In May I launched The Unapologetic Romance Reader. It’s a free weekly newsletter sharing romance recommendations, author Q&As, free books, and new releases. I have a lot of hopes for what it could become. I’d like to commission writers and do some cool journalism but that will take time.
But I wasn’t getting a lot of traction. I had struggled up to 100 subscribers. I was looking for a way to jumpstart my subscriber growth and I decided that a giveaway would be a great idea.
My subscribers are big fans of books, so I figured a $25 bookshop.org giveaway would be a perfect thing that would help me get more subscribers. And it was a really good plan to be honest. I got 74 new subscribers in a week, and I got that off of a $25 bookshop.org gift card, making my subscriber acquisition cost about 33 cents a person. That exceeded my expectations. Here’s how I made that happen.
Think about what you want and what your subscribers want
A bookshop.org gift card was an obvious choice for my audience. This would have been less successful had I gone with something unrelated to their interests. I wanted, more than anything else, more subscribers. I also wanted to make it really easy for people to enter to win.
Set up a survey
beehiiv’s audience tools are unmatched. I already include a poll at the end of every issue and a welcome survey that prompts new subscribers to tell me about what they want to see in Unapologetic, so I’m very familiar with how to use them. Everything is optional. Subscribers could follow on Threads and Instagram, and check their voter registration status to get extra entries. To fill out the survey and get their extra entries, people must be subscribed.
I made really simple drop-down questions where subscribers just had to confirm that they had followed on Threads, on Instagram, and they had checked their voter registration status. None of these were required, so people could do all of them, or just one. I wanted to make it really easy on people.
I ran this on the honor system and I think the vast majority of people were honest. Since this was through a survey, I had no way to authenticate entries, but looking at the growth I had on Threads and Instagram shows this was effective. I also wanted to run this on the honor system because I wanted to encourage my subscribers to vote. My number one priority was getting new subscribers.
Set up a page
Create a page on your website so you have something to share on social media. beehiiv makes it easy to set up internal pages on your website. Go to “website builder” hit “custom pages” and then create an internal page. I made a basic giveaway page because I wanted to be able to reuse it in the future for other giveaways. The URL just uses the word giveaway so I can adapt the page to any kind of partnership I do in the future.
Promote the hell out of it
I first announced the giveaway in my newsletter at the very top with a banner image and a short note about the giveaway. I linked directly to the giveaway survey and the giveaway page I had made.
I shared the giveaway on the newletter’s Instagram and Threads accounts and reshared those posts to my personal accounts. I also shared a little about how I was doing the giveaway using beehiiv on Twitter and LinkedIn. LinkedIn was suprisingly the number one driver of subscribers with Threads coming in second.
It was also worth sharing on social media because I got more feedback from users.
Write to one person
Remember, always write your newsletters to one person. A newsletter is a one-to-one communication device. So every time I wrote about how subscribers could win a gift card, I always said YOU can win a gift card. YOU are automatically entered to win as a subscriber. Don’t point out that they have competition. Invite them into the giveaway.
Create a firm deadline
When I announced the giveaway I told everyone that the winner would be announced in the next edition. I wanted subscribers to have to see at least one edition of the newsletter. I thought some people would probably unsubscribe following the announcement and I wanted the opportunity to prove Unapologetic’s worth.
Select and announce a winner
I used Rafflys’ Wheel Picker to choose a winner. I entered everyone’s entries manually. This was the most time consuming part of the process. You could probably chose to do something simpler to choose a winner.
I then announced the winner in the most recent edition. I recommend setting up a welcome email where you collect people’s first names so it’s easier to announce who won.
Let them know that there will be more giveaways
This giveaway was successful so I plan to have more in the future. When I announced the winner, I told subscribers that there will be more chances to win in the future. I also reset the giveaway page and asked subscribers about what giveaways they want to see next.
It’s worth incentivizing growth
I know 74 subscribers isn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a lot to me. I wasn’t sure if anyone would subscribe when I first started Unapologetic. Some weeks it’s been hard to find the time to get out an issue. While the newsletter hasn’t cost me money, it also hasn’t made much (about $6 from beehiiv boosts so far).
But I love romance. I’ve missed recommending books to readers (which I used to do regularly as a library clerk). I’ve watched publications freeze their freelance budgets and dedicate less coverage to books. I believe in the future of independent media and I’ve learned a lot from curating Freelance Opportunities! So I’m hopeful for the future of this publication and I’m excited to keep developing it.
I’m glad I went with beehiiv
When I chose beehiiv as the official home of Freelance Opportunities!, I knew that I could add two more publications without incurring more fees but I didn’t think I’d ever want to. I’m so glad I went with my heart and started Unapologetic.
beehiiv has made it possible for me to:
- Launch Unapologetic for free without upgrading my plan (I’m on the scale plan)
- Use polls and surveys to better understand my audience’s interests
- Start monetizing early (beehiiv sent me three ad opportunities before I had 100 subscribers)
- Make money (I’ve made $6 with Apologetic, but I’ve made thousands with beehiiv)
- Become a better newsletter operator with the hiiv community
If you chose to go with a paid beehiiv plan and use my affiliate link, I will happily do a free one-on-one consultation where I’ll share my thoughts about improvements you can make to your existing newsletter. If you haven’t started one yet, I’ll talk to you about how to hit the ground running.
Kaitlyn Arford 