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How Christian Collard of Sunday Money Hit 25,000 Subscribers in 1 Year
Christian Collard’s Journey From Zero to 25,000 Subscribers With beehiiv
Kanishka Kumawat & Brandon Storey
October 2nd, 2024
Most newsletter operators struggle to grow because they aren’t sure how to get people to read their publication.
That’s why, at beehiiv, we made it our mission to be the newsletter platform built for growth, and I’m sure Christian Collard of Sunday Money newsletter would agree.
Why? Because In just eight months, Collard was able to grow his beehiiv newsletter, Sunday Money, to 25,000 subscribers.
Sunday Money is a beehiiv newsletter all about mastering your personal finances.
In the biweekly newsletter, Collard shares bite-size tips and resources on making more money, investing, and entrepreneurship.
Trying to grow your newsletter? Then, keep reading to learn how Collard tapped into rapid growth with beehiiv Boosts and strategic partnerships.
Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
Meet Christian Collard, the voice behind Sunday Money:
Christian Collard’s Backstory
Collard is no stranger to the email game. He’s spent a decade in the world of email, launching several newsletters over the years.
Collard shared, “I've been in the newsletter space for the last 10 years. And 10 years ago, they said email was going out of style, but I think today it's even stronger than ever, especially with tools like beehiiv that just make it so easy.”
Right now, Collard works full-time as a marketing manager and runs Sunday Money on the side. He explained, “Sunday Money is my fourth publication. I started 10 years ago with a travel newsletter, so I promoted different places to travel within New England, which is where I live.”
Collard’s first newsletter came with several perks. He recalled, “I was able to travel for free and see some of the coolest locations, resorts, and hotels in the area — in exchange for publishing them in my newsletter. I was doing that for a couple years and then sold the newsletter.”
After his travel newsletter, Collard launched a lifestyle newsletter; and, then, his third was a productivity newsletter.
Collard elaborated, “It was called Friday Digest, all about fun things to do on the weekend, as well as travel and health hacks. Two years ago, I started a newsletter called 8AM. It was seven days a week (a quick little gem on life and productivity). I launched that and sold that.”
After those three newsletters, Collard explained how he decided to just focus on his career, but he couldn’t shake the idea of diving back into the newsletter game.
He remarked, “I just could not stop thinking about newsletters. And, of course, beehiiv just makes it so easy., so I came up with the idea for Sunday Money and launched that in January of 2024.”
Launching Sunday Money
In January 2024, Collard decided to dive back into the newsletter world with a newsletter all about money.
He shared, “It’s a biweekly newsletter about personal finance investing and financial independence. It's a really simple, straightforward email. It has 10 quick links to read. When I was putting it together, I thought Sunday mornings are a cool time to just sit in a quiet space and maybe work on your personal finances or read about some investments.”
How did Collard come up with the catchy name? He wanted to make it clear what the newsletter was all about — and when his readers would get it.
Collard explained, “I wanted the name about when you're actually going to receive it, so you know what you're going to get. ‘Sunday Money’ is going to show up in your inbox every Sunday, and you know the format you're going to see. I deliver 10 ideas for people who are interested in that kind of stuff.”
Collard continued, “I wanted it to reflect the fun and light-hearted humor of Sunday Comics. I grew up reading the newspaper and going directly to the Sunday Comics. As I got older, I started reading the business and finance section. My goal for Sunday Money was to be the brainchild of both.”
While Sunday Money started out as a once-a-week newsletter, Collard has received such great feedback that people wanted it showing up in their inboxes throughout the rest of the week.
Collard shared, “Since I've had so many people with some great feedback on the newsletter asking for more issues, I added a Wednesday issue as well. And, of course, I've had many great advertisers reach out, so it gave me another space to do that.”
Zero to 1,000 Subscribers: Friends, Family, Boosts
We asked Collard to give us some insider tips on getting that first 1,000 subscribers. Here’s what he had to say:
“The first 1,000 subscribers is the toughest. I launched the newsletter and literally just reached out to everybody that I knew on social media, and I was able to maybe get to 100 subscribers.”
Collard remarked, “It's difficult at first to scale because you don't have any leverage when you've only got a few subscribers. It's difficult to collaborate with other newsletters and swap if you don't have much of an audience.”
For his first 1,000 subscribers, Collard leaned heavily into beehiiv Boosts, a paid recommendation feature built into beehiiv.
“I use beehiiv Boosts. I can just put money in there, and people will promote my newsletter to others; and that was how I got to the first thousand,” explained Collard.
How exactly does beehiiv Boosts work?
When someone subscribes to a beehiiv newsletter, they can see other recommended publications they can subscribe to with one click.
With Boosts, you can pay to have your newsletter recommended at the top of this list, fueling your subscriber growth.
If you’re looking to grow your newsletter fast, you can select a set fee that you’re willing to pay to gain new subscribers passively.
On the flip side, beehiiv newsletter operators can also earn money passively through sponsored recommendations. Every time one of your new subscribers also subscribes to your recommended newsletter, you get paid.
From 1,000 to 25,000: Boosts & Strategic Partnerships
Getting that first 1,000 subscribers is often the hardest part of the growth journey. So being in the email game for some time, Collard knew once he hit that mark, he’d be able to supercharge his growth.
Collard shared, “Once I had 1,000 subscribers, I had a bit of leverage, so I was able to work with other newsletters that also had 1,000; and we’d do a link swap. I would make sure that I did that on every single issue I sent out. I’d have at least one or two collaborations with each newsletter.”
The bigger his newsletter has grown, the easier it’s been for Collard to partner with large media companies, fueling his growth all the way to 25,000 subscribers.
“When I was able to get to a few thousand subscribers (even more leverage), I was able to partner with some real big publications. I've worked with The Daily Drop, Money Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly, so I’ll collaborate with a bunch of different brands. We'll put together some kind of a cool prize, incentive, or download for people to subscribe and get,” explained Collard.
Enjoying this beehiiv case study? Learn how Captain Yar Earned $65,000 in 7 Months on beehiiv.
Leveraging His Marketing Background to Scale
So why exactly is Collard seeing such rapid growth with his newsletter? Besides Boosts and strategic partnerships, he’s leveraged his marketing background, especially when it comes to market research and testing.
Collard shared, “I keep a database of emails I love and reasons why I click on the emails and open them (i.e., good subject lines, the content they're creating, the way that they're delivering, etc.).”
So Collard kept a ‘swipe file’ of the best newsletters and pulled his favorite elements from each one.
Collard explained, “The whole reason I got to the format of Sunday Money as ‘just 10 quick links’ is there's an email in my inbox. It also shows up on Sunday. It's delivered by a woman named Emily Ryan. She's in the email space, and it's just 10 quick links; and I find myself always opening that email.”
He continued, “I found I was always clicking on her email because I always knew exactly what I was going to get: 10 quick links for things that I'm interested in.”
Favorite beehiiv Features
We asked Collard to share why he went with beehiiv over all the other email platforms. He answered, “I love beehiiv. The first thing that attracted me to it is that it’s an all-in-one platform.”
Easy To Use
Collard described how running a newsletter 10 years ago was extremely challenging and required manually piecing together a lot of what beehiiv does for newsletter operators today.
“With my travel newsletter, I had to actually build it with HTML by myself, so I would create the design elements. I'd open up my email program. I’d put them all in there. I'd copy over my email list and hit the send button. It wasn't an application. I was actually creating emails and sending them and programming for HTML,” recounted Collard.
After he would do the HTML for the email, Collard would create a WordPress website to build a landing page and integrate his email service provider (ESP).
Collard shared, “beehiiv just does everything. It just makes it so quick and easy. It's got my landing page. It's almost like a blog with all of my past newsletter issues. It handles all of my email.”
“When I come up with an idea, I'm really excited about it. When I wanted to start Sunday Money, I wanted the first issue out that day. When you get started with beehiiv you can literally — within hours — have your website set up and be sending emails. It just makes it so easy, so that was one of the first things that attracted me to beehiiv,” continued Collard.
Ad Network
Another key feature for Collard is beehiiv’s integrated ad network. He shared, “Now, most amazingly, you’ve also got the ad network in there. It's just so easy. It's a cost per click (CPC) model, which I love. It’s not a big risk for the advertiser. If I don't send many clicks, they don't have to pay for it. It's not a fat flat fee.”
“Previously you had to go and connect with other advertisers. You'd have to do cold outreach and find them or they would find you, and then you'd go back and forth a thousand times with email, get ad creative, collect the payment, wait for the payment to hit, send out proofs, get it approved, and hopefully get all that done in time to actually send your newsletter out,” Collard explained.
Collard described how it was a nightmare trying to navigate all of that before beehiiv, so having the entire ad operations built into beehiiv makes it so much easier to generate revenue and save a ton of time in the process.
Collard shared, “I love the ad platform. Having an advertiser there that I don't have to spend time going back and forth with is just amazing. I can focus on the content. I never even have to think about advertisers. I've just always got one lined up.”
Pricing
One of the other enticing things about beehiiv was the pricing model, especially compared to competitor ESPs.
Collard remarked, “I’ve been on all the different other applications: ConvertKit, MailerLite, and Substack. They either take a percentage of your revenue or the price makes it difficult to get all of the features you need. It costs a fortune. And when you're just starting out, you don't usually have that kind of money; so the price for beehiiv is great.”
How Are You Currently Monetizing?
We asked Collard to break down how he’s monetizing Sunday Money. He replied, “It’s currently just the ads. It's a free newsletter. I have been thinking about adding a paid option for people who want to dive deeper into some of the subjects that we cover like personal finance and investing, so maybe some investment ideas or how to get started investing.”
Collard also shared, “I'm actually working on how to launch your own newsletter through beehiiv, so I may add that as an upsell. beehiiv has always had the monthly and yearly subscription, but now beehiiv has a one-time fee, which I think is amazing. So that way I could sell PDF guides or how-to guides for just a one-time fee, and that's something I'm looking at doing next.”
Saving Time With beehiiv
We asked Collard to name his favorite aspect of beehiiv, and he explained that being able to easily run a newsletter outside his 9 to 5 has been a huge help.
Collard shared, “A lot of people starting newsletters have a full-time job. Being able to spend a little bit of time working on this can lead to big results. The ease to start and create something on beehiiv — it's just so beneficial. The time saved on creating your website, sending the emails, finding the advertisers, it's just minimal compared to what it used to be one or two years ago.”
One thing we wanted to know was how Collard was crafting his content twice a week outside of his day job. Here’s what he had to say:
“The process is super easy. It's a curated newsletter. As I go through the week, I find great stories and content, and I'll bookmark them. On Saturday, I spend an hour or two in the morning. I'll find the top 10 articles. I'll go on to OpenAI, create a cool image, pop in my advertiser, and schedule the posts. It's really easy. It doesn't take me more than a couple hours a week.”
So what does Sunday Money’s future look like? For Collard, it’s about two things: double down on growth and monetization.
Collard shared, “I think in the last couple weeks, I’ve added 10,000 subscribers, mostly from a collaboration that I'm doing with some other big brands. But that also gives me the leverage to go out and work with some even bigger brands, so I definitely see myself hitting 50,000-100,000 subscribers by the end of the year.”
But that’s not all. Right now, Collard has filled all of his advertising slots, so one way he can earn more is by increasing how many times he sends his newsletter each week to place more ads.
“My next thought is to maybe offer a daily auction. I’ll give everybody the option that if Sunday is all they want to read, then that's what they'll get. But I'd love to expand and create more content, so maybe do deep dives into actual articles on personal finance, investing, and financial independence that I create during the week.” explained Collard.
Collard went on to say, “It'll also give me more opportunity to work with more advertisers. Right now, I'm fully booked for the next six weeks on ads through beehiiv Ad Network.”
Collard discussed how increasing his send times wouldn’t just help him earn more, but it would also help him grow faster.
He shared, “I've got advertisers contacting me all the time about wanting to advertise in Sunday Money. I just don't have the inventory, so I think going to a daily option would help that and also help me grow a little bit faster. It would allow me to collaborate with more newsletters as well.”
Advice for Starting & Growing a Newsletter
When it comes to growing a newsletter, Collard has no shortage of tips. But over the course of the interview, he emphasized over and over again that it’s all about collaboration and partnerships.
So what’s Collard’s advice for newsletter operators who want to grow? “Collaborate with others. It's so easy to launch any sort of a side project or newsletter in a silo and hope that people read it. In reality, you need to work with others to read it, share it, and get any sort of leverage and growth.”
Collard mentioned how social media platforms can help, but it’s faster to lean into partnerships.
He revealed, “I know sharing blindly on X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, people will find you, but it's so much quicker if you have a network. beehiiv has a great Slack community that you talk to others in, and people listen, subscribe to your newsletter, and reply with some ideas. I'll say, ‘Hey, great content. I'll feature your link in my next newsletter.’”
Collard explained how networking with other newsletter operators is one of the best ways to succeed, even if they appear to be your competitors.
He shared, “You can see what's working and not working. You can bounce ideas off of other people. My advice is just to get out there and talk to other creators. The cool thing with the space is that technically there's competition, but there's no limit to the amount of emails people can put in their inbox; so some of my biggest competitors are also some of my biggest friends.”
Key Takeaways
Christian Collard launched his beehiiv newsletter eight months ago to help people take control of their personal finances. Since then, he’s grown his newsletter to 25,000 subscribers, secured a consistent flow of sponsored ads through the Ad Network, and leveled up his own personal finances with a brand new income stream.
Here are some key takeaways:
Do Whatever It Takes To Hit 1,000 Subscribers: When you’re first starting out, the hardest growth season is getting to your first 1,000. Share your newsletter with your friends and family and tap into beehiiv Boosts to accelerate your growth.
Collaborate To Fuel Growth: Don’t try to grow your newsletter as a lone wolf. Instead, join communities like beehiiv’s ‘hiiv” on Slack and other newsletter groups to partner with others and promote each other’s newsletters.
Use a Swipe File To Optimize Your Newsletter: Want to get people hooked on your newsletter? Study your favorite newsletters – their format, content, and subject lines – to see what elements draw you in. Then, apply them to your own newsletter to create that same experience.
Tap Into Easy Revenue With the beehiiv Ad Network: Collard has earned thousands with the beehiiv Ad Network. With just a few clicks, you can monetize your newsletter without the hassle of traditional sponsorship work.
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