Why local newsletters are great

Hey,

There seems to be a local newsletter craze on Twitter these days.

I got my start in the newsletter space by running a local newsletter. So, I thought I’d share my likes and dislikes about local newsletters.

First of all, why local newsletters are great:

1) Local FB ads are cheap

Bidding auctions determine Facebook ad prices.

A specific audience with higher demand has a higher CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions). I.e. if you’re targeting software engineers in the US, which is an audience with high demand — you’re looking at a $20+ CPM.

But there’s not that much demand for local ads, so FB usually charges anywhere between a $5-10 CPM.

And you can be incredibly specific with your local ad copy, so you’ll get higher engagement on the ads you’re running.

I’ve been getting a $0.35 - $1.00 CPA on local newsletter ads.

2) You’re in your target audience

When your audience is your actual neighbors, the content ideas will flow to you.

The writing process is easier when you’re writing to a specific avatar. In this case, the avatar will be Ann or Charlie from down the street.

3) You’ll become a local hero

OK, “hero” is pushing it…I know.

But if you’re writing a newsletter that your peers read and love — your local lifestyle will be 1.5x better.

What I mean by that, is that the newsletter will open some doors for you:

1. You’ll get to know local business owners, and they want to be on your good side

2. When meeting people for the first time, and they already love your newsletter, you instantly establish rapport.

3. You get invited to a bunch of cool local events

4. You get to know “a guy” for a lot of things. For example, my favorite artist Fred Again was playing in my hometown. It was completely sold out. So, I emailed “my guy” and got free VIP tickets within 24 hours.

There are many reasons to love your local newsletter. I'll sum it up with networking and affordable growth for paid subscribers. 

But on the flip side, here’s a few reasons why I don’t like local newsletters (and why I shut mine down):

1) Cheap CPMs on FB will affect your ads

The reason it will be easy and cheap for you to grow your local newsletter with paid ads is the same reason it also kind of sucks.

When selling ads in your newsletter, your advertisers are comparing the ads to FB. And on FB, it costs them $100 to do 10,000 impressions in your local area.

Local ad sales are an uphill battle compared to other newsletter niches.

2) Limited scalability

I thought: If I’m going to spend a bunch of my time and money on growing a newsletter, why would I spend it on a newsletter with limited scalability?

If you live in a city with 500k people, your total addressable market caps out fast. Combine that with low CPMs on your ads, and voila — the economics are not so favorable.

Sure, you can expand to other cities — but you’ll need new content for every city. You’ll have to have multiple teams to cover multiple cities to reach 500k. Compare that to running one tech newsletter with 500k subscribers.

Even though these unfavorable reasons can screw with your newsletter aspirations, I 100% recommend starting and growing a local newsletter. 

It’s honestly one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. You quickly feel like you’re making an impact on people you know. And that’s a great feeling.

Coming soon: I’m talking to a local newsletter legend. He has experience running local newsletters in multiple markets, with 300k+ subscribers.