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👋 Hey!
In July, D. Michele Perry floated an idea on her Facebook page: a whimsical version of scouting, but for grown-ups.
The posts blew past 4 million views. Then something odd happened. Before Perry had a directory, a badge or a single meeting guide, people started organizing themselves into local groups right there in the comments.
More than 80 troops now meet in person. Joining still costs nothing.
This week: beehiiv turns on podcast ads for every paid plan, The Ringer bets on Substack over its own website, and Yahoo turns out to run a lot more of your list than you think. Plus a writer who sold out two hiking trips by saying yes to one reader, and a test where swapping one word in the greeting lifted clicks 19%.
Let's dive in! 👇
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Meme of the Week
This Week's Hot Takes
Substack rolled out Freewalls, Metered Paywalls and monthly-to-annual discounts. Freewalls ask readers for an email before they finish a post. Metered Paywalls give free subscribers a set number of paid posts a month.
beehiiv's podcast ads are live, with no minimum downloads. Mark your ad breaks and beehiiv fills them with your sponsors, programmatic ads or both on every play, old episodes included. It's on all paid plans. Substack's version is still in early access.
The Ringer is betting on Substack's network over its own website. Zach Lowe's $10-a-month NBA newsletter is one of Substack's bestselling sports newsletters.
Yahoo also delivers AOL, AT&T and Verizon mail, so it's likely one of your top three inboxes. Spam Resource's Al Iverson says to join the free Yahoo Sender Hub and keep complaints under 0.3%, aiming for 0.1%. Yahoo counts that rate only on mail that reached the inbox.
Substack turns recommendations into Lists with their own feed. Name a list, add a blurb for each pick and share the link. Each list gets a chronological feed of everyone on it, and you see how much traffic you send each writer.
Tool of the Week
Niusleters: the marketplace where sponsors come looking for you
Why You'll Love It: List your newsletter, set up your Sponsorship Slots at your own prices, and brands send Proposals straight to the slot they want. They filter by topic, audience language, and open rate, so what lands in your inbox comes from brands that are actually after readers like yours. Everything then runs in one thread: you accept or decline, the brand pays through the platform, and the metrics and invoice stay in the same place. No email chains, nobody to chase for payment.
Best For: Newsletter operators who are tired of cold pitching sponsors, especially those with engaged niche audiences that brands have trouble finding on their own.
Growth Hack of the Week
Turn a reader's question into a small, sold-out trip
How: Listen for requests nobody is serving yet, then offer to run the thing yourself. Swedish author Linda Åkeson McGurk, who writes The Open-Air Life, got hers from a long-time reader who asked if she knew anyone running hiking trips in Sweden. She didn't, so she asked for two weeks to build an itinerary. The pitch went out in her newsletter: seven days in the Swedish highlands, women only, four participants per trip, waitlist first. Before setting a price, she studied how companies like TrovaTrip run creator-hosted trips and borrowed what she could from their terms and conditions. Then she chose to plan and guide the route herself instead of just showing up as the host.
Why: Your readers already trust your taste, which is the hardest part of selling a trip. A cap of four makes it feel like an invitation. Over strawberries and homemade whipped cream, McGurk pulled out a notebook and asked guests for their best moments, whether her ads matched reality and what to fix. Then she had them sign a guest book, and their words now promote future dates.
Expected Result: Both trips sold out, and she has already opened slots for future adventures. Two lessons from round one: she priced in US dollars for American guests and exchange-rate swings ate into her margins, so she's building in a buffer. Also, bad weather sent the second group back before the summit. There are no revenue numbers here, so treat this as a playbook. Any newsletter with a place, a skill, or a craft at its center can run a smaller version, from a walking tour to a weekend workshop.
Spotlight: The Frolic & Forage Society by D. Michele Perry
What works:
She built only after the crowd showed up. Perry, an author and artist who also writes The Wonder Habit, floated a whimsical, scouting-style club for adults on Facebook in July. A few posts passed 4 million views, and people began organizing local groups in the comments. She turned a Substack into the Society's online clubhouse, and more than 80 in-person troops have formed since.
Belonging is free, and paying is a way to chip in. Anyone can join, start an independent troop and use most resources at no cost. A Supporting Membership is $5 a month or $50 a year and adds extras like quarterly seasonal gathering guides, with a Sustaining tier above it. Perry says she didn't want belonging locked behind a paywall.
Every send gives troops something to do offline. A weekly dispatch called The Monday Mushroom, monthly meeting field guides, a make-your-own badge guide and a troop directory turn the newsletter into a kit for real meetups. She asks members to reply with troop photos and stories for future issues.
Her own list comes first, Substack second. Perry sends new readers to her own email opt-in before redirecting them to Substack, a step she skipped during The Wonder Habit's big growth spurt and fixed later. Across both publications, she now reaches more than 18,000 subscribers, and she earns from paid subscriptions, workshops, community experiences, a book, and digital products.
Creator quote: "People don't subscribe for more information. We are drowning in information." D. Michele Perry, founder, The Frolic & Forage Society
Your takeaway: When a post takes off, don't stop at collecting emails. Give the crowd a job: ship the smallest kit that lets readers act on the idea without you, like a meeting guide or a directory, and keep joining free so the community can spread. Let the paid tier be how fans say thanks.
A/B Test of the Week
Test: Minnesota Public Radio sent a fiscal-year-end fundraising email to supporters it didn't have first names for. In a test documented by fundraising research firm NextAfter, the list was split 50/50: half the emails opened with "Greetings," and half with "Friend," and nothing else changed.
Result: "Friend," lifted the click rate from 0.86% to 1.0%, a 19.0% relative lift at 96.7% confidence. The test needed 26,960 recipients to be valid and got 63,881. Giving barely moved, with transactions up 0.9% and nowhere near significant.
Takeaway: Check what your first-name merge tag falls back to when a subscriber never gave a name. If it's a blank "Hi ," or a stiff "Greetings," a warmer default is a one-minute fix worth testing, and in most platforms it's just the default value on the merge tag. Caveats: one public radio list, one appeal email, a lift in clicks rather than donations, and a test that ended in July. (Yes, we noticed we open every issue with "Hey!" too, but, you know, our name is HeyNews, so...)
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Thanks for reading,
Eren & Cagri