How this media founder grew to 1,500+ paid members (without writing any articles)
For Claire Fitzsimmons, founder of the media company Salty, success is about building strong relationships with her readers.
This helped her grow the brand to over 1,500 paid members through a model that is based entirely around reader-submitted stories.
Our main goal is converting subscribers into members, and email is the most effective tool we've found for that.
A key player in this strategy from day one has been email marketing, powered by MailerLite. We sat down with Claire to learn how she creates appealing offers, converts free subscribers to paid, and grows a successful media business with email marketing.
About Salty: Amplifying unique stories
Salty is a 100% independent, membership-supported newsletter, with the mission to “pass the mic to Salty babes across the world and amplify their unique stories on our platforms.”
Claire describes the brand as a “newsletter first publication.” She has 50,000 subscribers, and the majority of the content is free and available online, but it’s monetized with a paid membership.
Here’s how Salty uses MailerLite.
Claire uses an automated welcome sequence to convert free subscribers to paid members.
Claire uses MailerLite campaigns to send her main newsletter and promote her membership.
Claire uses segmentation to target different audiences with specific offers.
Claire uses A/B testing to discover the kinds of messaging her audience responds to.
Turning free subscribers into paid members
Salty's primary goal is to convert free subscribers into paid members. Claire accomplishes this with an automated email funnel.
People join the list via a form on the website, which they can access when browsing or via her link-in-bio page on social media.
Once someone joins her list, an automated welcome sequence takes over. This series of emails is designed to nurture new subscribers and encourage them to join a paid plan.
The automation starts by introducing the business. It moves on to highlighting the value of the paid subscription and how it helps the brand provide content readers love.
This strategy is paying off in a big way. Claire shared a striking statistic:
We found that once someone subscribes to our newsletter, they are 40 times more likely to become a paying customer.
Neoseed uses a welcome series and in-email hidden content to turn free subscribers into paid members. Discover more about his effective paid newsletter conversion strategy here.
Creating and promoting a powerful offer
To encourage people to buy, Claire created a bundle with multiple points of value. As well as supporting the magazine, paid memberships include premium ebooks and the ability to make classified posts.
It’s a way to demonstrate the value of a membership and keep readers engaged, ultimately encouraging them to convert."
Claire also offers multiple tiers, ranging from $4.99 to $19.99 per month, and people are encouraged to commit to an annual plan with the offer of a free nameplate necklace. This makes it easy for her biggest fans to contribute more to the publication.
Claire boosts the visibility of the offer by linking to it in the header and footer of every newsletter she sends. If people like the content, subscribing to the paid plan is easy.
Thanks to MailerLite’s email and block templates, this content looks beautiful and is automatically populated in every email she sends. She doesn’t have to spend time on each issue rebuilding the content.
And with dynamic content options, she can choose to show these blocks to free subscribers without having to create multiple versions of the same newsletter.
Building a community that contributes
One of the biggest challenges for any solo media founder is creating content consistently. Claire’s solution is to rely on her community: she doesn't write any of the content herself.
Every email Salty sends out includes a clear "Submit to Salty" button, making it easy for readers to share their stories.
Claire also uses email list segmentation to specifically target people who are most likely to contribute.
The ability to use segmentation is a game-changer. We can reach out directly to people who have submitted pitches in the past, which makes them more likely to contribute again.
This approach has led to an impressive open rate of over 40% and a deeply engaged audience who are more willing to share their work.
Claire also values the insights into the brand’s messaging that she gets from email.
Thanks to A/B testing, she’s able to see what kind of content her audience responds to, allowing her to create more content they are sure to love.
The A/B testing capabilities have been great. We can see exactly what kind of messaging resonates with our audience and what doesn't, which helps us refine our strategy and make our communication more effective.
Combining the powers of email and social media
Salty boasts over 110,000 followers on Instagram. And social media is a useful way to grow her audience and reach new people.
But converting social followers to email subscribers is important because social followers don’t have the same level of commitment or engagement as those on her email list.
A casual follow [on social media] doesn't lead to the same level of commitment. We've found that when we ask for content submissions or pitches via social media, no one takes it seriously. Our email audience is far more likley to be involved in the conversation.
Email allows for a direct, more personal connection that social media simply can't replicate.
The future of Salty is bright
By using email marketing to build a thriving, engaged community, Salty has already achieved big success.
But Claire’s not stopping: She has plenty of exciting projects coming up, including the launch of a new physical magazine.
Plus, as a small team, she is looking to technology to streamline her processes.
Anything that can automate repetitive tasks like copywriting or building automations would be a game-changer for us. I'm hoping that AI will help us streamline our work and continue to grow without being bogged down by manual labor.
Build a loyal audience and make more sales
Sign up for MailerLite to access all the tools you need to build relationships that lead to sales with email. Send beautiful newsletters, automate welcome sequences, sell digital products and more. Start with a free trial today.
