E355: How Avni Barman started a newsletter and got 70,000 subscribers in 8 months.
Her fanbase is so loyal they come to her events and she gets huge partnerships with some of the biggest tech companies.
She's also grown her LinkedIn to 25,000 followers.
Avni's socials: https://www.instagram.com/avnibarman_/ https://x.com/avnibarman_ https://www.linkedin.com/in/avnibarman/
Avni's newsletter: https://www.generationshe.co/
00:00 Introduction to Avni Barman 00:24 Avni's Marketing Success and Loyal Followers 01:22 Consistency in Newsletters 03:24 Growing a Newsletter: Strategies and Challenges 05:15 Social Media for Newsletter Growth 09:08 LinkedIn Strategies 13:13 Abundance Mindset 18:03 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
#newslettermarketing #digitalmarketing #socialmediamarketing #linkedinmarketing
The Edward Show. Your daily digital marketing podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
I'm here with Avni Barman. She is, I've talked about her on the podcast before. She's gonna share with us how she grew her news. News letter to 70,000 people who are diehard fans of hers. I wanna ask her some questions. We got the Empire State Building behind us. It is a beautiful night here in New York, New York. I am feeling really good. We just had burritos. - I'm so full. - Avni is so full. - It's really atrocious, but Empire State Building makes everything better. - Avni is a tremendous marketer. She is here from San Francisco. She gets crazy brand deals. She has a following now of almost 100,000 across TikTok and Instagram. But the thing about your followers is that they are so loyal. You get crazy engagement from your followers. They come out to your events, which is actually like, a lot of people can get 100,000 followers. But how many people can get a lot of people to actually come out to events? And I've been to Avni's events. People come out to Avni's events. She doesn't only get brand deals that pay a lot. She gets brand deals with top companies. And if you can look at Avni's Instagram and figure out what companies they are, Avni is crushing. And so it's my privilege to have Avni on the show today. - I really appreciate it. You're crushing it too. We're not even gonna get into that. Everyone already believes that. - Before this, you are also at a big tech enterprise company. - Yep. I was at Atlassian. I was a product manager. - Yeah. So Avni is a newsletter, 70,000 people. And I personally just wanna hear about how she grew it. So 70,000. And if you wanna grow a newsletter, if you wanna grow an asset, this is gonna be an amazing episode. So okay, what's like the most important thing that you do for your newsletter? - Be consistent. Like you can't miss a day. You can't even miss it by the minute, I think, because-- - How often do your newsletter go out? - Every two weeks. - Every two weeks, okay. So you don't miss like a two-week thing. - I don't even miss it by the minute. Has to go out 7 a.m. PST, Thursday morning, every two weeks. I think it's really important because the difference between a newsletter and an Instagram or a TikTok video is that it will show up in every single subscriber's inbox without fail guaranteed, versus when you post a reel or when you post a TikTok, it's not necessarily going to show up in the For You page of every follower that you have. And so that guaranteed reach is really where you have to be consistent and like not fall through because then you lose the like expectation of your subscribers. And I do think that's like the entire point of a newsletter, which is that like guaranteed reliable send that comes in your inbox and you expect it. - You really think that makes a big difference? - I think so. I also think that obviously like how you grow it is really critical to the type of person that you attract and the content that you make and the brand deals that you make and the monetization potential of it as well. So how you actually grow your subscribers and who actually makes for your list is also incredibly important to be intentional about. For example, let's say you make a bunch of short form content that drives new subscribers to your newsletter. That's unrelated to the main things that you let you write about in your newsletter. You're gonna get crazy and subscribed and you're gonna get people who are not gonna wanna click on your content, not gonna engage in it. And then you're not gonna actually have a newsletter that's an asset for you. - How long ago did you start the newsletter? - I think it's coming up on eight months now. - So you grew from zero to 70,000 in eight months? - Yeah, yeah. I always wanted to have a newsletter. I love writing. And I think I just woke up one day and just decided to come into it. - And how did you grow from zero to 70,000 subscribers in eight months? - The biggest problem with growing a newsletter that's different from growing an Instagram page or a TikTok page is it doesn't have a natural for you page. So how do people discover your newsletter? You actually have to leverage and lean on the for you page of other social media platforms to drive eyes to your newsletter to actually get people to give you their email and subscribe. But what people will do wrong is they will make viral content. They'll actually make content go viral successfully. And then at the end, they will say, "Okay, if you liked that and you want more, "go subscribe to my newsletter." And pretty much no one will subscribe. So let's say you get a million eyes on a viral piece of content, maybe you'll get a hundred subs, like that's not gonna grow it very fast. What I do instead is instead of saying, "Hey, subscribe to my newsletter "at the end of my viral piece of content." I will say download this template or download this guide or download something that is actually an actionable resource that relates directly to the post I made that actually solves their pain point that I'm fully addressing in the post. So it's way higher conversion to actually getting their email. It's way more relevant and specific to the actual piece of content that I made in viral. So I'm more likely to get higher conversions on that. And because that content that I'm making an actionable resource on that I'm making the viral content on is in the same niche I want my newsletter is about when they actually get conned to give me my email and they get my newsletter without even realizing they subscribe to it, they're actually really happy with it. They like the content 'cause I already assessed through my other piece of content that they were looking for it and then they stay subscribed and then I have a very low and subscribe rate. And I'm fully not even telling anyone who's subscribing to my newsletter that they're fully opting into my email. - What would an example be of a resource, of a video and then a resource that you give at the end of it if they, and then also like how do you send out the resource to people? - Yeah, so this is one of my, I would say, most viral pieces of content that grew my newsletter, I think my 10,000 subs overnight. I basically made this video about how I quit my job and I didn't really know what to do after that. And I used this method called Odyssey Planning and I tweaked it across a few levers. And then that's how I was able to effectively like find my purpose and land onto building my company, Genshi, which I-- - Now I'm curious, what is Odyssey Planning? - Oh yeah, so Odyssey Planning is this idea of like mapping your 10 year life and making three alternate realities of what that 10 year life could be. Like three potential possibilities of where you could end up. And this is like a really great practice that people sometimes do to imagine different possibilities of where their life can take so that they can maybe pick one and then run through it and have kind of hype conviction on that. And I said basically map these three realities across three levers that are important. So for me, those levers are impact, interest, and income. So impact is like how much impact you're making in the world with that piece of work. Interest is like how much are you interested in it? And then the last one is income. Like are you actually gonna make some money with that shit? And then you would score it. And so instead of you mapping out these three different realities and just running with one, well now you actually have like a score board with a number where there's one that's obviously better than the other. So instead of just leaning on your intuition or randomly going down a path that may not even be right for you, now you have the best possible future, one that's actually highest align on these three things that are very important for people to feel fulfilled in their life. So that was basically what my video was about. It was like, hey, I quit my job. I live my dream life now. I use this rubric that I made for myself. If you wanna use this rubric yourself, by the way, I told them that the rubric is fully on the video. So I just think it's funny that they had to download it when I already gave in the video. But I said if you wanna use this template for yourself, you can get it in my link in bio. For free. And it made me, I think it took me like five minutes to like write this template out. Basically the video in viral got a million overnight and then I got like 10,000 news that are subscribers from it. Did they know they were subscribed between users? No, but what do I put in my newsletter? I put BTS about my life and my entrepreneurship journey and my journey towards finding my hard purpose and making money. So it's when they get that email newsletter talking about my story and how I did that, they're like already bought in to my story because the content that I went viral on was super aligned to the niche that I was already running my newsletter in. And I think that's really, really critical to understand is that you can't just go viral on anything and to get someone's newsletter 'cause that's called clickbait. And clickbait doesn't actually work. But most of the time, your users don't actually know what they want until they get it. So saying, "Hey, do you want my newsletter?" Is like a sure shout way to have them be like, "Actually no, I don't want this 'cause they don't even know what they want at this point. They never read your newsletter." - Your 70,000 came from going viral and having a magnet to your newsletter. - Maybe 90%. - Yeah, 90% from just you putting out Instagrams, Instagram Reels and TikToks. - And LinkedIn posts and tweets. It's all terms of short form. - Okay, is it equal among platforms or is it largely video or is it largely LinkedIn? - It's pretty split between Instagram and LinkedIn but that doesn't have to do with the fact that Instagram and LinkedIn are the best performing. It's just where I spend the most time. If I spend just as much time on TikTok or Twitter, it would do just as well, I think. I only reason I haven't spent that much time on those other platforms is just because personally the audience I'm trying to grow doesn't spend that much time there but it's not because that wouldn't work equally well. And I just don't believe in spreading yourself thin. I just believe in focus. So I'm just deciding to focus on those platforms right now. - So, okay, I've talked about Instagram Reels on the show all the time. I think I'm really good at Instagram Reels. - You're amazing. I need to learn from you. - Well, I wanna learn from you about LinkedIn because so Avni has 25,000 followers on LinkedIn and she is converting these followers to her newsletter. And so, what do you think you do very well on LinkedIn? What sorts of strategies do you have? What type of things do you do that people might not know or realize? - One thing I learned really quickly about LinkedIn is that there's one formula that works and unfortunately hate to say it this way but I just think it's because LinkedIn's algorithm is just not that sophisticated. It only is able to process a very specific type of formula. The formula is shocking hook that addresses pain point of like someone trying to like find a job, build a company or grow in their career. It's like those only type of people like a LinkedIn, right? Okay, insert shocking hook that addresses their pain point. - Actually, so I'm curious how many entrepreneurs do you think you've linked in or do you think that the entrepreneurs are really on X? - I think they're on X but I do think that what you're not talking about is the aspiring entrepreneur, which is a massive market. The truth is really legit entrepreneurs don't need anyone's help. They gotta build their company. They should be on off. They shouldn't be on any platform. That's the truth, right? Like the fact of the matter is I'm not making content for the successful entrepreneur. Someone who's always successful doesn't mean me. I'm making content for the aspiring entrepreneur and they're everywhere. - Well, I think actually I have lots of successful entrepreneur friends who spend a lot of time on X who spend, I wouldn't say as much time on LinkedIn. LinkedIn does seem like it's more for aspiring entrepreneurs. They spend time on, definitely Instagram. I mean, we know like T-Pain just liked one of my videos today. Freaking T-Pain. - They definitely spend time on Instagram but I think Instagram is such a giant platform that it's a platform for everyone. There's no one who's not on X. - Instagram is a platform for everybody but I also-- - No one is not on Instagram. - We know that they spend time on X for sure and a lot of them learn from X too. But you're right about LinkedIn. - I tend to 100% that there are more like entrepreneurs on X because I think that some of the greatest entrepreneurial minds of our century, Elon Musk, Sam Almond, feel like that, they're spending all their time on Twitter and that's why. - I never really realized the distinction between LinkedIn and X and Instagram until now, like specifically when it comes to life. - Also the type of content that goes viral on LinkedIn versus Twitter is extremely different. - Please tell me. - Well, so I was going back to-- - Okay, I'm sorry, yeah, yeah. - On the formula. The formula for LinkedIn, okay, shocking hook that addresses the pain point of the three archetypes I tend. B2B person trying to grow in their career, aspiring entrepreneur, someone trying to up level, make more money in their job, things like that. Then it's like very tactical, actionable, step by step. Here's how I solve your problem. You can go viral off just that but if you wanna actually convert someone from that piece, whether it's to your newsletter or through something else that you're trying to sell or like you're trying to point them towards, you have to just give all of it except for the last 10% and tell them that they need to go to this other thing you're trying to direct them to to find that last 10%. I think that's the formula that works on LinkedIn. I have tried so many other things and personally it's not worked for me. That's not to say that there aren't other ways that work. I just hadn't figured it out yet. - How do you balance between not pissing people off because you tease them with the answer and then you don't give it to them versus you give them just the right amount of meat and then they wanna subscribe or then they wanna get the resource for the sauce. How do you get that balance? - Well, everything I give is free. So if they don't wanna spend 13 seconds getting the answer, they can't get pissed at me. - Oh, and you said you basically already write it and you just kind of write it again in a different way or maybe it's longer in the resource. - Oh, I definitely give the answer in the resource. - Okay. - I'm definitely teasing them. - Okay. - So I specifically talk about LinkedIn. - LinkedIn. - That specific example I gave on my Instagram world, that was true, but for LinkedIn, I'm definitely teasing them. But the fact of the matter is that I'm giving the stem for free if they spend 15 seconds giving me their email. So that's kind of on them if they don't wanna do that. And I do think that, I don't think people are annoyed. I think I'm literally handing them the answer for free. I think they're just grateful that someone's providing more resources for people because a lot of this stuff is very gate-capped, especially the stuff that I write about. I literally have spent over a year of my life when I was in every prepping at all the top big tech companies riding down every single interview question I was ever asked. Who else has done that? - That's super valuable stuff. - So yeah, you think they're not gonna put their email down? - That's super valuable stuff. - The other thing is you just have to give great value. - Yeah, yeah, that's super valuable. - It's actually a real unique shit on the internet that other people don't have. And I'm really grateful that I had the intuitive foresight five years ago to do that. But you know why I was doing that? I wasn't doing that because I knew five years later I'd want a girl brand around this. I was doing that because I was trying to share them with my friend because I wanted to be a good friend. And I thought like I have this abundance mindset where the way that product management worked for new grads in college was there was basically like one or two roles in like five or six big tech companies. So there was maybe like 10 roles available and there was like hundreds of thousand people like gunning for the role. So I knew that even if I was the greatest product manager of all time, I needed like pure miracle and luck by my side. And I was like, okay, if I just have an abundance mindset of like giving to everyone else around me is competing for this role, I have to win in the end. And I won. I was the only product manager hired at my company. And funny thing is like I would sit and collect the questions to the interviews I would get before my friends would even interview for them and I would give them the questions and then I would still get the job. Because I really do believe that that's just like having an abundance mindset like not gatekeeping, like not being competitive. Like you will win in the end because what ends up happening is like the same person who's trying to gatekeep will continue their character of gatekeeping but they will feel so obligated to you. They will still give to you. So then I would end up being with the person with like the most resources given back to me in that process. And the fact of the matter is by the time it circled back to me like my interview was done. Like I didn't need it. But I definitely think that abundance mindset like really does work when you're trying to like shoot for things that oftentimes a lot of this stuff is like really out of your hands, right? Like the only thing I can do is like work really hard, practice for that interview with the end of the day. Like it's completely out of my control whether I get the job or not. - All right, I'm gonna ask a crazy question. - I'm sorry, I'm going so off topic. - No, actually, I find this very interesting. But so you're, I agree don't gatekeep. That's why I share as much as I share. But why not just, I mean, you know, it's funny. I was gonna say, why not just give the interview questions as a LinkedIn post? But the truth is that might not go viral because like there's certain types of content. - You devalue the content. - You devalue the content, but also-- - They're like, wait, this is not that exclusive then. - You need to, yeah, you need to make it exclusive. And that's actually part of the marketing that like makes people value it more. And you might, for certain pieces of things that are really important but that are more dry, you need to get people excited first. That's why you have landing pages for valuable products. You could give the product for free and get lots of users for free and monetize in other ways. But you need a landing page to make people actually care. - Literally, exactly, yeah. No, I couldn't agree more. And I think like doing this with text is like honestly pretty easy. I think I know these principles but I do think I struggle on short form video because it's almost, I think I get in my head of counterintuitive of like, I know the principle so deeply that I almost feel funnier, silly doing it. And I think that energy transfer gets lost in my video. - Does that make sense? - It does. - Like I over, because I know-- - That's why you gotta make a million videos. - I know, that's my biggest problem is I just don't make enough content. Well, no, I make hella content. I don't make enough video content. So that's my new goal this year. - So we're gonna end it. But for Instagram, you are able to give away more. This actually makes a lot of sense. You're able to give away more on Instagram because your energy transferance on Instagram can more easily get people excited about the stuff that you're giving away. But on LinkedIn, you need to pump people up more for them to actually care because it's just text. - Exactly. - And so it kind of sounds to me that if you were going to squeeze one channel to grow a newsletter, LinkedIn might even be better because LinkedIn is all about just creating hype with text. - It's better if your newsletter is in the business and social space. It's not a generic thing. Like let's say you have a fashion newsletter, like it's not gonna be on good all LinkedIn. - That makes perfect sense. - It's very valuable. I think it's very valuable. If you think this is valuable, let me know. Follow, follow Avni. - Or subscribe to my newsletter. We'll have more tips like this. - Avni, what's your handle? And Avni is gonna be linked to in the description for the podcast, but Avni, what's your handle? - It's @AvniBerman_ on all platforms. Literally @abniB-a-r-m-a-n_ and if you wanna check out my newsletter, it'll be in the link in bio of all my socials or you can just go to generationshe.co and everything will be linked there. - Avni's newsletter will also be in the description for this podcast. Avni, Barman, thank you so much. I've talked about Avni so much on the show so it is a pleasure. - I'm so honored. - Avni is guest number two because I never take guests. I get so many people who reach out asking me to be guests and I don't know them. I don't know if they're gonna be good speakers. I don't have time to vet them. Avni is vetted and I know that Avni is a good speaker and we got a great view. So I'm happy that we are able to do this episode at freaking 11 p.m. time to edit this bad boy. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you so much for listening and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.
