The one strategy that has made my newsletter more successful

Writing from within my business and just one more week to buy Small business newsletter magic 💌

📌 My new self-led course Small business newsletter magic is for sale for just one more week. Don’t miss out on this course that will empower and reinspire you to create a newsletter that is effective, easeful and all you.

Last month I wrote about my newsletter bringing in the vast majority of new clients and customers. I got so many great responses to that and I love how it resonated with you!

In today’s post I’ll share what has made the biggest difference in making my newsletter more effective and easeful.

When it comes to marketing our businesses, there often seems to be a split in our brains.

On the one side we have the creativity and inspiration that we put into our business and how we work in our business.

On the other side, we have the marketing, for which we feel like we need to come up with wholly new ideas, creativity and inspiration. For so many of us, these two sides of our business rarely meet. Marketing becomes like doing your accounts: a necessarily evil seemingly separate from the work you actually do in your business, the work you love.

Writing from within your business

Writing my newsletters became infinitely more easeful when I realised that the topics I loved thinking and talking about most, the topics I worked on with clients and created free and paid resources on, were exactly the topics that I could write my newsletter about.

Whereas before I had been writing about my business, I was now writing from within my business.

Not only made this writing my newsletter so much easier and fun, this approach also makes attracting clients and customers easier. So often new clients tell me that my newsletter and the topics I write about inspired them and made them want to work with me—because the newsletter gives a good sense of what working with me is really like.

Everything I teach in Small business newsletter magic, my new self-paced course, is based on writing from within your business.

In the first module I take you step by step through making your newsletter not only part of your marketing ecosystem, but also part of your business ecosystem. These foundations, even if you’ve been writing a newsletter for years, are essential to a newsletter that’s not only effective, but also remains a joy to write.

Writing from within my business, not just about it, has made all the difference.

At this point, you might think “well, it’s easy for you to say this, you run a service-based business!”. And yes, my business is indeed largely service-based and the products I offer are all digital. It’s perhaps easier for me to give a taster of my work in emails than for someone with a product-based business.

As a florist, you can’t very well send a flower with every newsletter you send (as lovely as the idea is), and as a homeware designer, you can’t send a design with every newsletter either.

Making your newsletter an explicit part of your business is possible for both service-based and product-based businesses, as I show in Small business newsletter magic. In fact, throughout the entire course I give examples from both service-based and product-based businesses.

While you might not send physical products with your digital newsletters, there are many ways in which the newsletter of both your service-based and product-based business can show your work in a smaller form:

• coaches and mentors: all of my newsletters do this. A good example that shows my 1:1 work in a smaller form is my free resource Take up space;

• yoga teachers: share your favourite exercises; tips on finding time and motivation to get on the mat; debunking ideas about who can or can’t do yoga—as well as links to your classes;

• brand designers: prompts helping people create their own brand story; the importance of a colour scheme and how to create one—as well as links to your services.

  Sarah Robertson
  ’s newsletter is a great example of this;

• knitting designers: share a free or favourite pattern; great beginner gifts to knit; projects for experienced knitters—with a link to the kits you design yourself;

• ceramicists: inspiration that goes into your products; values that guide you; how people might use your products, from mugs to candleholders and special bowls.

Remember, people will never be able to do by themselves what they’ll be able to do with your support.

You might share a free pattern in your newsletter, but that doesn’t make the chances of someone buying a paid pattern from you in the future any smaller. In fact, it only makes it bigger. A reader might not be able to afford your branding services right now and use your tips on creating a colour scheme themselves. But once they do have the resources to book you, there’s a big chance they will, because you helped them in the past.

Making sales through your newsletter

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned: there’s no predicting what an individual newsletter will do. But, having a newsletter that is rooted in your business makes it much easier for people to buy from you. It means having a newsletter that has a clear focus and strategy. A newsletter that is intentional.

An intentional newsletter does not just show in a great sales email. Having an intentional—and effective—newsletter is about all the work that’s gone before, from the description of your newsletter on your website or sign-up form, to the topics you write about, the connections you create with your readers, implicitly and explicitly.

All of this forms the foundations of my own successful newsletter, and I share these strategies with my clients again and again.

Small business newsletter magic collects all of my own best practices as well as the strategies that have helped my clients create joyful, intentional and effective newsletters over the past 5+ years.

If you’re a small business owner, freelancer or creative ready to feel reinspired and confident about your newsletter, Small business newsletter magic will help you achieve just that.

The course supports you to

• create solid foundations for a newsletter rooted in your business;

• hone your voice;

• generate topics over and over;

• create a strategy that is sustainable and works for you;

• grow your newsletter in a gentle and sustainable way;

• keep going, even if you’re disheartened, through the workshops and the five mini peptalks.

Your newsletter can be your most effective tool. You just have to know how.

Small business newsletter magic is available for sale for a limited time only, until November 12th 2024 (just one more week!). You get lifetime access to this self-led course, so once you’ve bought it you can return to it again and again and complete it at your own pace.

What people just like you love about my work

I’m currently doing your newsletter magic course and loving it :)

Susannah

You, Astrid, and your beautiful approach to all this have been like a North Star for me on this journey. Your course was pivotal for me early on and I am really grateful for the work you are putting out into the world. So, so important! Thank you.”

Nina Veteto

(forager, plant explorer and artist) on Substack for small business owners

I am so delighted to meet Astrid and for her to mentor me. I really feel like I am investing in myself when I am working with Astrid. She is incredibly encouraging, gentle and on your side, which is exactly what I needed. What’s more she has an incredible eye for detail, she picks up on nuances and any hesitations for exploration.

Bonnie Chung

, author and recovering entrepreneur about working with me 1:1

📌 Discover all seven modules of Small business newsletter magic and the five audio peptalks.

📽️ Watch the trailer

💌 Ask me a question about the course

Thank you for your support during this launch. I’ll be in your inbox a few more times over the coming week, and you can look forward to a new workshop and email in November. x

P.S. And don’t forget: while you get lifetime access to Small business newsletter magic, you can only buy the course until November 12th 2024.

Female Owned is more than a newsletter. If you are ready to do business differently, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber and become part of our gentle community of small business owners, freelancers and creatives. You’ll get bonus resources (the accountability club! the mini-mastermind! the new mini podcast series!) and behind-the-scenes posts right in your inbox.