Grow your email list faster with newsletter swaps

How to do a swap and why they're still interesting

Author

Lex Roman
March 27, 2024

With support from featured sponsor Space Cookie Designs

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Want to grow your email list? Me too!

Many of us are wondering where we can find these shiny new subscribers. Surely it can’t just be social media!

Newsletter growth gurus like Matt McGarry have been sharing a fairly consolidated playbook of what this growth looks like and it goes something like this:

0-100 Invite people you know (clients, collaborators, fans)
100-200 Make it your primary call to action (website, social bios, talks)
200-500 Tease it in social media posts (particularly LinkedIn or Twitter)
500-1000 Co-promote with other newsletters
1000+ All of the above plus start running paid ads and add a referral program

This is oversimplified and if you join Matt’s newsletter (not sponsored) you’ll get his first 1k subs guide. Today, we’re double clicking into the strategy of co-promoting with other newsletters.

Also called the newsletter swap, this growth play rose to fame during the Substack-ification of newsletters.

Two years ago, Substack paired creators together with their recommendation network. Newsletters like Lenny Rachitsky’s have credited this feature with their hockey stick growth, and in Lenny’s case, 78% of new subscribers. (Casey Newton had a very different take on this for what it’s worth)

Newsletter swaps have since taken off with platforms like Lettergrowth, Beehiiv and ConvertKit launching different ways to help people team up.

The basic premise is you promote someone else, they promote you.

In reality, newsletter swaps are still pretty new and most of your partners won’t know how to do them, making it more of a project than necessary. That’s why I wanted to make a guide on how to do a newsletter swap!

You’ll find that guide below my signature along with a few tools to check out.

Want my full take on newsletter swaps? Tune in to this week’s Low Energy Leads episode all about swaps!

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💌 How to do a newsletter swap

  1. Choose your cross-promo placement
    This can be a space within your newsletter or it can be post-subscribe on a landing page. If you’re using a tool that has a creator network type thing, it can be set up in there too. Recommend picking a consistent spot for this.

  2. Search for good partners
    Use Lettergrowth, InboxReads, Reddit or just do some good old fashion googling! You can also ask around with clients, peers or fans of your work. A good partner is going to have a similar audience, similar list size and high quality content your subscribers will be interested in.

  3. Write your “how to swap” instructions
    This is going to save you the most time. Include a screenshot example from your newsletter and what you need from them in terms of copy, image or link. You can send this to partners via email, put it in a document or create a page on your website. Bonus points for including your target audience, open and click rates. (Check mine out here)

  4. Draft your one liner
    This is what you send them to include in their newsletter. Typically this is 1-2 lines of text with a link. You can make a UTM link to ensure tracking.

  5. Schedule and send it!
    Don’t forget to check your analytics and see what the swap drove. If you like extra credit, you’ll send your partner their analytics too. You never know where these collaborations can lead!

🛠️ Newsletter swap tools

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