LH: Ep 3
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Hi there, travel creators! Welcome to another episode of the travel creator podcast. If this is your first time hearing my voice, I'm Laura. I'm a content developer for travel creators, so basically that means I help travel creators find smarter ways to use their content so they can actually enjoy the destinations they're visiting and put their head into parts of their creator journey that really need them.
In this episode, we are talking about why every travel creator should have a newsletter, why they work for travel creators, and how you can get started creating a newsletter for free today. That sounds like an infomercial. It is not. It is not. It is true. Okay, let's do this. So, if you're a travel creator, you might be thinking, I don't need a newsletter, why do I need to do email marketing?
Oh my, okay. Just wait until you find out how cool [00:01:00] email marketing can be. Okay, I realize that. There's no real way to make email marketing that cool, but the results can definitely be cool. So hang in there. All right, newsletters give travel creators an opportunity to ditch changing algorithms.
So sure, your email marketing strategy might change the way that you write your content or different things like that. That might change as you develop in your creator journey, but the algorithm or the way that email content is shared to your audience doesn't change. Like, you will press send and it will go somewhere.
Someone will receive it. Now, getting them to open it is a whole nother thing we will talk about in future episodes. I'm excited for that one. I have a lot of resources on that topic. I digress. Okay.
A newsletter can also help you ditch SEO. Heck yes! Don't get me wrong, SEO is a necessary tool and you [00:02:00] should learn how to use it. But you don't have to implement it into your email marketing like you would in your website or in your social posts. It is a good idea to be adding those keywords that your audience is looking for that are specific to your niche into your subject lines and preview text in your emails to help increase open rates.
And increasing open rates is a whole other topic that we will cover in a future episode. I have a lot of good resources on that, especially that I am very excited to dish on that I hope you learn from too. So, another thing I wanted to mention is that you should be repurposing your social content to your newsletter content.
So, if you have a blog piece and a social post, it should ideally already be SEO optimized and you should be able to just plop that into your newsletter. Now, a little asterisk here for you. Be careful doing this. So if you have a video, a reel, for example, you've shared on Instagram, the way you have scripted that, let's say it's a talking head, is [00:03:00] for the ears, because it's a video, we're listening to it.
The way that you talk is different than the way you would write that piece of content as a blog. So when you are repurposing a video into newsletter text, Just give it an extra couple reads because things can come out a lot more clunky. if you just slapped that talking head script into your newsletter, it wouldn't be super well written, is what I'm trying to say.
Anyway, you don't have to have all these keywords in your newsletter content. So, now that you know that, I hope you sleep better at night, because trust me, I sleep better at night knowing that I don't have to know everything about SEO to get people to open a newsletter, or people to visit my website, or people to look at my social content.
So, I hope that makes you feel better. Okay, back to the list here. Newsletters let you share your content in a place of the internet that you actually own. Yes, you might need to rewind that real [00:04:00] quick. Okay, I'm pausing for emphasis here. This is something I'm super passionate about, and I think a lot of creators neglect.
The community that you have created on Instagram, or whatever social platform you've decided to create on, you do not own. You could wake up tomorrow morning and your Instagram page is gone. It's done. Now you have to start from zero. But that's where your newsletter comes in to save you. If you have a list of the email contacts of those in your community, you can directly connect with them over in your newsletter and build a bigger and better community from there.
Plus, newsletter conversions, if you have something to sell, are way higher. than selling anything on social media, meaning that you'll make way more sales via email than on social. Okay. Sorry, this is becoming a little bit of a tangent, but it's because I'm passionate about it, . It's something I've witnessed [00:05:00] happen to creators and it's just not worth the risk, because we just can't predict what these tech giants are gonna do. So, whether you start a newsletter now or in the future, create a lead magnet to get those email addresses right now, so you have them when or if you need them. It's kind of like social media insurance.
I think that's kind of the best way to describe it. Now, we're gonna dive in to why newsletters work. for travel creators. The short answer is that they are personal. So let's say you have a thousand Instagram followers. When you hit share on your post, there's a fat chance, probably zero, that each 1, 000 follower is going to see your post.
It's just not going to happen. But people subscribe to your newsletter because they want to hear from you. And if we're honest, a social media follow is cheap. It's easy, we don't think too much about it. But being up close and personal in email, it's like your [00:06:00] community gets to see another side of you, is worth so much more than just someone tapping follow on your Instagram.
Okay, so we can't guarantee that you'll get a 100 percent open rates on all your emails. But people are way more inclined to open an email from you. Then interact with your social media profiles, that might be counterintuitive here, but when something comes to your inbox with your name on it, you're gonna pay attention.
It's kinda like getting your mail from your physical mailbox. Like, whether it's junk mail or not, meaning whether it's, you know, a newsletter from a brand that you bought one thing from two years ago, you're still gonna open it and look at it because it has your name on it. So it's just something to keep in mind.
People pay attention to what is right in front of them, and that's one of the best places to be. Okay, so when you really think about it, travel can be quite an intimate experience, so from the trials at the airport to the cafe with the right sunlight, people want to know how [00:07:00] you experienced a place so that they can do the same thing.
They want to replicate your experience. That's essentially what you're trying to create as a travel creator, are these incredible experiences and showing people how they can do the same thing. Your email is where they can see how you did that or had that experience. So even if you're repurposing content from your social media into your newsletter, giving a little bit more unpolished personal insight is a great way to connect with your community on a more personal level, and it gives them something they can't find on your socials.
Like maybe something extra funny happened at the airport that you wouldn't necessarily want to share about on Instagram, but is the perfect place to drop it in your newsletter. So, for the creators who are out there who have something to sell, this is especially for you. On social media, people expect to be entertained.
We can't forget that. We can't forget that in all these social media strategies we come across and can't get so caught up in. But in email, people expect to find promotions. And offers. So if you're trying to sell a [00:08:00] product or a service to your community, it's going to help if you do it in the places they expect you to.
So I could go on and on about why creators should have a newsletter, but I want to give you some tips on how you can get started today for free since I know you're so enamored with email marketing. Okay. Bye. Bye. The first step, my friends, is the hardest one, and that is to block two to three hours to get this done, really.
If you don't make the time for this, it's not going to happen. We both know this. This is okay. I'm the same way. Now that you've got your calendar free, you're going to go through your content to understand what you can repurpose that can be shared into your newsletter. And a hot tip here, it's likely going to be almost everything.
In the last episode of this podcast, we talked about how you can create a content repurposing system. If you want bonus points and want to make this whole newsletter process easy peasy, go give that one a listen before getting started here. The next step is to outline a few repeatable sections that you can share every time [00:09:00] you send out a newsletter.
This could be a top destination, a favorite creator resource, or as I like to do in my weekly newsletter, the Content Compass, highlight a creator who is crushing the content game. That's right, if you want in on how creators in the travel space are crushing their content and how you can apply what they're doing to your own content, you can sign up for my free newsletter with a link in the show notes.
Anyway, once you've picked a few sections that you want to talk about in your newsletter, I recommend batching them ahead of time, so that each time you go to write your next newsletter draft, it's never from scratch. The next one is to choose visuals. I know you're a travel creator. I know you have incredible photos.
Please do not share all of them here. Remember you can link people to go to your Instagram or go to your YouTube to see more of the incredible content you're creating. This next step is a tricky one. It's picking an email management software you'll use to actually send your newsletter. [00:10:00] So if you're already familiar with one, please start with that one.
If we choose to work on your newsletter together, like me and you, through my newsletter service, we can pick a different one later on that might work better for your goals. But don't sweat this stuff. It's okay, just spend ten minutes googling a few of them, and decide. You can always change and your audience later, it's no big deal.
So, now the fun part begins. Write that sh*****t. That sounds overwhelming, I now realize that. But I have to say, I have a lot of free resources on how you can crush this on my Instagram and how to put together a newsletter people will actually want to open, and I have a lot more resources on this coming on the podcast.
But, I do have a super helpful resource you can use to get started, and it is a free newsletter template. All you gotta do is make a copy of this document and get started. In it, you'll find how to get rolling, and since you've already blocked off the time on your calendar, you can get a newsletter into existence today.
The link will be waiting for you in the [00:11:00] show notes. But if you're the kind of person who wants nothing to do with the writing bit, I'm your gal. I see you. I have a newsletter service and can do all the newsletter stuff for you, so you can just get back to doing the most important things in your creator journey and book in more flights.
Whether you decide to start a newsletter this week or next year, just remember, no algorithm change can edit our desire for human connection, Which newsletters are the best place to do that. if you're feeling inspired by what you heard today, I would be over the moon if you share this with a fellow creator.
And if you're like really into it, like if you really found this helpful, if you want to rate this show, just take a few seconds to do that. That really does help me in the beginning of this podcasting whole world. And of course, if you have questions or want to drop me a line, reach out to me on Instagram at @travelcontentwriting. You'll find me there. You'll find all the resources there. Thank you for listening, my friends. Happy creating, and I'll see you soon.
laura: [00:12:00] You're still here? I just wanted you to know. Every week, I send a newsletter called the Content Compass.
laura: I share many case studies on travel creators who are crushing their content. It's like new, innovative things these creators are doing, and I break it down to show what they're doing successfully and how you can apply it to your own content.
laura: I've got a link in the show notes if you'd like to subscribe. It's also free. Can you just tell I really want you to do well and enjoy all these cool places? Okay friends, I will see you soon.
