Hi everyone, welcome to Letterly’s first edition! 

I hope you’ve been having a great new year so far. 

At the end of December, I took a two-week break from my Substack newsletter, The Happiness Diary. (I got the inspiration from Bill Gates—he popularized ‘Think Week’.) 

Why? 

Three reasons. 

The first was to study, read, and think deeply about my writing direction—to gain clarity on my niche, target audience, the problem I solve, and my service. 

The second was to avoid burnout. 

And the third was to enjoy the holidays with my partner. 

The result of taking those two weeks off? 

1. I wrote, built, and launched a 5-Day Educational Email Course about email growth. 

2. I figured out the one specific problem I’m solving for one specific person with one specific service.

3. I started Letterly—the newsletter you’re reading right now. 

4. And I picked up where I left off with The Happiness Diary (my Substack newsletter)! 

I feel refreshed and super excited to tackle 2024 and make it the best year possible. I hope you are, too!!! 

Now, let’s dive into today’s edition. 

Step-By-Step Guide

I confess…

I used this email-capture technique on my website when I started building my email list because I thought they were the most effective. 

Which technique am I talking about? 

Popups. 

They make up about 66% of all email sign-up forms.

But the interesting part is they have the second-lowest conversion rate, 3%. 

On the other hand, landing pages make up 5.1% of sign-up forms—the least popular one—but have the highest conversion rate of 23%! 

What this means for you (and me): Create dedicated landing pages to capture emails more effectively. 

So I decided to create a landing page for Letterly.

Here’s how I did it in 7 steps.

Step 1: Before I created my landing page, I had to think of a unique newsletter concept, name, and tagline.

First, I answered these questions when I was brainstorming:

• What will my newsletter be about?

• Who am I writing my newsletter for?

• How often will I send emails—daily, weekly, etc.?

• What day of the week and time will I send emails?

• Based on the newsletter I enjoy reading, what format will I follow?

Next, I chose a newsletter name. I used Namelix to help me come up with options. 

Then, I chose a format. I formatted my newsletter based on Alice Lemee’s suggestion. (I include the link to her newsletter at the bottom of this email.) 

Afterwards, I wrote a tagline. I used this formula that I learned from Ayodeji Awosika to write the tagline: 

Each (insert day of the week) you’ll get (adjective) tips/insights/strategies to help you (desired outcome). 

This formula is great because you set clear expectations for your subscribers. They’ll know:

• Exactly when they’ll receive your newsletter

• What the newsletter will be about

• How it can help them

Step 2: I outlined the copy that’d be on my landing page.

Let’s break down each component of my current landing page.

First, I have my logo at the top. It helps my brand shine through. 

Next, I have my headline: Grow your newsletter. 

Most people write their newsletter name here—I used to, too. 

But I learned from Matt McGarry it’s better to explain the value you provide to readers here.

For me, people who sign-up for my newsletter want to learn how I’m growing my newsletter so they can grow theirs, too.

Under my headline is my tagline: Every Sunday at 9 AM EST, you'll get a step-by-step guide on how I'm growing my newsletter – to help you grow yours.

So people who view my landing page know exactly when they’ll receive my newsletter, how often they’ll receive it, and what they’ll get. (It helped that I had clarity on this before creating my landing page.)

Next up, is my email sign-up form. 

In the past, I used to have people fill in their name and email.

But I learned from Matt it’s best to just have people fill in their emails.

Why? 

Because the more people have to fill in, the lesser the conversion rate. 

Also, you’ll notice I didn’t just write “Email” in the part where you type. Instead, I wrote “Your Best Email.” 

This is a trick I learned from Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush. 

I feel it’s another way to make your landing page stand out from others. And because people have multiple emails (I know I do), it prompts them to choose their best email.

The last part of my landing page is the “Button.” 

You’ll notice instead of “Subscribe” or “Sign-up” as most people write, I wrote, “I’m ready to grow my newsletter.” 

Here, it’s best to use a phrase linked to a desired outcome—I learned this from Ayo.

To recap this step, before you create your landing page, outline the information you’re going to include on it:

• Logo/photo

• Headline

• Tagline

• Email sign-up form

You can also include testimonials on your landing page if you have some. 

Step 3: I chose Carrd to design my landing page.

Carrd:

• Is easy to use

• Has tons of aesthetic templates and design options

• Has a great plan ($19/year) for 10 websites and you can use custom domains

• Is designed for creating landing pages so it really does excel in this area!

(My email service provider is ConvertKit so I did have the option to create a landing page there, but I chose Carrd in the end.)

Step 4: I chose a template.

While I was scrolling through the templates, I saw the one that Audrey Lo uses.

I fell in love with its design when I first saw her landing page. 

Why? Because of its simplicity. 

So I chose the same template for my landing page. 

Step 5: I designed it.

First, I filled in all the information from the brainstorming and outlining session—the logo, headline, tagline, and email sign-up form.

Then, I switched the colours to match my brand. I found my colour scheme on Canva. It’s called Room for Comfort. You’ll notice I use this colour scheme for everything. 

You can find your own colour scheme on Canva if you have the Premium version. Or, you can use Coolors. It’s a neat website that has tons of color schemes for you to choose from. I learned about it from Will Steiner. 

Then I played around with the design. Honestly, my best advice is really to just play around with the settings and familarize yourself with it.

With Carrd, you can:

• Change the size and thickness of words

• Bold, italicize, and underline words

• Change the width of the page

• Change letter spacing

• Add transitions

And so much more. 

Here’s a Loom video with a short tutorial on how to use Carrd. 

Step 6: I connected my Carrd landing page to ConvertKit.

This website walked me through how to connect my Carrd landing page to ConvertKit.

Carrd also works with other email service providers like Active Campaign, Beehiiv, and MailerLite. Check to see if it works with the one you use.

Step 7: I published my landing page.

You can publish it to a:

• a.carrd.co URL

• Custom domain (if you have a Pro Standard account)

I don’t have a custom domain for Letterly yet so I just published it using a Carrd domain.

And that’s it! 

A Writing Tip

Read these two paragraphs from Nicolas Cole’s book, The Art and Business of Online Writing.

Paragraph 1:

“The one thing everyone should know about habits is they are difficult to build. In fact, habits can take years to develop. Why they take such a long time is because each one of us has a hard time with different aspects of our life, and so it can take months, even years, to pinpoint which of those aspects has the most “bad habits,” and what we can do to make those bad habits more productive. But pinpointing the bad habits you want to change is really only the first step. It takes a long time after the fact in order to start seeing meaningful progress.”

Paragraph 2:

“The one thing everyone should know about habits is they are difficult to build—for four reasons. First, finding the motivation to break bad habits is easier said than done (and are oftentimes used as coping mechanisms for deeper issues). Second, habits can take upwards of thirty days to form, and that’s a long time investment for most people. Third, positive habits don’t always show rewards right away, which make bad habits easier to fall back into. And fourth, habits tend to be a reflection of people’s group of friends, which is a much harder variable to change overnight.”

Which paragraph captured your attention more? 

Probably the second one. 

Why? 

Because it has a higher Rate of Revelation.  Cole defined it as, “The rate at which you reveal new information to the reader—and new information is what keeps people interested.” 

The only point being made in the first paragraph is, “Habits are hard to build.” All the other sentences could be deleted. 

Whereas in the second paragraph, each sentence introduces new information and advances the story—This is what gets readers hooked.

I started using this technique in my own writing since I learned it—like at the beginning of this newsletter. 

What I'm Learning

• How To Double Your Newsletter’s Landing Page Conversion Rate by Matt McGarry—This was gold! I found out about Matt McGarry about two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been devouring his newsletters. 

• How to write newsletters for clients by Alice Lemee.—I’ve followed Alice for a while now. This was one of my favourite newsletters of hers. I formatted my newsletter in the way she suggested.

• The Newsletter Nerd by Jay Yang—Funny story. While I was searching for a newsletter name, Namelix suggested Newsletter Nerd. I loved it! So I checked to see if anyone was using it. And that’s how I found Jay’s newsletter. I read a ton of his newsletter after that. 

Before You Go

I hope you enjoyed reading today’s newsletter.

If you have a minute, I’d love for you to respond to this email to let me know:

• Your biggest takeaway

• Your biggest challenge

• Your biggest struggle right now

It helps me understand what you’re interested in learning more about so I can write content that’s helpful and relevant for you!

Thank you so much for that!

I’ll see you next Sunday,

Irene