Together with

Hello! I’m excited to announce Life of Scoop now has 2 sponsors.

JK. We only have 1 but I’m dropping my beehiiv affiliate link here. It’s what I use to send my local newsletter and it’s great. If you haven’t started your local newsletter yet, start it on beehiiv 🐝 

Ok. Let’s dive in.

Shit I almost forgot. Life of Scoop now has a referral program with super valuable rewards for sharing. It’s near the bottom of this email.

How much does it cost to start a local newsletter?

Sorry. Like almost everything, the answer is a big fat, it depends. But there’s good news.

It depends on you.

A better question is, “How much are you willing to spend?”

I started Naptown Scoop with my life savings – $25,000. I used 84% on Facebook ads. That’s foreshadowing.

Let’s go through the things you’ll have to spend money on to launch, grow, and monetize a local newsletter. Spoiler alert: #4 is the most important.

1. Software

In the beginning, you don’t have to spend any money here. beehiiv has a free plan – as do several other email platforms. Notion (what I recommend for organizing content) can also be free. Canva even has a free plan for your graphic design needs.

2. Talent

You also don’t have to spend any money on this in the beginning. The bad news = you’ll have to do everything. But that’s ok. If you’re just testing out the idea, doing everything yourself isn’t bad. Just don’t be afraid to delegate later.

3. Branding

You guessed it. You can get away with this for free. Think up a name, design a quick logo, and don’t even worry about a website until you have traction. A beehiiv signup page is good enough to start.

If you do want a website, you can create a simple (and free) one with Carrd.

For what it’s worth, I started from Day 1 with a simple Webflow site. Here it is in all its glory.

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4. Growth

If you have money to spend, this is where you spend it. And I’m not just saying that because I did. Think about this.

The faster you get readers, the faster you can sell ads for meaningful money.

I spent $21,000 over 2 years to get 10,000 readers. What if I spent that in 1 year? Could I have started selling expensive, yearlong ad packages sooner?

• One of the most common questions I hear is, “When do I start spending money on ads to grow?”

Before you send the first email.

I advertised Naptown Scoop for a week before sending the first email and sent the first one to 70 people. Damn near every single one of them came from ads. Except for my mom. Thanks, Mom.

And btw, when I talk about spending to grow, I’m talking about Facebook ads. It’s still, without a doubt, the best place to advertise a local newsletter. As for how to make those ads? That’s a topic for another day.

Great. I still don’t know how much I need 😠 

$0 technically speaking. There are free plans for all the tools you need, you don’t need to hire people right away, and you don’t have to advertise. But. . .

I strongly recommend you put aside money to advertise your local newsletter on Facebook. The more the better. I went all in with my life savings. You don’t have to do that. But the more you’re willing to spend, the faster you’ll grow. And the faster you’ll sell ad packages that make real money.

Speaking of real money. . .

Naptown Scoop January advertising report

• Newsletter advertising: $12,215

• Social media advertising: $0

That newsletter advertising number is a little light because I screwed something up a while back and comped a bunch of January 2024 ads.

What’s cookin’ at Naptown Scoop?

I’m hiring a sales rep. Haven’t had one for months. I’m the only one selling and I want to make more money. We had some total killers apply. I’ve got 3 second-round interviews today.

I’m building a job board. I’ve wanted to do this for a while and finally found an easy solution. Target for this is $5k in revenue for 2024.

I’m reworking our referral program. The first milestone has been a birthday shoutout since the beginning. I’m replacing this with access to an invite-only Facebook group and offering birthday shoutouts for sale using Passionfroot. Target for this is $5k in revenue.

Speaking of referral programs. . .

Life of Scoop’s new referral program

If you share Life of Scoop, I’ll reward you.

• Get 2 folks to join and I’ll send you a PDF of all the tools I use to run my local newsletter.

• Get 15 and I’ll evaluate a writing sample and tell you how to improve.

• Get 100 and I’ll give you a free hour of local newsletter consulting ($350 value).

• And if you somehow get 1,000 I will fly you out to my newsletter’s annual party, put you up in a hotel, and make you the guest of honor.

Life of Scoop stuff

• I do local newsletter consulting. Schedule that here.

• You can sponsor this newsletter (465 hungry entrepreneurs, 80% open rate). Email me to get up in here.