Introduction
On Sunday evening I was unexpectedly alone. And bored.
So I started playing around with cursorAI: A new AI tool that makes it much easier and faster to build software... even if you don't really know how to program.
In under 90 minutes, I built this 👇
​NewsletterIdeas.co — A newsletter idea generator.
You click a button, and the app gives you a "great" idea for a newsletter (plus logo, name and ways to grow/monetize it).
Now I know it's early, but here's my prediction: Tools like cursorAI are going to completely change how we grow and monetize newsletters.
Let's take a look. Starting with:
- How NewsletterIdeas is already generating growth and revenue for my newsletter
- My plan to drive 10x better results
- And how you can do the same (including ideas to steal)
Growth
The NewsletterIdeas app is silly (even if some of the ideas are pretty good).
But it's already ranking on the first page of Google search.
And, thanks to some smart email capture forms (which you can see in the video above) it's now driving 20-30 quality new subscribers to this newsletter every day.
That's 10k+ new subscribers per year. At a total cost of $103.47 (the domain for 3 years).
Revenue
There's revenue too: When a visitor generates a new idea, I prompt them to "build this newsletter" on ConvertKit (via my affiliate link).
Already, the tool is generating multiple daily link clicks and affiliate signups.
Unfortunately, as a ConvertKit shareholder I can't actually accept the commission on affiliate signups... but otherwise this would be a $5k/year revenue stream. At least.
Next Steps
Adding 30 new subscribers and $10 in revenue per day is nice. Especially for just 90min work.
But I think — with a little bit more work — there's a huge opportunity here.
I think I can turn NewsletterIdeas into a free tool that drives hundreds of thousands of subscribers and $millions in revenue for GrowMyNewsletter.
Here's the 4-step plan I'll follow 👇
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Step 1: Improve Idea Generation
Right now, NewsletterIdeas is like most AI tools... a fun novelty, but kinda useless.
The ideas it generates can be pretty good. But they're not relevant or personalised to the person who generated them.
We need to bridge this gap from "fun" to "valuable".
Luckily, this is pretty easy to do in our case: By prompting the visitor to answer some questions about themselves and their experience/skills, we can generate viable newsletter ideas for the visitor.
The result: Newsletters that would actually be a good idea for them to start today.
​
Step 2: Add Email Gating
Today, visitors can use the tool without submitting their email address. Thanks to my email capture pop-up and banner, many do subscribe... but the majority don't.
We can fix this by "gating" the value: To see their generated idea, visitors will need to submit their email address.
This should result in us converting twice as many visitors to subscribers.
​
Step 3: Monetize
Affiliate commissions (how I'm currently monetizing the tool) work best when:
- You have an audience who are facing high-ticket purchasing decisions
- The journey from "affiliate click" to "actually purchasing the product" is quick
Unfortunately, NewsletterIdeas doesn't fit either of these scenarios.
It could be months before a beginner newsletter operator grows their email list large enough to actually start paying for their newsletter platform. And even then, we're talking <$20 per month in spend.
That's too little revenue, too late.
(the "too late" part is especially important because we want to monetize this audience as early as possible, so that we can reinvest into paid audience growth)
Instead, we can generate more revenue per subscriber, earlier, by creating a "trigger" infoproduct.
An ebook, template, playbook or course — priced at < $99 — which users of the tool are likely to want to purchase.
In this case, given I'm helping people generate viable newsletter business ideas, it makes sense to focus on "what happens next" as the content of the infoproduct.
Something like a short, actionable playbook on how they can take their idea and go from zero to 10k subscribers and $10k in revenue.
​
Step 4: Turn on Paid Growth
Finally, with monetization and email capture in place, I can reliably turn on paid growth (Meta ads, maybe some influencers) and drive thousands of new subscribers at low (or hopefully even negative) acquisition cost.
Free tools are great for this compared to other lead magnets or boring old newsletter signup forms.
​
Watch This Space
I'll report back on progress in future monthly recaps (the first edition of this newsletter each month).
But what's much more important is why (and how) you should copy me 👇
​
Steal This Strategy
AI has changed the game for newsletter operators.
Normally I eye-roll when people say this. But — in this case — I genuinely believe it's true.
For the price (and time/effort) of writing a 1500 word article, you can now use tools like Replit, cursorAI and OpenAI's new o1 model to build genuinely amazing software tools and apps.
Even if you don't know how to code.
All of a sudden, you can create tools, games and challenges that...
- ... your audience will share with each other (think, the effect of a referral program but 10x better)
- ... convert way better than your existing lead magnets and newsletter landing pages
- ... drive engagement, retention, and even newsletter revenue
It's going to happen fast.
Inspiration
Here are a few examples of the kind of thing I expect to see over the next 6-12 months:
- An online coupon booklet for subscribers to a local newsletter with exclusive deals
- An advent calendar (one tip, deal, or prize per day)
- Quizzes and calculators
- Simple video games
- Challenges (eg "the first reader from our local newsletter who uploads a photo of themself in all these 10 famous locations" wins)
- Matching tools (dating/cofounder matching/language learning/...)
- in-email games
And we'll see a whole bunch of other niche tools too.
For example, eg my friend Ryan launched his newsletter (collecting examples of great marketing headlines) yesterday.
With AI, it would take him 60 minutes to build a tool that let you submit your own headline and get 10 "improved" suggestions (based on the "good" headlines he already collected).
