12 of the Most Common Newsletter Mistakes – And How to Fix Them

I’ve been writing this newsletter for 2 years. And while that’s not super long, it’s long enough to have seen (and made!) plenty of mistakes.

Despite doing tons of deep dives and research about newsletters, I still make mistakes. And you know who else does?

Everyone who publishes a newsletter. Nobody is immune to mistakes.

The good news is that most mistakes we make are fixable.

So I’m going to walk through 12 of the most common newsletter mistakes I’ve seen (and made myself) to help you on your path.

Also, if you missed it, my friend Dylan and I launched the Growth In Reverse podcast this month, and we cover all of these mistakes in Episode #2.

Here’s the full, video version if you haven’t seen it.

Alright let’s kick things off with one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

1. Weak Content & Format

All of the growth hacks in the world won’t save bad content.

Good content leads to growth.

I saw this first-hand when I started Growth In Reverse. Yes, I was active on social media commenting and posting as well, but other people enjoyed my deep dives so much they were also sharing them.

There wasn’t anything like it out there at the time which made it a no-brainer to share with their other newsletter-building friends.

Which means my content was working hard for me even when I wasn’t posting. But it wasn’t just that it was “good.” It was that it was consistent.

Consistent Format

When it comes to the format, readers should know exactly what to expect each week.

If your newsletter’s format changes all the time between long and short, personality-driven and humorous to journalistic and serious, or curated links one week to essays the next, engagement and growth will suffer.

3 reasons this works:

1. Your top readers know what to expect when they open your emails. This doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and try things, but make those big changes slower and more intentionally, vs having something different show up in their inbox each week.
2. It makes it easier to grow and promote your newsletter. When you have a quick one-liner that perfectly explains your content, it makes it a no-brainer for the right people to sign up to your newsletter.
3. It makes it easy for your readers to share with their friends. When people have a hard time explaining what you do, they’re going to be much less likely to share it with others. They might have a hard time pinpointing exactly who would benefit from the content as well.

If you’re not consistent with your newsletter’s content and format, you’ll wind up confusing subscribers and risk the health of your newsletter.

2. Hiding Your Subscribe Form

This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts. And so often people don’t even realize they’re doing it.

A few months ago, a reader had bought a newsletter audit from me and in the onboarding form, they mentioned that their goal was to grow their newsletter to 5,000 subscribers by the end of the year.

A lofty goal but not impossible by any stretch.

They were doing so many things right already that I was kind of confused as to how they hadn’t already gotten there.

So I started going through their site and couldn’t find any mention of the newsletter.

….until I got all the way to the footer of their homepage.

If your newsletter growth is a priority for you, that needs to be front and center.

You can talk all about yourself and your mission in your emails. But if people don’t even know you have a newsletter, how do you think you’re going to get them to sign up??

This happens to the best of us, I get it. But go double check that it’s obvious that:

A. You have a newsletter
B. You’re making it obvious where they can sign-up

The simple fact is this: readers won’t subscribe to a newsletter they don’t know exists.

Make your subscribe form prominent on your website. Consider using pop-ups or dedicate a clear section for sign-ups.

I like what Justin Welsh does.

He wants you to sign up for the newsletter and makes it very clear how to do that.

His homepage is all about the newsletter. It’s not a side-project for him and that’s very obvious:

Even within his posts, you can see how clearly he lets you know that he has a newsletter you can sign up for:

He has a button in the navigation menu, and a form on the side of each post that stays there as you scroll down the page.

Give people multiple options to sign up for your newsletter.

3. Too Many Other Links in Bio

If Mistake #2 is the main course, then Mistake #3 is the dessert.

And it might be some spicy dessert (yum?) because I’ve got a hot take if your #1 goal is to grow your newsletter: do *not* use Linktree-type links in your social profiles.

Growing my newsletter is my main priority. So the only link I share is one to my newsletter signup page.

I want to get a subscriber on my list first.

Once they’re in, I can share all the other free resources, tools, the GIR Pro community, etc. But I want to get them on my email list first.

If I put a linktree (or similar) link in my bio with all of those things, it’s just going to confuse people.

4. Unclear Value Proposition

I touched on this in Mistake #1, but it’s worth repeating because of how important it is.

People need to understand immediately—like in 2.5 seconds—what your newsletter does and why they should subscribe to it.

I try and steer people away from being clever on their sign-up pages. You need to be super clear about what you’re newsletter is all about.

If readers don’t understand why they should subscribe, they won’t.

Tip: if your headline and call to action can be copy/pasted to someone else’s site and still make sense, it’s not clear enough.

I love how clear Dru Riley’s landing page is. The premise is clear with a compelling explanation of what to expect when you subscribe.

If I copy/pasted that onto my website, it woudn’t make sense. That’s a good thing. 🙂

A few other tips for creating a great call to action:

• Clearly communicate the unique value of your newsletter.
• Avoid over-used pitches like “Get smarter” (unless you’re writing for an audience who hasn’t seen this before)
• Focus on what makes your content special, better, unique.

Remember, be clear not clever.

5. Not Collecting Social Proof

Testimonials and social proof are such powerful tools for attracting new subscribers.

I have this page setup on my website that showcases some of the nice things people have said about my work over the years:

In my opinion, not enough creators are leveraging testimonials. I’ve even done a bad job of this.

Having others share how much they love your newsletter is way better than saying it yourself.

So many of the deep dives I’ve researched and published have used social proof as a part of their newsletter growth. Some of the more prominent ones were Eddie Shleyner and Katelyn Bourgoin.

They have social proof everywhere. Katelyn even shares testimonials as a post on social media and says it helps her get folks to sign up for the newsletter.

Actually, if you can find any creator who’s built a large audience that doesn’t have some form of social proof on their website, please send it to me.

Collecting all of that social proof used to be hard. It takes time to reach out to people and even feels kind of… selfish?

I started using Senja to collect and share all of Growth In Reverse’s social proof pretty early on and it’s made my life so much easier.

That Wall of Love you see above is one of the many ways you can use Senja to show off your testimonials.

Full disclosure, they are the very first sponsor of the Growth In Reverse podcast, and I was thrilled that they wanted to partner up. While they didn’t pay me to include them here, it’d be silly to leave this out because it makes creators lives much easier.

You can get started for free here. And if you love your free trial, use code ‘REVERSE’ to get your first month for only $1.

6. Not Sending a Welcome Email

I know this mistake seems pretty obvious, because welcome emails are super important, right?

Your welcome email is your most-read email.

That’s a big deal. They’re so important that some ESP’s (like Substack) trigger a Welcome email to new subscribers—whether you like it or not. (This is your cue to go customize that default Substack welcome email if you haven’t already.)

But despite all that, you’d be amazed how many times I’ve done a newsletter audit to only find out the creator isn’t sending a Welcome email.

And no, the double opt-in “Please confirm your email” doesn’t count.

When you don’t send a Welcome email, you leave a lot on the table.

You miss out on the chance to introduce yourself or your business. You can’t ask for a reply to “warm up” their inbox. You miss the chance to make a solid first impression and set expectations for what to expect.

A solid rule of thumb is to get a new subscriber to take ONE action from your welcome email. I think a reply is priceless.

Replies are a powerful signal to email clients that your subscriber wants to receive your newsletter, so it has a better chance of avoiding the spam filter and Promotions tab.

Other newsletters share a piece of valuable content, a poll question, or simple “Hello!” and introduction.

There are a lot of ways to do Welcome emails, but actually sending one is the key here.

7. Using the Same Welcome Email for Everyone

Okay, I rallied on and on about Welcome emails in the last section. Getting that first Welcome email set up is the most important step.

But taking it a step further…

We need to consider how subscribers are signing up for our newsletters. A generic Welcome email might not have the right context, leaving people confused and running for the ‘Mark as spam‘ button.

A great example is with newsletter recommendation networks like SparkLoop’s Upscribe, Kit’s Creator Network, and Beehiiv Boosts:

Subscribers from those channels need to be handled a little more delicately.

Why?

Because their initial intention was to sign up for one newsletter. But they got recommended 3-5 others, and passively signed up for those too.

So the next time they hop in their inboxes they see a welcome email from you and 5 other newsletters, I can almost guarantee they’ll only remember signing up for that first one.

The only one they initially wanted to sign up for.

So your generic greeting of “Hey thanks for subscribing to my newsletter!” is going to miss the mark.

And that’s where customizing your Welcome email for specific acquisition channels is important.

You don’t need to overcomplicate it. Just tailor your welcome emails based on how subscribers found you.

The key is explaining why they’re receiving the email and what to expect moving forward.

For example, here’s what Chris Donnelly does with his Step By Step newsletter. I subscribed via another newsletter’s recommendation. I love how he keeps it straight and to-the-point:

8. Ignoring Social Media

Social media can be such a great way to get traction with your newsletter in the early days.

When I started my newsletter, I was really intentional about posting teasers the day before my newsletter went out, and sharing threads of each deep dive.

It got me a lot of results and helped grow it quite a bit.

But I went a little too overboard with it and ended up burning out on social media. Don’t do that.

Pick one platform, ideally the one where your audience is, and focus on engaging consistently.

Comment on others’ posts, share your content, and build connections with other creators.

9. Not Collaborating with Other Creators

I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it again – relationships are key to growth (and mental stability as a creator 🙃)

Find creators whose audiences align with yours and find ways to work together.

The audience size doesn’t need to match yours, it’s more about audience overlap and providing something of value. Some ideas for getting started include:

• Cross promotions
• Lead magnet swaps
• Guest posting
• Being a guest on other podcasts

There are tons of different ways you can do this, but the big piece here is to make connections with others.

10. Not Using Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are one of the spiciest topics in the newsletter space right now. Some people swear by them, others very much despise them.

But as with most things, I think there is a middle ground. And this is something you probably want to test out.

Olly Richards has done a great job of building a compelling lead magnet that has driven over $175k in revenue for his business.

That’s a pretty compelling one if you ask me! 🙂

The key here is to make sure the lead magnet is very related to the content you’ll be sending out each week.

If it’s just a checklist that is sort of related, you’re going to find yourself with a bunch of people unsubscribing from your emails a few weeks after they sign up (or worse, just never opening your emails).

11. Not Thinking About Revenue Soon Enough (Or Overcomplicating It)

Growing an audience is great, but most of us need to make money from our work in order to keep doing the thing.

(If you don’t and you have unlimited funds, you can skip this one).

It’s smart to think about how you’ll monetize early on and take some actions towards that. However, start small.

Just like what I said about social media platforms: Focus on one monetization channel early on and get good at it.

If you try and do affiliate marketing, paid recommendations, sponsorships, and creating your own products all at once, you won’t get good at any of them.

Figure out how to work with sponsors, what kinds of things your audience resonates with, and improving that first before you move on to the next.

I 100% think you should diversify your revenue streams. But where we get stuck is when we see the creators we look up to doing 100 different things and think we need to do the same.

Sure, eventually. But in the beginning, focus is going to take you farther than diversification.

12. Promoting Sponsors & Affiliates You Don’t Believe In

Your audience’s trust is invaluable. Promoting irrelevant or untrustworthy sponsors erodes credibility.

Only promote products and services you use and believe in. Ensure they align with your audience’s interests and needs.

Promoting sponsors or affiliates you don’t believe in can ruin your credibility.

Your audience follows you because they trust you. If they sense inauthenticity or see you endorsing products that don’t align with their needs or your values, you risk losing that trust.

Every recommendation you make reflects on your brand, so make sure it’s something you genuinely support and something that will provide value for your audience in some way.

Be a trustworthy, respectable human. We don’t need more grifters out there on the internet.