This is Fatherpreneur.

The newsletter that's written by a dad with a mustache who's been creating content for 10 years. Although my mustache is a bit more like a beard right now as I've been laying in a hospital bed all week.

More on that later.

As always, in less than 5 minutes, you'll learn quick and actionable tips for creating newsletter content that people open, read, and actually enjoy.

Today, my mustache and I embark on the following five things:

1. 10x your newsletter growth with Fatherpreneur

2. To the polls: What’s better, a higher open rate, or more subscribers?

3. Three ways to maximize your newsletter’s open rates

4. Meme of the Day

5. Personal Update from the Hospital

10x Your Newsletter Growth (free newsletter audit)

If you’re a Twitter user, you may have seen my offer to provide one free tip to improve your newsletter. if you didn’t see it, here is it again. Go ahead, click that link to Twitter, drop your most recent email link, and I’ll give you feedback, absolutely free.

Every day I tweet “Newsletter Pro Tips”. If you’re interested in all the secrets and tricks that make great newsletters, follow me on Twitter and you’ll be 10 steps ahead of everyone else who is flying by the seat of their pants.

I recently spoke with one of the largest creators in the world. They said:

My thesis with Fatherpreneur is to help newsletter creators strategically execute their plans, consistently, with an array of tools and skills, to grow, scale, and monetize their newsletters. Becoming a creator isn’t rocket science, but it does take hard, consistent, deliberate work with the right set of tools.

If any of that interests you, please subscribe to Fatherpreneur, share with a friend, and join me for the journey.

What’s Better. A High Open Rate, or A High Subscriber Count?

This pro tip got some engagement, many agreed. Others, not so much.

There are a lot of opinions on this one, with some interesting concepts to argue both sides.

A few months ago I polled my LinkedIn audience on this same question and responses varied, but about as much as I expected.

One person’s comment on this LinkedIn poll was thought provoking, and I wanted to get your opinion on it. They voted that they’d rather have the former: “100,000 list, 5% open rate” and left the following comment:

What do YOU think? Yes, you. You who are reading this. What is your opinion?

Respond to the poll below. Please also leave extra thoughts after filling out the poll if you’d like, or reply directly to this email to share your thoughts in depth.

3 Tips to Maximize Email Open Rates

At the end of the day, no matter how engaging your newsletter content might be, there are three crucial components of an effective email that need to be considered to maximize open rates.

1. Deliverability.

2. Email Subject Line

3. Cliff Hanger Preview Text

1. Deliverability

If your email is getting thrown into your subscribers’ spam boxes, then you need to check a number of things regarding deliverability. Your domain reputation, your IP reputation, subscriber individual spam preferences, number of links in content, type of content, number of images, the content/keywords of your subject line and preview text, your sending frequency — this all plays an important part in your newsletter being delivered. Deliverability is a complex game. Here’s a great article about deliverability dos and don’ts.

When you are first starting out your email newsletter, ask your audience to reply to the email. It can be something silly like “Reply to this email with whether or not you are a Zombie.” Anything that gets a subscriber to respond to your email early on will tell spam filters at Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. that you are a real sender, and that personal inboxes are safe receiving your newsletter.

2. Enticing subject line.

Even with a highly reputable domain and IP, if your subject line gets caught in a sea of hundreds of daily emails, then your subscribers might gloss over it or delete it. Have a creative, engaging subject line!

A/B testing your subject lines is a great way to experiment with a few different titles to see which ones resonates most with your audience. I personally don’t think there is much reliable, statistical variance in A/B testing subject lines until you have at least 500 - 1,000 subscribers, but you can start to A/B test as early on as you want. The more subscribers you have, the more statistical variance there will be when you A/B test. Not enough people A/B test, and you’re literally leaving potential email opens on the table by putting all your eggs in one subject line basket. (And eggs are very expensive right now).

3. Cliff-hanger preview text.

Morning Brew uses the preview text of their newsletters really effectively. You want your reader to feel like they’re missing out on something juicy by not opening your email. You need to tap into the psychology of the human beings you’re writing to and put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself: What subject line would I refuse not to open?

In the example above, the word “mystery”, “missing”, and “radioactive” were all buzzwords that made me think… well that sounds rather intriguing… Now I have to open the email and find the story it’s referring to see what I’m missing.

Part two of the preview text is strategically burying the story it refers to somewhere in the newsletter. Don’t be too secretive, but remember, the preview text is an aid to produce opens. After someone opens your email, you want the actual body of the newsletter to drive engagement and CTRs.

Newsletter Pro Tip Round-Up

Meme of the Day

Personal Update

I am writing this newsletter from a hospital bed, where I’ve been laying now for 5 days. Long story short, I needed emergency back surgery due to a massive disc rupture. I’ve had three prior back surgeries and this was my fourth, and most severe. The surgery was a total success, and I’m on the road to recovery, but recovery looks a bit different than I expected.

Thanks be to God for modern medicine, technology, and the ability to work from anywhere.

Here’s me right before my surgery on Thursday morning. The nurse blew up a medical glove so my son Everett could have a balloon to play with. For me, the road to recovery is all about long term health (diet + exercise, without waver), and my north star is being able to pick up my son, play with him, and be able to do the same with his children 30 years from now.

Here’s to life’s misadventures and the many ways we learn new things in unexpected circumstances.