What you need to know about beehiiv

Oliver Darcy quit CNN to start a newsletter on Thursday.

What’s notable to me is not that he quit. It’s that he went to beehiiv.

beehiiv is the platform I’m writing you from right now. It has not yet been the destination for journalists but this move might signal a wave.

Whether or not you want to host your publication on beehiiv, they are a team to watch.

It’s almost scary how good they are at growing subscription businesses and there’s a ton we can steal from their strategies.

In this issue: what beehiiv gets about the subscription game that no one else does.

You are going to hate this issue. I’m sorry in advance.

P.S. I’ll be at SRCCON in Minneapolis next week. If you’re coming, let me know!

What beehiiv gets about the subscription game that no one else does

Not every journalist is running a so-called “newsletter business” but, even with a strong website, it’s a lot easier to get your readers paying when you prioritize your newsletter.

For newsletter writers, the conversation right now is Substack vs ConvertKit vs beehiiv—where should you go and who helps you grow your audience and revenue best?

Ghost remains relevant too mainly due to design/dev flexibility and the fact that they are the least shady one so far but I don’t ever hear about Ghost in marketing discussions because they have nearly nonexistent growth tooling, a minimal online presence and their userbase isn’t as loud about them.*

So, back to our big three.

Substack went after journalists and writers when they launched.

beehiiv is trying to eat their lunch on that now.

ConvertKit’s gonna lose for reasons I won’t get into today so we’ll skip it.

Here’s why my bet is on beehiiv and what we can learn from them.

Monetize first

beehiiv was built for people who want to make money from their newsletter.

And not just lunch money. Real “I could sell this newsletter for $75M” money.

Monetization is not an afterthought on beehiiv. It’s important to them and it’s evolving fast. They offer three out of the box revenue tools: ads, boosts and subscriptions. You can add subscriptions at launch, you can pull in ads from their ad network on your very first send and you can get paid to boost other publications as soon as you start growing your list.

They didn’t just build this and forget about it. Just this week they shipped a bunch of new updates like a feedback feature where you can tell them why you don’t like their ad offer.

Why it’s relevant for you: Choosing a platform that takes work off your plate…takes work off your plate. You could rebuild the ship or you could just start sailing.

Is it better to develop your own relationships with advertisers? Yeah, probably.

But for solo journalists and small teams, having some built-in monetization options is good. It’s a fallback and it’s training wheels you can lean on as you develop your sponsorship and advertising practices.

Even if you don’t use beehiiv, they’ve set a new standard for what you should demand of your tools. Built-in pay to boost, built in ad integration and built-in subscription marketing tools.

Market through your fans

You would think a $33M raise would make beehiiv so full of themselves they’d disappear from the internet like the Snapchat guys.

But what they did instead was lean way into their growing fanbase.

> They started a Slack community with their audience called the “hiiv.”

> They offer a super high commission for referrals.

> They jump into social posts that mention them no matter who is talking.

It’s very clear they have a mandate about the social part because they do it every time.

I would pay money to peek behind their social listening strategy.

Why it’s relevant for you: On one hand, beehiiv listens closely to their users right now. I don’t know that they always will. Seems unlikely with a venture-backed company, but we probably have a couple years still. They are also especially interested in journalists and they concierged Oliver’s set up for him.

On the other hand, investing in your own word of mouth is a solid business building strategy. Watch what the beehiiv team is doing and use it as inspiration for how to leverage word of mouth for your subscriptions.

Turn everyone into fans and then enlist them in your publication’s growth. (Honorable mention to Millennials Are Killing Capitalism which uses this strategy well.)

[Also check out: Where to use reviews to drive more subscribers]

Make it fun

Catching attention on the internet is a competitive game right now. You used to basically be able to put anything out and it would get some eyes, but that’s changing. There’s too much to see.

Search is also a mechanical bull of surprises these days. We’re all tired of the the will they won’t they of Google’s behavior and my new favorite pseudo-search engine (Reddit) might even get paywalled.

The beehiiv team is playing all those games because they sort of still have to BUT they’re also very much writing their own playbook. They’re doing things like founder-led marketing (Tyler’s newsletter), raising a community round and offering to fly in to onboard new customers as a publicity stunt.

They are either actually having fun or they just make it look fun and either way it’s a win for attention.

Why it’s relevant for you: Marketing (as much as you hate it) is how a publication gets seen and makes money. As the arena gets weirder, you might as well invent or choose a game you find fun to play.

Our takeaway

As a journalist, I would consider beehiiv as a home for your publication, particularly if you’re a solo writer. The monetization features mean you’re well set up to make money right away.

As an entrepreneur who now has to market their publication, I would watch the beehiiv marketing strategy. It’s really good. It’s also well funded and we can ride in the wake and catch some of that air too if we want to.

It’s good to be critical of Silicon Valley. They’ve done a ton of damage. But maybe we can have our own piece of that internet pie faster if we steal ideas from them.

Next week, I’ll be at SRCCON and I’m headed to sessions like “If journalism has utility, why can’t we measure it?” and “Journalists want the audience’s attention: What if they don’t want to give it to us?”

Looking forward to bringing you more on that soon.

*By nonexistent growth tooling, I’m looking at things that are plug and play like beehiiv’s pay-to-boost, built-in ad marketplace, and referrals.