Sparkloop out, you can find it at link below. Yes, that’s an affiliate link but it’s not likely to pay me anything — not unless you also decide to use Sparkloop to make some money via promoting other newsletters, which is a topic for another email. Here’s the link: