What’s Winning In Travel Content

Hi travel creators! Today, we are talking about one of my favorite topics, newsletter creation, but specifically how to increase your newsletter subscribers. Like most things in the creator world, there’s a ton of advice about how to gain more newsletter subscribers.

Keep it Simple

This can be really overwhelming, but it should not be overcomplicated. As I mentioned in previous podcast episodes, I recommend you choose one of the things that I'm going to talk about, and do it first. Make good progress on that one thing before starting on something else. This will prevent yourself from getting into a snowball of too many projects.

A Freebie as a Lead Magnet

One way to increase your email subscribers is to have a free offer that is made with your target audience in mind. You probably already have one of these, but if you don't, you've definitely seen one before. It is often those little links or freebies you'll see in Instagram bios of creators.

For example, mine is a free newsletter template for travel creators as well as a guide on how to start repurposing your own content. These little freebies speak directly to my target audience and are made specifically for travel creators.

Refreshing Your Offer/Freebie

Also, if you've had the same irresistible offer for a while, take this as a sign to give it a little refresh. It might be a good time to see if there's other pieces of content that you can turn into a freebie. I'm going to break down for you some of the categories of freebies that you can create to entice new subscribers.

So the first kind is unaware. And this means that through your freebie, your goal is to tell your target audience about a problem they might not even know that they have.

It sounds difficult, but when you start thinking about it you can think about the solutions that you offer to them.

So the second is a problem aware freebie, and this means your target audience already knows they have a problem. The goal of your freebie is to give them a result, or at least lead them to hire you to give them the full result.

The third type of freebie is based on solutions. Your target audience knows they have a problem, they just need to know why you are the solution to help them resolve that problem. Your freebie is going to give them that solution. This is pretty similar to the problem aware freebie, but if you dive in deep, you can kind of see how they are less intertwined.

Know Your Target Audience and Their Problems

The idea here is to really know your target audience and figure out what you can solve for them. What can you help them alleviate? That is their pain point. Another thing you can do is a little newsletter swap with other creators. So if you're just starting out, you can just ask to do a little guest segment on somebody else's newsletter.

Here is the biggest and most helpful thing I've learned as a person who runs a business on the internet: 90 percent of people you will meet on the internet are good humans. Good humans attract good humans. If you're a good human, keep putting that karma out there. The power of asking has single handedly helped me build a business.

Collaborating with other Travel Creators

Let's say you follow a creator who specializes in European budget travel, and you're a travel blogger who just went to France. If you spent time there and you created content about it or feel as though you could, I would build a relationship with that creator who specializes in European budget travel and then slide into their DMS or email, or whatever looks like it would make sense. Then, ask if you could write a little guest segment in their newsletter. You have to be genuine. If you just get on Instagram and you scroll through comments, you can see whether people are even paying attention to the piece of content that they are commenting on. 

Being Genuine in Your Content and Outreach

If you want this to work, you do have to be genuine. I'm not saying to just go and find people who you would like to work with and just bombard them with information. Don't do that. You have to honestly work with them and expect to get nothing in return. The worst thing they can say to you is no. The answer before you even ask is already no, so you might as well ask. Don’t let the fear of just starting your newsletter stop you from reaching out to creators to collaborate with.

Just Ask!

You never know what they're going to say. I promise the power of asking is just life changing when it comes to being a creator on the internet. You of course should post about your newsletter if you want to increase subscribers. And if you're active on a particular social media platform, that's the place you want to be grabbing people to subscribe.

Every time my newsletter goes out into the world, I have a little story template already made. I just pop into that template that week's content, and I share it on my story. I tag anyone who maybe I talked about in that week's send, or highlighted, or featured. 

Keep it Simple for Subscribers

Another thing that has worked for me was I recorded a 30 second talking ahead of what subscribers can get out of my newsletter, if they decide to subscribe. So I just shared with them, here's who my newsletter is for, here's what you can get out of it, and here's why you should subscribe.

People are only going to subscribe if they know what the heck they're getting into and that 30 second video got me a couple of new subscribers. It was also a pretty easy lift on my end and that is an example of a piece of evergreen content you can just keep plugging into your content calendar.

Now I'm just going to do a couple quick tips that you can try out that are low lift but high result. You can put in the bottom of your newsletter a little line that says, “Did a friend send you? Subscribe here.” And then of course you'll link it to a place where folks can actually subscribe.

That’s great if you feel as though your community might be forwarding these emails to somebody else. Or you can even be more explicit and ask your subscribers to send this newsletter to someone who might enjoy it, because your goal is to increase your newsletter community. So you could just say something like, “Hey, I'm trying to grow my newsletter. I value you as a subscriber and I want to create a larger community of travelers” or whatever your niche might be. Then ask them to forward it to a friend.

Use Your CTA Effectively

This next one comes down to content that you're sharing around your newsletter with the hopes of gaining new subscribers. Make sure every CTA piece of content you share pushes people to sign up to your newsletter. Don't make me talk again about how you don't own your social media content.

An email list can save you if your social media community was wiped out. Speaking of CTAs, here's mine. “Every Tuesday I send a newsletter to travel creators, highlighting another travel creator who is crushing their content. I share how they're crushing their content, what I think they did well, and how you can apply what they've done to your own niche and content. It is free, the link to subscribe is here and I guarantee you'll find something you love.

Another thing you can do that I think is really powerful is to ask for testimonials from your current subscribers. This is a great thing to do that actually does a couple of things for you. By asking for testimonials from your current subscribers, you can kind of learn what your subscribers are actually liking about your content.

If you just ask them to write a couple of words about their experience reading your newsletter or something without too many specific prompting questions, you might be surprised by what you get back in return, rather than being like what did you like about X section. They might just open your mind to different pieces of content or different ways that you can use your newsletter. I think in regards to asking for testimonials, you should try and be a little bit more open ended.

If you get this testimonial, you can use it in your future sense. This is one thing you can do to show your other subscribers, “hey, remember me, you still subscribe to me.” Other people who subscribe are getting great value out of this piece of content. And of course, you should be using this testimonial to share on your other platforms to entice more people to subscribe.

You could even tag the people who gave you a testimonial, as you should be doing anyway. They might reshare it, which then would give you another couple eyeballs on your newsletter.

Add Your Affiliate Links or Discount Codes

Also, if you have affiliate links or offers or discount codes or whatever to share with your community, putting those in your newsletter is a great way to entice new people to join your list. For example, if you create a piece of content with an affiliate link, you can tell them “If you sign up, I'll give you an extra 25 percent off your almond butter. It's so silly. but it works. People love discounts and there's nothing that people really won't do to get a discount. Most of the time, giving their email away feels like a low effort, however, it means so much to the person who's getting their email. It’s so valuable.

Go ahead and put those affiliate links in your newsletter and share on social media with your followers that they can only get the benefits of that link if they subscribe.

Next, if you’re sharing a guide or guide based on content on your Instagram, you can put half the guide on Instagram. You can even put it in the caption and then tell your followers that they're going to have to subscribe to get the other half of it. That's another great way to entice subscribers.

And be sure to go ahead and put a CTA for your newsletter right at the top of your website. And if you're wondering how do I keep subscribers, I have an entire podcast episode dedicated to ways you can increase your newsletter open rates and those principles I share in that episode apply everywhere.

Valuable and Relatable Content is Crucial

If you're posting or creating bad content, people are going to run away. But if you're creating great content, they're going to stay and tell their friends. Send me a message on instagram at @travelcontentwriting to let me know which one of these you would try, or if you have additional suggestions you want the world to know about. I can definitely share with them in the future!

If you have questions or want me to add anything else, please let me know. As always, happy creating!