Closing the Paid Newsletter (but not the whole thing!)
Hi all:
Part of my New Year’s plan is to make my content more actionable and accessible to people.
For this reason, I’ve decided to close the paid newsletter. Everyone who paid for this month will be getting a refund.
(WHAT?!)
The reason I’ve decided to close the paid newsletter is because I no longer feel comfortable running it. The main selling point for the paid newsletter is to see what an actual career media buyer does. But I can’t really talk too much about what I do, so the result has been content that isn’t really actionable, is far too cloaked in mystery, and uses numbers that are often just made up to protect the company.
Now, none of you know what my company is or what we sell. That was by design: to not break NDA and to make sure that nothing I talk about endangers the company in any way.
But I thought about it further. No, the information wasn’t sensitive, but it was operational. It doesn’t breach contract, but it did make me think about what I would do if an employee was monetizing information about company processes, no matter how much that employee shrouded it in mystery. My job isn’t at stake, but my integrity is, and that I cannot abide.
Yes, this was MY decision (I was NOT given a talking to by the higher-ups at the company, lol) and it’s one I’m sticking with. You might think it’s stupid, or overly fearful, but I don’t care. It’s my decision. But that’s not even the real problem.
The real problem is that, for most people, what I was talking about in my subscriber updates wasn’t actionable at all. I can’t possibly give away anything truly actionable that is in reference to a currently operating company, so I didn’t even try. Anything even close to actionable would be too much information!
The end result was content that I didn’t like that wasn’t even all that useful.
Then I thought about it even further. If I could give away actionable, general advice, then why not just give it away for free? I don’t need this newsletter to pay my bills or anything like that. I’d much rather have a large list of people who hang onto my word rather than gated content that can’t be shared.
My most popular post was about a way that I turned my long commute into a revenue generator and prime learning time. More of my posts will be more like that: general, actionable advice related to optimization and media buying that anyone can do.
For this reason, I’ve revoked everyone’s paid subscription and will only be taking free ones. I will not be placing ads in the newsletter, I will not be providing affiliate links. I’ll monetize it some other way.
So, the focus of the content will be very different. It’ll talk less about what I do, but more why I do what I do. It’ll be general and actionable. Overall better content without inundating you with information about processes that you can’t possibly replicate.
Will the paid newsletter make a comeback? Honestly, probably not. But who knows.