TODAY’S SIGNAL
Meet Zoe and Chris.
Both are AI enthusiasts with brilliant ideas. Both launched Substack newsletters in the same month. Both post daily on LinkedIn and X.
Zoe has 14,000 subscribers, but her open rates hover at 7%. Her latest course launch earns less than $400.
Chris has 1,500 subscribers. Open rates? 58%. His last cohort sold out in 3 hours.
So what happened?
The Newsletter Gold Rush
Over the last 5 years, newsletters have exploded. With platforms like Substack, Beehiiv, and ConvertKit dropping the barriers to entry, creators jumped on the bandwagon.
Why? Because email is still one of the highest ROI channels—$36 for every $1 spent, according to Litmus.
The logic is simple:
“If I own the audience, I own the income.”
But the nuance gets lost in the rush. The focus shifts from value to volume.
The Vanity Loop
Let’s look at Zoe.
She read every creator playbook: “Build a lead magnet.” “Capture emails.” “Send a weekly newsletter.”
So she created a “10 AI Tools You Need” checklist. She got 100+ signups in a day. Then 500. Then thousands.
But after a few months, she noticed a pattern:
No replies.
Plummeting open rates.
Almost zero conversions.
Why?
Because Zoe was building an audience optimized for acquisition, not retention.
Her subscribers wanted free tools, not thoughtful analysis. The lead magnet built an audience—but the wrong one.
The Signal-to-Noise Ratio
Now Chris? He took a different approach.
Instead of chasing virality, he optimized for signal.
He started by hanging out in AI communities. Instead of broadcasting, he asked questions:
“What’s been your hardest part of using GPT-4 in client work?”
“How do you vet AI tools that won’t disappear in 6 months?”
He noticed patterns in the answers.
So he launched a newsletter—not about tools, but about decision-making frameworks for AI consultants. He called it Signal/Noise.
Every issue had a simple premise:
"Here’s what’s trending. Here’s what actually matters. Here’s how to act."
People stayed. People replied. And more importantly, people paid.
Why Most Newsletters Fail
Here’s the truth:
1. Email isn’t a distribution channel. It’s a relationship medium.
Great newsletters feel like conversations, not broadcasts.
2. The subscriber count is a misleading metric.
Most creators don’t track active readers, just total signups. But unengaged emails harm your sender reputation and lower inbox delivery rates.
3. Audiences follow clarity, not cleverness.
Most CTAs (“Sign up for my newsletter”) offer no promise. No reason. No, why now?