Harry Dry runs MarketingExamples.com and The Marketing Examples newsletter — which I profiled in the 7th edition of Growth In Reverse back in January 2023.
That was a lonnggg time ago. But you know what’s so cool? I’ve seen other people doing this recently, so I think it still works.
🧪 Fun fact: I’m running a live experiment to see if this is still viable (here’s the Twitter and LinkedIn post if you want to check it out) – I will share the results with you next week 🙂
Harry’s tried a lot of strategies to grow his newsletter (it’s now 130k+). But one super simple growth lever stood out to me.
He calls it “Growth Loops” — and it’s so simple, yet so genius.
It’s the opposite of conventional marketing advice: Instead of sending newsletter readers to his website only, he gets them moving around multiple platforms.
Why?
So he can create these “Growth Loops.” Here’s how it works.
Harry Dry’s “Growth Loops”
Think of all your published content as an ecosystem. You can leverage different content “locations” (website, newsletter, social media, etc.) for different purposes, bouncing readers around from one spot to another.
Why do this?
Well, Harry knows his newsletter readers have already converted. They are his raving fans—and who better to share your newsletter than your raving fans, right?
But why force them to only engage in one place? Instead, he shares his content all over and lets them engage with his content where it feels most natural to them.
Since Twitter/X is Harry’s main driver for new subscriber growth, he gets his subscribers to promote his newsletter FOR him on Twitter.
Smart, right?
How Harry Does It
Here’s an example. Harry sends out an email about how to make your marketing “realer”.
Instead of wasting a newsletter click on his website, Harry shares a link in his newsletter that links over to a tweet thread.
He asks his readers (the “raving fans”) to ‘like’ his thread about that post they just read.
If you noticed, that email was sent out at 1:53pm on July 24, 2020.
A few hours before, he had published a Twitter thread about this exact topic:
Now, you probably picked up on the 2-hour difference here. And I want to say that it is extremely hard to do this growth lever well.
In some of the interviews I listened to, Harry mentioned how he struggled to get this perfect every time, and this is a great example.
If he had posted the thread right as he hit publish on the email, the traction and extra clicks he would have gotten right away would have helped the thread go more “viral.”
But just as with anything on the internet, it won’t always be perfect. And I bet that the extra clicks and support later on still helped, it just might not have had as big of an impact.
So what happens?
- Readers click the link and like the tweet thread
- Which signals the algorithm that these posts are valuable.
- Which puts it in front of more Twitter users
- Resulting in more impressions, likes, comments, and shares.
- This inevitably leads to more Twitter followers
- Which leads to more newsletter subscribers.
Most people just send everything back to their newsletter, and they miss out on this additional layer of traffic.
It’s a big growth loop.
And it’s so obvious that he was successful with this strategy.
If you look back at the growth timeline, you can see that as his Twitter is growing, his newsletter is growing at the same rate.
Compare that to other people who have huge Twitter followings—but only a small percentage of email subscribers.
They’re missing a huge opportunity to grow their email list with their Twitter audience.
But the opposite also applies!
In fact, you should strongly consider this Growth Loop lever if your newsletter audience is *bigger* than your social audience.
How To Use this Growth Lever
Follow Harry’s strategy of using your newsletter to include a Twitter (or any social media link) and get your subscribers to boost your social posts, social audience, and eventually, your newsletter subscribers.
Here’s how.
Step #1 – Turn your newsletter content into a Twitter post *before* hitting ‘Send’.
- TIP: include a CTA to subscribe to your newsletter in the tweet.
Step #2 – Schedule/publish the Twitter post.
- TIP: post the tweet shortly before you publish the newsletter.
Step #3 – Add the Twitter post link to your newsletter (ideally in the middle or at the end of the newsletter).
Thank your readers for reading, then ask readers to show their appreciation/support for your free content by clicking on the link and liking and/or reposting the tweet.
Step #4 – Publish the newsletter!
Not on Twitter? That’s okay – this strategy can work on just about any social platform!
This Can Work With a Lead Magnet, Too
Another way to try out this method is with a lead magnet.
You can mention a free resource (ie. lead magnet) in your newsletter—but in order to access it, readers have to comment on your social post (which you’ll link to).
You can then either DM a link to access the resource, or get them to enter their email address for access. There’s a little tech to set it up, but it’s not too hard.
Either way, your subscriber’s comments will boost your post, which should lead to more followers and more subscribers.
Leverage your raving fans (ie. subscribers) to promote your content, like Harry does. And this can result in more followers and more subscribers.
Experiment in Public
Alright, so I’m testing this out for myself. Please go comment on either this Tweet or LinkedIn post that I (literally just now) hit publish on.
It takes hours to put these posts together, and only 15 seconds to support this work. Thanks!
If you want to learn more of his ways, read the full deep dive on how Harry grew Marketing Examples to 130k subscribers.
