What is it?
Reddit can be a goldmine for growing your newsletter subscribers if you know where to look.
The key is finding the niche subreddit communities that align perfectly with your newsletter topic. These are places where people are super passionate and engaged with that specific subject matter.
Don't just drop a link and run though. That's a surefire way to get downvoted into oblivion.
Instead, take the time to engage with the community and contribute to the discussions in a meaningful way.
Once you've built up some credibility and trust, you can start sprinkling in relevant links to your newsletter content whenever it makes sense.
The most important thing is to provide value first. If you can consistently bring something to the table that scratches an itch for your target subreddit, the subscribers will follow.
The Good and the Bad
Examples of how to crush it
Gunnar Holm
Gunnar used Reddit to grow his local newsletter by posting in his city’s subreddit.
He started creating a weekly post that listed 5 cool events or things happening in the city over the upcoming weekend - which the audience loved.
While the post itself was valuable content, he included a call-to-action link inviting people to "Subscribe for 5 cool things happening every weekend" to receive the events with added images and better formatting.
This strategy allowed Gunnar to convert his first 1,000 newsletter subscribers for $0.
Starter Story
Pat Walls used a clever approach to promote Starter Story on Reddit while avoiding the pitfalls of overt self-promotion that could get him banned.
Pat identified the r/Entrepreneur subreddit as a promising place to share his business case study content.
Instead of just posting a link to the case study on his website, Pat would copy the entire text of the case study interview into his Reddit post.
Only at the very end of the Reddit post would Pat include a single line mentioning Starter Story, with a link to sign-up.
He was providing the complete story upfront for free on Reddit, offering full value to the Reddit community first.
This allowed him to continue driving new subscribers to his site without getting banned for being too self-promotional.
