[This article is a WIP. I plan to sponsor newsletters and list down what I learn as I go]
The first one I sponsored lately was Elena Verna's newsletter. I learned about PLG from Elena, took most of her courses in Reforge, and followed her to her Growth Scoop newsletter.
Writing is actually fun and engaging. Hers alongside Kyle Poyar's Growth Unhinged newsletters are the only ones I read often.
I think she and Jonathan on her team truly set the bar on what sponsorships could look like. They truly went above and beyond
There were a few things I liked:
First, they were able to match our topic with the topic of the newsletter. Second, we even got a featured image with the "Get your free churn reduction analysis".
Third, the post linked to another blog post of ours in the article itself.
They even honored a second CTA towards the end of the article.
My ask was this,
Khushi: Can we also have a link at the bottom of the newsletter? Sometimes, I'm so curious about the topic Elena writes about that I want to finish reading it, before I click on an ad. If it's towards the end, there's no other CTA that competes with it for attention. And people won't need to scroll back up.If this list wasn't already enough, they even helped write a blurb for us and gave me feedback on the graphic when it didn't look quite good on the first try. My takeaway is to sponsor posts you already love when you're just starting out as a brand. Then, you can increase your brand awareness budget.
I wrote them this message:
This partnership is as good as it can get! I could not have asked for anything better. Thank you <3Our cost was $3000 for this post. It's publicly available here to sponsor.
For the second time around, there wasn't enough time to discuss a few items so I had to opt out of sponsoring her newsletter.
And Elena just offered it in for free. 🫨
I was playing carrom with my family, celebrating my dad's birthday. And that email came through.
It had Churnkey's name at the top. I went through so many emotions all at once.
First was an adrenaline rush. I was thinking, "Wow, what an article. Glad we're featured."
Then, a little bit of regret followed. "Was I stupid to opt out? This is an incredible article."
Then came worry. "Had I messed up the comms and they didn't see we opted out?"
Then came relief. "No worries, I'll convince the team to pay and honor it."
And it took me 30 minutes to type an email.
Before I was done overthinking and rewriting the email again and again, I heard back from her.
It said, "it's on the house".
What! My jaw just dropped.
It wasn't an accident. We were intentionally featured a second time around.
This second article of hers was even more popular on social so I definitely would've regretted opting out. Like, a lot.
But yeah, it was quite classy and kind of her to do this for us.
If you'd like more metrics (click rate etc), I'm happy to share some more of those if you'd like to contact me.
Otherwise, you can sponsor her newsletter. There's a lot that you get: a newsletter, a social post, and if you're lucky, maybe that post would be tied in to your topic. The only downside is that the shelf life for a post is around 2 weeks, after which it is behind a paywall.
But, I'm clearly biased. I love her content and would do absolutely ANYTHING to be a part of the content she puts out. So, yeah. So far, so good.
[Next Post Sponsorship Will Be Updated Here]
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