The TRUTH About LinkedIn Newsletters in 2025

Takeaways on LinkedIn Newsletters (2025)

• LinkedIn “newsletters” are not a real email newsletter:
  • You don’t get subscriber email addresses.
  • It’s mostly a LinkedIn-delivered notification experience that may sometimes send as an email from LinkedIn.
• The speaker’s claim: LinkedIn newsletters rarely produce tangible business results (leads/clients/revenue) compared to focusing on high-performing LinkedIn posts (images/carousels/videos).
• Operational issue: publishing a LinkedIn newsletter also generates a LinkedIn post that tends to perform poorly.
• Platform constraint: LinkedIn may penalize multiple posts per day, making newsletter-post duplication inefficient.
• Recommendation:
  • Don’t build around LinkedIn newsletters.
  • Use LinkedIn posts + lead magnets/CTAs to move people off-platform to an email list you own.

Framework / decision rule implied

If a channel can’t help you build an owned audience (email list), it’s likely a weak growth lever.

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What “Newsletter Businesses” Really Are

• A newsletter is described as a channel/strategy, not the business model.
• The actual model is usually:
  • Media/creator business (content)
  • Often paired with an adjacent monetization business (e.g., selling services/agency, sponsorships, paid products)
• “Winner-take-most” dynamic:
  • There’s limited room for mediocre content.
  • You generally need 1–2 strong winners per category.

Actionable positioning

• Pick a niche/category aligned to:
  • your experience
  • your passions
  • your ability to publish unique insights
• Examples/benchmarks mentioned:
  • B2B newsletters with ~19,000 subscribers can sell sponsorship packages for $20k–$40k when the audience is highly engaged (executives/founders/leaders).

Example business outcome

• Using a newsletter as an acquisition engine + adding agency services led to ~$1M+ ARR (“seven figures in annual recurring revenue”) relatively quickly (for their prior experience mentioned).

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Starting Point: Content Strategy + Distribution “Discovery”

Platform guidance (where to start)

Beehive vs Substack vs Kit

• Clavio: only for e-commerce contexts.
• Substack:
  • Useful for discovery
  • Risky/limiting as the “bedrock” because of:
    • limited brand/site control
    • no email marketing features/segmentation
    • no open API / weak integrations
    • platform dependency (“platform risk”)
  • Substack can work if you already have built-in distribution via other big Substackers or your network.
• Long-term “bedrock” recommendation:
  • If building a serious owned-email business: choose Beehive or Kit
  • Beehive: stronger all-in-one website/blog/landing page tooling
  • Kit: great email/newsletter capability, but many successful users pair it with another site tool (e.g., WordPress/Webflow) because Kit’s website features are “not quite as good yet”
  • Beehive is newer and may be more buggy, but issues are usually resolved.

Organic discoverability priorities (general)

• Use the platform where your target audience already lives:
  • B2B/professional: LinkedIn suggested
  • broad mainstream: YouTube/Instagram
  • Substack discovery: fits writers/journalists/politics/business professionals
• Evergreen content preference (team example):
  • YouTube is their main discovery engine because content keeps generating demand over time (“evergreen content doesn’t disappear after a day”).

Concrete content longevity example

• They claim older YouTube content can still bring meaningful weekly/monthly views and continues to generate leads/customers (they cited older content still getting thousands of views per week, with unclear cadence in subtitles—the point being evergreen performance).

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Content Production System (“Hub and Spoke”)

• Their newsletter is positioned as the hub:
  • Publish a weekly newsletter
  • Repurpose into:
    • LinkedIn posts
    • tweets
    • future Instagram infographics
    • YouTube video scripts
    • possibly podcast topics (Q&A style)
• Target operating model (“in a perfect world”):
  • 1 newsletter/week
  • → 1 YouTube video
  • → 5 LinkedIn posts
  • → 5 Instagram posts
• Alternative hub model acknowledged:
  • Some creators use YouTube/podcast as the hub and repurpose into written posts via transcripts.

Operational constraint

Don’t “scatter” across every platform simultaneously; choose a hub + repurpose.

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Using AI in Newsletter Creation (Without Losing “Human Touch”)

• Approach: AI acts as a delegator/editor, not a content originator.
• Workflow:
  • Write a first draft yourself
  • Put it into AI for:
    • proofreading/copy editing (grammar, misspellings)
    • clarity improvements
    • content strengthening (ask for more detail where a section feels weak)
    • improve intro/outro
• Philosophy:
  • AI-written “full output from a topic” tends to be weaker than the writer’s original insight.
  • Best use is punching up.

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When to Pivot vs Stay Consistent (Newsletter-Specific)

• They use signal metrics rather than gut feel.
• If after 30 days (assuming at least ~1,000 intentional subscribers) you see:
  • no growth
  • weak engagement
  • no feedback
  • no sales then pivot likely needed.

Suggested experiment window

• 30–60 days max before adjusting:
  • topics
  • format
  • length (longer/shorter)

Key emphasis

• Iterate more on your social discovery channels (faster daily feedback).
• Newsletter feedback is slower; use social/customer conversations to inform newsletter changes.

Practical trigger

• If you hear the same customer pain repeatedly (e.g., multiple customers describing it in a week), create content about it—“what’s personal is universal.”

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Rebranding a Publication (Name Change) Playbook

• Recommendation: keep messaging simple, like explaining it in person.
• Avoid name sprawl:
  • Too many names across newsletter/company/product/podcast becomes confusing.
  • Aim for 1–3 names total across the business.

Communication rollout timeline

• 1–2 reminders before
• 1 announcement at the change
• 1–2 reminders after

Example cited

• ConvertKit → Kit:
  • Executed well by pre-announcing for ~3 months
  • Updating bios/emails/social messaging
  • Then announcing the final change
• They also noted ConvertKit tried once before (around 2020) and faced backlash, then corrected with a better rollout later.

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Pricing Newsletter Sponsorships (Supply/Demand + Click-Based Pricing)

Pricing logic

• Sponsorship pricing follows supply and demand.
• Start conservative to win early sponsors, aiming to sell out ad inventory for:
  • 2 weeks to 30 days to 2 months (inventory windows mentioned)

Pricing rule of thumb

• Base pricing on average unique clicks from your newsletter links to advertisers.
• Example math given:
  • average 100 unique clicks per ad
  • price target $5 per unique click
  • flat fee ≈ $500
  • (they also suggest starting even lower: $2–$3 per click)

How to sell/package for better advertiser ROI

• Don’t sell single ads early:
  • A single ad yields limited conversion opportunities.
  • Conceptual example: 100 clicks with typical conversion rates could yield ~one customer or less.
• Instead, sell packages:
  • 3–5 ads minimum
  • discount for bundling
• Typical starting package price range:
  • ~$500 to $2,000
  • emphasize lowering advertiser risk for first-time sponsors

Feedback loop / scaling

• If inventory sells out quickly for 30–60 days, raise prices.
• If struggling, lower prices until you can reliably sell out for 30–60 days.
• As unique clicks and demand improve, increase pricing over time.

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List Cleaning + Deliverability (Email Performance Operations)

Core principles (KPI impact)

• Most people don’t do list cleaning, which harms:
  • open rate
  • click-through rate
  • deliverability
  • inbox placement for engaged users

Churn/engagement thresholds (explicit rules)

• Unsubscribe inactive recipients:
  • If someone has not opened or clicked in 90+ days, unsubscribe/stop sending.
• Define an “active sending segment” (base segment) so sends go to engaged users.
  • Example “active” criteria (sent to those matching at least one):
    • signed up in past 30 days
    • has ≥1 click in past 120 days
    • has ≥1 open in past 90 days

Re-engagement sequence

• After 21–30 days with zero opens/clicks:
  • send 1–2 gentle reactivation emails
  • goal: move email to primary inbox or generate a click
• Don’t send many reactivation attempts:
  • after 3–4 weeks of disengagement, more emails likely become spam

Warning against late reactivation

• If re-engagement happens only after 60–90 days of inactivity, returns are poor:
  • cited example: ~5% open rate and minimal reactivations (“terrible”), likely harmful.

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Presenters / Sources Mentioned

• Matt (speaker answering questions)
• Spencer (co-host/colleague)
• The Hustle (referenced as a newsletter employer with a “big exit”)
• Growletter / Growletter team (referenced as their team)
• Kit (also mentioned as ConvertKit’s later name)
• ConvertKit (historical name)
• Beehive, Substack, Kit, ConvertKit, Clavio (platforms discussed)