Building a newsletter shouldn’t feel like a second job. You have actually already got enough on your plate juggling content, customers, maybe even a full time job. I read one of my favored e-mail newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started destroying. Can I Use Beehiiv as a Blog…
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full time developer is difficult. I’m typically obtaining pitched different devices and solutions that do not seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was emotional since I invested the last 6 months trying out different email and e-newsletter platforms to aid construct my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some great choices for creating newsletters. But I couldn’t locate one that made me give a definite “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully personalize my newsletter designs, makes it very simple to write and send out emails, and offers me devices that help me examine metrics and obtain more customers.
I think I have actually ultimately discovered the best tool.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact best for you.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern newsletter platform for rather a long time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it concerned ultimately introducing my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I ended up using beehiiv.
I’m sure numerous e-newsletter makers look up to preferred newsletters with countless subscribers– I know I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I admired a lot. They have wonderful web content, tons of customers, and a smart referral program that allows them to get even extra clients.
So, I went on a hunt to identify how these large e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain even more clients? How do they develop an e-newsletter style that stays on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this device really comprehend newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were some of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I knew this was going to be a different newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer development.
Because, any type of designer knows, you require development to be able to earn a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter pile (that scales) frequently means utilizing numerous different tools to help accomplish one objective– one system for your newsletter, one platform to monetize, and one system to set up referrals. It can get expensive.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was free to start utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Produced by previous employees at the popular newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking great deals of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m going to explain my individual experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally opt for it as my e-newsletter system of choice.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful system used by hundreds of independent authors. With Substack you obtain your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the advantage of much better analytics, more style flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv likewise offers you a website comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own site currently, you can additionally use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website subscribers directly to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to allow individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing channels to get your newsletter out right into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
Exactly how to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software program.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a system that enables them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or web content developer, you need to seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to start and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 customers on your checklist.
If you really wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that individuals love reading your things.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers 4 various pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan gives you every little thing you need to get started and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 subscribers).
The Scale plan ($ 34.40/month) gives you whatever in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to premium subscriptions. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76.80/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of priority assistance and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For example, if you have 100,000 customers you will certainly pay around $329 monthly. As opposed to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv an excellent Kit alternative for numerous individuals.
I’m unsure just how the unit economics work on this, however beehiiv is certainly less costly (presently) than what it can be.
Sign up for a free plan
The first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, give you accessibility to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, advancement modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and more. It’s a really charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a brand-new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your first newsletter?”, “what various other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll then develop a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL could be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll additionally select your brand name colors and design to make sure your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
When you reach your main control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have described information on the amount of sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see alternatives for “Begin writing”, “Blog posts”, “Audience”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Style” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the settings alternative.
Control panel is your main control center (screenshot above), Beginning writing is where you produce and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous newsletter editions, Audience is where you can watch who your clients are (and break them down right into sectors), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you design your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just starting, and have an idea you intend to write about, I suggest just mosting likely to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking “Begin creating”.
You can fine-tune your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and straightforward interface for creating.
As soon as you start creating, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your content just how you such as.
beehiiv provides you lots of options for different kinds of web content like video clips, links, pictures, and extra.
The team at beehiiv is likewise constantly releasing product feature and updates so I’m sure there will certainly be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send, it’s time to design your email template and change some setups.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time customers, and extra.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit history shades, borders, spacing, typefaces, photo layouts, and extra. I’m not going to undergo ever solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply check out the platform for free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has lots of impressive features that make it a terrific publishing system for any type of newsletter creator.
Here are several of the crucial features you can discover with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it extremely simple to write and send e-mails. I pointed out over several of the important things you can do with your setups and email layout so I’ll save you some additional reading.
The thing to note with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely one of the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you desire) reside on a website. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and a location where people can register for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you a web site. Nevertheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a personalized domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll require to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can subscribe to your e-newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you currently have an internet site, and want individuals to register for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different options– a full width, a taken care of width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can discover the code fragment for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s likewise an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to ahead UTM parameters for tracking objectives– rather neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I wish beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make certain the team is working with updates for these, but I stated a couple of issues I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
Among the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter system, is a service for developing a referral program.
You can encourage existing subscribers on your list to ahead your emails to friends and colleagues and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies give rewards in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you one more opportunity for expanding your e-mail listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll review all the plans later on in this article.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration earnings is certainly a beast of its own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “costs” problems of your newsletter that are just sent out to paying clients. This can be extremely profitable depending on what your newsletter has to provide. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in earnings a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter web content.
Information analytics
Among the important things I enjoy regarding beehiiv is exactly how tidy and simple the analytics are. You obtain real-time date on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and subscriber count.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that client count go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its pros and cons. Right here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve personally experienced while utilizing beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter system of choice:
- Easy to establish and begin sending e-newsletters free of charge
- Clean and modern-day subscriber analytics
- Lots of versatility with e-mail styles.
- Referral program feature
- Website hosting
- Create premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be sincere, I haven’t seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package every one of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I don’t intend to be prejudiced so I’m going to point out some cons.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the disadvantages I have actually found while utilizing beehiiv:.
- Limitations around incorporating Webflow and Can I Use Beehiiv as a Blog
- Limitations around including custom font styles
I use Webflow as my site structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much detail why I enjoy Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Today, there really is nothing else method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow website other than utilizing an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as utilizing iframe’s because they tend to reduce my web site a bit. Every time a page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) lots, the sign-up installed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really recognizable when you get on a sluggish net link. Yet I can get around that.
The major gripe I have is that I can’t make use of a normal Webflow form (which I love utilizing). There are ways around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier but that would certainly just include additional costs that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv con yet I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros much surpass the cons below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will at some point create a better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Verdict: Can I Use Beehiiv as a Blog
Overall, beehiiv is a fantastic remedy for any person wanting to dive into the globe of email marketing and newsletters.
The capability of this newsletter system much surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise rather economical of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your list is unusual. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I do not compose review posts frequently. I just do when I in fact use the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a close friend.
I hope you located some quality on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent system for you.