a single source, nothing corroborates it
Message the people you already know, one by one
The opening subscribers come from friends and family who would genuinely want the thing, contacted individually rather than announced to. Writing down exactly who it is for and then messaging those people one at a time works, and a handful of personal texts alongside a page can produce a first cohort in a single evening.
The method
- 01
Tell first-time creators to get their opening subscribers by contacting friends and family who would genuinely want the content.
- 02
Validate local demand with a landing page, your personal social accounts and individual texts to friends before building anything.
What it returned
- 25
A landing page plus posts on his own Twitter and Facebook and texts to about 25 local friends produced 74 subscribers
Sources
- Start growing your audience and enter to win $5,000Nathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Grow your list to 100 subscribers and enter to win $5,000 · 2019-03-25
- How we grew a local newsletter to 10,000 subscribersNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · The first 74 subscribers · 2022-03-22
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in word of mouth
- Check word of mouth exists before you build8 unconnected · contested
- Turn buyers into fans instead of buying ads6 unconnected
- Show up in person where your readers are5 unconnected
- Make the second user arrive with the first5 unconnected
- Answer support as if it were the sales channel4 unconnected
- Give the hardest customers your hours4 unconnected