swipe worthy

Today’s lesson:

Never start from scratch when you can draw inspiration from what already works.

Case in point:

When I started my first email newsletter back in 2022…

Morning Brew had just sold for $75 million.

And one of the things that stuck out to me about their growth strategy was referrals.

Having a referral program wasn’t something I was used to seeing in an email newsletter…

Yet it was apparently a key driver in the early days.

(before they moved to paid ads)

And I wanted to model it.

So instead of trying to come up with my own referral program from scratch…

I read this interview with Tyler Denk (who was then employee #2 at Morning Brew, and is now the co-founder and CEO of beehiiv) which breaks down exactly how they built the referral program…

Along with some key insights, such as:

• Most people will refer fewer than 3 people

• A tiny percentage of “super referrers” will refer 100+

• The biggest constraint is getting someone to go from zero to one

Then I modeled mine based on that.

Simple, right?

In other words…

I was able to leverage all the time, money, and strategizing that Morning Brew poured into building their referral program…

Instead of trying to replicate the entire process for myself on a shoestring budget.

That’s why maintaining a “swipe file” is so important.

In case you’ve never heard the term…

A “swipe file” is just a collection of high-quality marketing assets designed to give you inspiration.

And every newsletter publisher needs one.

But if you don’t have one, don’t worry.

Because I’ve got good news:

Over the last two years, I’ve been quietly building a newsletter-specific swipe file inspired by 6- and 7-figure publishers…

Filled with high-quality assets for every step of your newsletter funnel…

And I’m planning to make it available for a limited time next week.

Stay tuned for more.

Jim Hamilton