Constructing a newsletter shouldn’t feel like a sideline. You’ve already obtained enough on your plate handling web content, clients, perhaps even a full time gig. I read among my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the first time. I clicked on it and promptly started tearing up. Beehiiv For Content Creators…
I wasn’t sure why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent developer is difficult. I’m often getting pitched various tools and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological because I spent the last six months trying various e-mail and newsletter platforms to help build my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic alternatives for writing e-newsletters. But I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter platform that lets me totally personalize my newsletter layouts, makes it super simple to compose and send out emails, and offers me tools that help me examine metrics and get even more clients.
I believe I’ve lastly located the ideal device.
But, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact appropriate for you.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I inadvertently came across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I have actually been on the lookout for a contemporary newsletter platform for rather time currently. I’ve put things off hard when it pertained to ultimately launching my e-newsletter.
First, I attempted Mailchimp. After that, a couple of various other indie systems. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up using beehiiv.
I make sure many newsletter makers appreciate preferred newsletters with millions of subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I respected a whole lot. They have fantastic web content, tons of clients, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even extra customers.
So, I took place a search to identify exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they utilize? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more clients? How do they produce an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I uncovered beehiiv for the first time, it appeared to answer all of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool actually understand newsletter production and development.” I examined who these creators of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth employees at Morning Brew– my brain blew up.
I understood this was mosting likely to be a various newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer development.
Due to the fact that, any type of maker recognizes, you need growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And finding the appropriate newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies using multiple various devices to help achieve one objective– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one system to establish recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one platform, and it was complimentary to begin using, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one platform for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it very easy to layout, create, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by former workers at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their very own newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M customers.
In this post, I’m mosting likely to discuss my individual experience with beehiiv, things I enjoy (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to finally go with it as my newsletter system of selection.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a great system made use of by thousands of independent authors. With Substack you get your own website and use the platform as your all-in-one remedy for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous concerns).
What collections beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv allows you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. But, if you have your own internet site already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your site customers right to your beehiiv email list. On the very same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to sign up for your e-newsletter straight from Twitter.
This provides you the flexibility to leverage different marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack option.
Just how to start using beehiiv email marketing software.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean web content designer that wants a system that allows them to send out custom newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
The most successful newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv aims at providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media firm, start-up, or content maker, you must seriously thinking about trying out beehiiv. It’s completely free to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your checklist.
If you actually wind up having to spend for beehiiv it’s probably an excellent indication that individuals enjoy reading your things.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv offers four different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan gives you everything you require to get going and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 34.40/month) provides you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom-made domain, polls, and accessibility to costs memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76.80/month) gives you every little thing in the Grow plan with enhancement of top priority assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite generous in my point of view.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same amount– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for lots of users.
I’m uncertain just how the system economics service this, but beehiiv is most definitely cheaper (right now) than what it can be.
Register for a free plan
The initial step is to enroll in a free plan. You can do this by clicking the “Begin trial” switch on beehiiv’s site.
The free plan will certainly permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed kinds, and a lot more. It’s a very charitable offering for those simply beginning (or for those searching for a brand-new system to move to).
Onboarding
After creating an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial newsletter?”, “what various other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and much more.
You’ll after that create a name and link for your e-newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your e-newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your website URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand design and colors to see to it your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your control panel
When you reach your major control panel, you’ll see every one of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined information on how many sign-ups you’re getting and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing”, “Posts”, “Target market”, “Grow”, “Generate income from”, “Design” and” Assess”. And at the really lower you’ll see the settings option.
Control panel is your primary control center (screenshot over), Start composing is where you develop and publish newsletters, Articles is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and break them down right into segments), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Style is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Examine is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to start writing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you intend to blog about, I recommend just going to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can tweak your template and designing later– concentrate on the content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a tidy and easy to use interface for writing.
When you begin writing, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your content exactly how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of choices for various types of material like videos, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will be a lot extra content features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to design your e-mail template and readjust some settings.
Here, you can update the name of your newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, turn on or off a welcome e-mail to first time clients, and much more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, picture styles, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever before solitary point you can optimize with your e-mail template because it’s a whole lot. Simply try out the system totally free and see it on your own!
Essential beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of remarkable features that make it a terrific publishing system for any newsletter maker.
Below are several of the vital features you can find with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing system. It makes it extremely very easy to create and send emails. I stated above a few of the important things you can do with your settings and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
The important things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the better email editors I have actually ever written in.
Web site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, all of your e-newsletters (if you want) live on a site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can subscribe to your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s pretty much comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the cost-free one, provide you a site. However, the free plan locations your web site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you intend to add a custom-made domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. Nevertheless, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to register for your newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to utilize an embed type. This is what I utilize on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed kinds, you have 3 various alternatives– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I directly utilize the slim embed.
You can locate the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution monitoring if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking objectives– pretty neat.
However, there are a few features I wish beehiiv had when it came to subscribe features. I’m sure the team is servicing updates for these, but I pointed out a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things regarding beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing clients on your checklist to onward your e-mails to buddies and coworkers and if they obtain other individuals to subscribe to your checklist, you can reward them. These rewards can be in whatever kind you desire. I’ve appear several e-newsletter firms give benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional method for expanding your email list.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this post.
Premium subscriptions
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription earnings is certainly a monster of its own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” concerns of your e-newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be very profitable depending on what your newsletter needs to supply. For example, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that generates millions in profits a year simply by having pay-only newsletter material.
Information analytics
Among things I love about beehiiv is how tidy and straightforward the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count.
You obtain access to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye sight on how your e-newsletter is actually doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that subscriber matter rise is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Below are several of the pros and cons I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to set up and start sending out e-newsletters for free
- Clean and contemporary client analytics
- Lots of versatility with e-mail layouts.
- Referral program feature
- Site hosting
- Develop premium alternatives to generate income from
- Surveys
To be honest, I haven’t seen one more newsletter system that has actually been able to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I don’t intend to be biased so I’m mosting likely to discuss some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Below are some of the cons I’ve located while making use of beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and Beehiiv For Content Creators
- Limitations around adding customized typefaces
I make use of Webflow as my website building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to enter too much detail why I love Webflow so much however you can review my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Now, there truly is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow web site apart from using an iframe embed. I personally don’t like using iframe’s since they tend to decrease my site a bit. Whenever a page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to load on the page. It’s extremely noticeable when you’re on a slow-moving net link. Yet I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can not utilize a normal Webflow form (which I like using). There are means around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier however that would certainly simply include added expenses that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv con but I thought I would state it.
Besides that, I still believe the pros far outweigh the disadvantages here. I’m additionally confident that Webflow will eventually develop a better means to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion: Beehiiv For Content Creators
In general, beehiiv is a great service for any individual looking to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system much surpasses several that are presently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you really have absolutely nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are also 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 an e-newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it might cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation blog posts commonly. I just do when I really use the device myself and would advise it to a close friend.
I hope you located some clarity on whether beehiiv is a good system for you.