A question about print newsletters pops in:<\/p>\n
Hi Ben,<\/strong><\/p>\n
Referring to a few comments you\u2019ve made about how your current business has in some ways moved beyond email marketing and copywriting, (unless I\u2019ve misread or am not recalling correctly) my question is this:<\/strong><\/p>\n
If you were to start a print newsletter today, would it be Email Players? Would it be something more in line with the 6th Gen marketing you\u2019ve mentioned so often in the last year, ie world-building, building a personality-based brand?<\/strong><\/p>\n
I know that Email Players has become what it is very organically, and is very much \u201cyou\u201d in every way. I\u2019m just curious what if anything would be different in a Ben Settle print newsletter that began today vs. 10 years ago?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Thank you for your time, and of course feel free to use this however you see fit.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Some thoughts:<\/p>\n
1. I published my first print newsletter (The Crypto Marketing Newsletter) in 2010.<\/strong><\/p>\n
It ran for 30 issues and became obsolete shortly after I launched my second print newsletter (Email Players) in 2011 \u2014 which, incidentally, just celebrated it\u2019s 11th year of publication this month, and is about to celebrate its 134th issue next month.<\/p>\n
2. I imagine it\u2019s a lot harder to get traction with a print newsletter for most today.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Certainly harder than it was ten years ago simply because everyone and their mother now has a subscription offer, and especially because now everyone thinks they want to sell a print newsletter specifically – whether they have the discipline, body of knowledge & experience, willingness to mail aggressively, or proper infrastructure in place or not.<\/p>\n
3. It\u2019s my own fault.<\/strong><\/p>\n
If feedback I\u2019ve gotten over the past few years is any indication, I am at least partially responsible for the explosion of interest in print newsletters in my corner of the internet. I have been told by quite a few people how they have been inspired by me doing it so consistently for so long. Plus, there are elBenbo Press book buyers like Russell Brunson who said that book helped with his revival of Dan Kennedy\u2019s content and newsletter he bought the rights to and now publishes.<\/p>\n
Specifically he said:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI was about to make SO many mistakes!! You saved me! (And honestly Dan\u2019s legacy as well)\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
4. Withering inflation & other economic uncertainties are changing the game<\/strong><\/p>\n
And not just in the obvious ways.<\/p>\n
Like, for example:<\/p>\n
Ever-rising supply chain problems & a worldwide paper shortage (it can now take 5 MONTHS to get some of my hard cover books like my upcoming book about the visual & design-side of marketing printed, if that tells you something)\u2026 flaky shipping services\u2026 rising international customs fees & regulations\u2026 not to mention getting far more churn than a wide-eyed new publisher fresh off the turnip truck will expect due to dollar devaluation and disappearing access to easy credit for customers, more competition from all them others thinking they want to be newsletter publishers, etc\u2026 is all going to kill off a lot of the average newbie print newsletter publisher\u2019s profitability.<\/p>\n
For most it will be either unsustainable or not worth the time.<\/p>\n
And this is especially the case if they grow it to any significant size.<\/p>\n
I enjoy rock solid marketplace positioning and know a lot of ways to stay ahead in the game and make any competition irrelevant to the kind of buyers I want after all these years, so am relatively unaffected by the above problems.<\/p>\n
But a brand spanking new newsletter publisher?<\/p>\n
Not so much…<\/p>\n
5. So if starting over today I probably would not even do a print newsletter.<\/strong><\/p>\n
That’d be playing the game on hard mode.<\/p>\n
Instead I’d go pure digital delivery via cheap & reliable mobile app tech combined with audio\/video livestreaming, to deliver subscription-style content using Learnistic. It\u2019s the main reason I wanted to be an investor in Learnistic in the first place. I saw some of the inevitable writing on the wall even back in 2019.<\/p>\n
Covid, inflation, etc only accelerated it all.<\/p>\n
6. Not sure what my main focus would be.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Probably I would seek a small consumer niche or something non-business-related.<\/p>\n
All I\u2019ve been doing is creating potential “rival gunslingers” all these years selling Email Players and my other how-to books. And it\u2019d be interesting to see how things would pan out if I went totally anonymous, in a niche that isn\u2019t sophisticated about marketing, and where other marketers couldn\u2019t find me, copy me, try to \u201creverse engineer\u201d me, and all that jazz. Older I get, the more I appreciate something I heard Email Players subscriber Ryan Healy say many years ago when we used to be in a small mastermind together:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere\u2019s more money in keeping secrets than sharing them.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So should my niche be outlawed or something, who knows what the future holds?<\/p>\n
This has all been a good thought exercise either way.<\/p>\n
If you want to learn more about Email Players go here:<\/p>\n