Growth In Reverse: Newsletter & Email Growth

“You can pretty much do anything on Substack—which is good and also makes me nervous.” – Chenell Basilio We've seen a wave of creators flocking to Substack over the last month and couldn’t help but wonder... what’s really going on here? In this episode, Chenell & Dylan unpack the why we believe this migration is happening. Are creators just chasing the next shiny thing, or is Substack genuinel...

"I thought this would grow my list. It did—but the real win was something else entirely." — Chenell Basilio on her 30 Days of Growth experiment. In this special episode of Growth In Reverse , Chenell & Dylan break down the whirlwind that was Chenell's 30 Days of Growth experiment.  What started as a simple idea to improve my cross-promotions quickly snowballed into a full-fledged daily popup n...

Get 30 proven newsletter strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "There is a strong, undeniable correlation between the number of emails you send and the amount of money you make." — Olly Richards In this episode, Chenell & Dylan chat with Olly Richards — the founder of Storylearning.com and now a fast-growing personal brand — about exactly how he grew his personal brand...

Get 30 proven newsletter strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Faceless brands are forgettable. Put your name on it. Make it human." In this episode, Dylan and Chenell are back for another Newsletter Roast! Get out your marshmallows 🔥 This week we're roasting a newsletter all about podcast discovery. The Find That Pod newsletter promises to help readers uncover the best s...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "This might be the most fun I've had growing my newsletter." — Chenell And here's how Chenell's doing it. We're giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how 30 Days of Growth is going—and how we’re planning to make the most of the final stretch! With over 2,600 signups already and a massive giveaway in motion, this mini-laun...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In this episode, we’re unpacking five high-performing newsletter growth levers that creators are using right now to grow smarter—not harder. Each tactic comes straight from Chenell's 30 Days of Growth series, where creators shared the exact strategies that helped them attract thousands of new subscribers, improve engagemen...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> We're diving into one of the most underrated growth strategies out there: collaborations and cross-promotions .  Whether you're building a newsletter, launching a podcast, or growing a YouTube channel, collabs are one of the most high-leverage plays you can run — and we break down exactly how to do them right. We get into...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Three roasts are better than one! Our first Newsletter Roast was last month, and we only roasted ONE newsletter. Today we're bringing back the heat—but roasting THREE newsletters instead of just one. These newsletters are all in different phases of their journey but all share one common problem (you'll have to listen to fi...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> This special edition of the Growth In Reverse podcast is the full live talk I gave at the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin TX this past February. Over the past two years, I’ve studied the growth of the most successful newsletters in the world—those who’ve hit 50,000+ subscribers—and I noticed something interesting. Th...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Quantity leads to quality, but when you find a winner, you have to double down." — Dave Kline, MGMT Playbook Dave Kline went from leading teams at Bridgewater to building a million-dollar creator business—with zero prior experience on social media. But the real secret behind the success? His wife, Marsden (Mar). While Dav...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Lenny Rachitsky just crossed 1 million subscribers with his Substack newsletter, aptly named Lenny's Newsletter . Chenell has written a few deep dives on Lenny ( How he reached 377k subscribers , and how he got 18k paid subscribers ). So we thought it would be interesting to see what he's done to accelerate his growth to o...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> “The easiest way to lose potential subscribers is to make them work too hard to understand what they’re signing up for.” (Watch this episode on YouTube --> ) We sent out the call to get your newsletter roasted. Over 20 listeners submitted their newsletters. And today we're roasting the first one: Craftsman Films Shout-o...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "The future of newsletters isn’t just email." — Chenell Basilio Missed the Newsletter Marketing Summit in Austin? Well, Chenell didn't! She was there IRL—and she's sharing her biggest takeaways from the first annual summit. Not only did Chenell attend the event, she was a speaker! Listen in to find out more about her talk...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "I didn’t have a goal—I just committed to showing up every day for 100 days." — Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Ness Labs After publishing 100 articles in 100 days, Anne-Laure drove 6,000 subscribers to her Maker Mind newsletter. It was the tiny experiment that kickstarted her newsletter journey. But it was just the beginning. Today,...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Anne-Laure got her first 6,000 subscribers by posting 100 articles in 100 days. But that was back in 2019. Today, her Maker Mind newsletter hits over 100k subscriber inboxes, and her Ness Labs community brings in over 6 figures in revenue every year. So, in this deep dive walkthrough, I share how Anne-Laure went from 6k su...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Less is more. The key to growing Why We Buy wasn’t doing more —it was doubling down on what worked and cutting the rest.” — Katelyn Bourgoin Chenell & Dylan are joined by Katelyn Bourgoin of the Why We Buy newsletter. Chenell researched & wrote a GIR Deep Dive on Katelyn back in 2023. At that point, Katelyn's Why...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Katelyn Bourgoin has amassed over 63k subscribers and earned $1M in revenue—in 2024 alone! She runs the popular newsletter Why We Buy . It's my favorite newsletter when it comes to buyer psychology. And in this deep dive walkthrough, I'm giving you a rundown of how she's built and monetized her newsletter. And then later t...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> What are the most popular revenue streams for newsletters? And how many revenue streams do most newsletters have? Chenell & Dylan review the revenue stream stats from the 66 Deep Dives that Chenell's published for Growth In Reverse. They reveal what the 3 most common revenue streams are—but then they unearth the lesser...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> What happens when an established newsletter hits a growth plateau? And can anything be done to revive it? Chenell & Dylan sit down with Ben Collins of BenLCollins.com and his Google Sheets Tips newsletter. When Chenell researched & wrote her GIR Deep Dive on Ben last year, all appeared to be going well for Ben and...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Ben Collins has built a successful business and a newsletter with over 50k subscribers that earns him a comfortable living. Later this week, Dylan and I talk to Ben about how he can continue to grow the newsletter and get over the growth plateau he's currently facing.  Get 75+ Growth Levers used by top newsletters: https:/...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> Could these small changes have a 10x impact on your newsletter's success? Chenell & Dylan reveal 15+ little newsletter changes you can make today that could have massive results. → Take your newsletter to the next level with GIR Pro >> → Get free access to 75+ newsletter Growth Levers here >> KEY TAKEAWAYS...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "Collaborations are not optional. They’re the fastest way to grow a newsletter.” — Aakash Gupta, Product Growth Chenell & Dylan sit down with Aakash Gupta of the Product Growth newsletter in this episode. When Chenell researched & wrote her GIR Deep Dive on Aakash last year, he had just hit 100k subscribers. He's n...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In 3 years, Aakash Gupta went from 0 to over 300k followers, 105k email subscribers, and $624k in annual revenue. This is a walkthrough of a deep dive I wrote into his growth story, which you can read here: https://growthinreverse.com/aakash-gupta/ On Wednesday, we're releasing the full interview with Aakash Gupta here, so...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> "I made $2,000 with a newsletter list of only 3,000 subscribers." In this episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, Chenell & Dylan sit down with Justin Moore and discuss how to nail brand sponsorships. Justin is the founder of Creator Wizard where he coaches creators to earn more with their brand deals. He has also wr...

Get 30 proven strategies to grow and optimize your email list FREE >> In this episode of the Growth In Reverse podcast, Chenell & Dylan dive into the best and most unique growth strategies they saw in 2024. → Take your newsletter to the next level with GIR Pro >> → Get free access to 75+ newsletter Growth Levers here >> KEY TAKEAWAYS How Khe Hy used lead magnets "in disguise"...