
The Email Mafia (PayPal's Got Nothing on Email) - Cmccann7
http://thestartupdigest.com/2010/07/28/email-mafia-paypal-mafia-email/
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callmeed
Ok, so DailyCandy is for fashion/style/shopping, Thrillist is for
food/drink/shopping, IdealBite is for green, and Vital Juice is for
fitness/nutrition ...

Seems like there are other huge markets that are ideal for email newsletters:

\- Sports news/scores for your city

\- Investing (daily stock tips and news)

\- Real estate (select listings that just went on the market in your city with
good pictures like jet setter does)

\- Arts & entertainment (museum, gallery, theater, and movie stuff—though I
think DailyCandy does some of this)

I'm sure some of these exist (especially investing) but weren't mentioned but
I bet many are old-school and the spaces are ripe for improvement.

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duck
Great post and I agree... I think newsletters fit with what people are looking
for these days and the market is wide open.

A newsletter/founder that probably isn't big enough to make it on that list,
but that I would highly recommend is Mark Hurst's Good Experience newsletter -
<http://www.goodexperience.com>.

It is what originally inspired me to want to create a newsletter (which ended
up finally being Hacker Newsletter - <http://www.hackernewsletter.com>) and is
the only newsletter that I open and read each one. To me it is just like
getting your favorite magazine, but better since I don't have to do anything
but open gmail.

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iamelgringo
Startup Digest is amazing. They started picking up our Hackers and Founders
Silicon Valley events a few months ago, and our total membership has gone from
800 members to 1250 members in 3 months. Our San Francisco events have gotten
30% bigger per event.

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Cmccann7
Thanks Jonathan, your event rocks and people love attending HF

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jashmenn
I know basically nothing about this business.

I just read Jason Baptiste's two articles about how this is "serious business"
and that was a nice overview.

Anyone else have a suggested reading list for learning more?

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Cmccann7
Great idea, we will compile a list for our next post :)

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Cmccann7
I wrote this post in response to all of the recent HN discussions on email
newsletters. Trying to shed more light on the profitable email industry that
never gets talked about.

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kwamenum86
The one thing people don't talk about with these newsletters: most of these
emails are "bacon. " That is what the email industry calls spam's pretty
cousin. People don't try to block these emails because hey, they signed up to
receive them. But most people also aren't reading these emails.

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aerique
Is this serious? I'm reading this after the Steve Yegge blog and can't tell
anymore.

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jasonlbaptiste
Email newsletters are serious business.

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jasonkester
Anybody care to explain how you actually make money from an email newsletter?
This article, and all the ones linked from it (and the ones linked from them)
just tells you how much people sold their lists for. Never is it mentioned
_why_ these lists are valuable.

I'm on a couple of the lists mentioned. They don't charge me anything. They
don't try to sell me anything. How is this possibly valuable to anybody in
terms of dollars?

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eli
Advertising. My employer makes big bucks on free email newsletters. The trick
is having an engaged audience of people who advertisers want to reach. You can
get ad rates that (at least in terms of CPM) are astronomical compared to the
web

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derwiki
I feel like this article is missing a lot of information. The "Email Mafia" is
listed, but only a few mention total subscriber counts -- which in itself
isn't an important number until you talk about open and clickthrough rates.

I also didn't see the newsletters that I regularly get in my inbox: Groupon,
LinkedIn, Mint, Yelp, etc.

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rokhayakebe
Linkedin, Mint, and Yelp are somewhat different. Email is part of their
communication with users. Groupon and the other email companies use email as
their primary service. They curate information and deliver it to their
readers.

I have been thinking about doing something in this space, but after some
initial customer development decided to give up on it.

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mheinrich
Interesting list of companies, another company I've seen is VitalJuice (city
based, healthy lifestyle newsletter)

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Cmccann7
Yep the Pilot Group I believe also invested in VitalJuice

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Cmccann7
direct link: [http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/18/vital-juice-marketing-
cmo-n...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/18/vital-juice-marketing-cmo-network-
vitaljuice.html)

"In 2006 they left their jobs and started a wellness consulting outfit, and
for three months, worked with Revolution Health, a Steve Case-backed company.
In May 2007 they went out on their own, tapping their own funds to create
Vital Juice. In October 2008 they raised $1 million in Series A funding from
Bob Pittman's Pilot Group"

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waleedka
Do you monetize newsletters with ads only, or are there other ways? Also, what
kind of ads can you use? I don't think AdSense can be used in emails.

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eli
There are some newsletters that charge directly for their content, though
those are the exception. You couldn't do that for just any market. For
example, The Hotline from National Journal is a paid email newsletter that
lots of politicos here in DC subscribe to.

I've even seen people who charge for the newsletter, but you can get it for
free if you fill out an extensive questionnaire and "qualify".

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Cmccann7
Lerter.ly Is trying to make charging for email newsletters easier. I agree
that it's not right for every market though, we polled our audience and less
that 1% were willing to pay $5/mo for the content. In the startup world there
is just too much free info to justify paying for it.

~~~
eli
I think that having _actionable_ content would be the key. People who work in
politics have a lot riding on being in the know, so Hotline succeeds. I think
this is also part of the reason why WSJ can charge for their website, but USA
Today can't.

Thanks for the tip on letter.ly

