New Media Summit ended Friday night, and as I sit here writing this, it’s been about 24 hours (and a few beers) since I’ve looked at any of my notes.
The summit was great.
I’m gonna share my biggest takeaways below, but the TL;DR here is that if you’re running a serious media operation, you should get the recordings. Specifically, you should buy them and watch Matt Paulson’s talk, which on its own is worth ten times whatever price they charge for the full set.
But Paulson wasn’t the only great operator on-stage. Let me run you through the things that’ll have the biggest impact on my work this year…
But First…
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Takeaways From New Media Summit…
I believe the good stuff sticks. I take notes, but more as a way to stay focused in the moment than something to refer back to.
When important ideas find you, they don’t let go.
With that in mind, here are the things that are still bouncing around my head from the event…
1. Insanely Valuable Content x Momentum
The first talk I walked into was Chenell Basilio, who’s spent years reverse-engineering the growth of newsletters, and boile dit down to this great two-part framework on-stage:
The people who make it in this game are the ones who build insanely valuable content and momentum.
She dug deeper into what each of those meant specifically (e.g., six ways insanely valuable content distinguishes itself, and examples of how people built momentum over time). But as I listened, now half a decade into this industry, there were two things on my mind…
Insanely Valuable Content: It’s easy to get complacent. Especially when you get positive feedback, and find a format that feels sustainable. The natural tendency in media is to look for efficiency, not excellence. Just look at what’s going on with AI. But Insanely Valuable content will never be efficient. We’re living in an age when the difference in results between good work and great work is exponential, not linear. Good reminder to always be pushing yourself to try and surprise people with how complete and worthwhile a given piece is.
Momentum: You gotta play long-term games. In a weird way, this provides the counter-point to “Insanely Valuable Content.” Momentum is about the daily work you’re doing – connecting with people, having conversations, etc. The jab-jab-jab before IVC’s right hook. If insanely valuable content makes a splash, momentum is about the little things you do for years that compound imperceptibly. For me, the most important part was just the reminder that it’s okay if it doesn’t feel like the work is having an effect on any given day. Long term games… Long term games.
2. You Need To Be Tagging Interest
The next talk that really shook me up was Sherrell Dorsey’s, founder of The Plug which was a media company focused on black founders that essentially became a Bloomberg-type data company that published and sold really interesting reports.
She’s a data scientist by training, so perhaps it’s no surprise that one of the big things she hammered in the talk was that you need to be collecting more insights from your readers.
Specifically…
Interest Data: You (read: Me) should be segmenting and tagging readers’ interests based on the things they click. I’ll use my other company, The Austin Business Review, as the example here – every week, I share a roundup of local business events in there. Each one tends to be themed (e.g., AI, hard tech, M&A, etc). Why am I not using Beehiiv to automatically tag readers based on which of those event links they click?
Opinions: Dorsey also created a ton of value for readers and partners by continually surveying the audience, then packaging those insights into well-designed reports she could sell to readers and brand partners alike. Lots of ways to implement something like this, but a “Question of the Week” survey at the top or bottom of the email seems like a natural first step.
3. Make Better Use Of Your Signup Flow
There were obviously a bunch of great speakers, but Matt Paulson’s talk was one of those ones that felt like it was instantly worth many times the cost of admission.
The main thrust of his presentation was that, rather than trying for cheap leads, you should focus on monetizing better, so that you can pay higher prices for higher quality leads, and still make more money.
There are a buuuunch of specific ways he talks about doing that, but for me, they distilled down into three core concepts…
Multiple Opt-Ins: Matt runs MarketBeat, which has ~6m subscribers and does $50m+ per year. When people sign up for that email, they don’t just enter an email address – they give their email (which is actually added to two lists), and have the option to include their phone number and approve browser alerts too. So out of the gate, Matt’s team has 4 channels they can reach you on. That means 4 channels to monetize. That won’t be right for everyone. But how many of us are even thinking of two? In a world where most people are trying to minimize friction points on signup, this was a valuable frame reset and got me thinking about what, if anything, I should be adding to my mix.
Sell when they wanna buy: Matt talked a lot about leveraging the moment of highest intent (often, the moment they sign up, but there are others he covered too). If you have a paid product or partner offer, sell it right when people join. Literally as part of the signup flow. Sounds obvious, but most of us are not doing this. Another key moment of high intent is when someone clicks something in your email. Let’s say it’s an article about AI news. Well, if you sell a product related to AI, that happens to be an excellent time to send them a follow-up email with that offer. “They’re already in their inbox,” Matt said. “It’s the perfect time to send another email.”
The whole talk was full of these things that seem diabolical obvious in retrospect, but that people aren’t even thinking of because they seem taboo on the surface, or go against some commonly held piece of internet marketing wisdom.
Ex. His team sends emails 5x a day
Not every tactic will be a fit for every audience. But Matt’s numbers don’t lie – more of this works than you’d expect.
4. “No”
During Sam Parr’s Q&A, one guy stood up and asked if he thought AI was going to make paid newsletters obsolete.
The answer was just one word.
5. “You have to be unreasonable”
Okay, I actually went and grabbed my notebook for this one because I lied her wording so much. But the last talk of the last day was Codie Sanchez in a fireside chat. And she shared a bunch of great stuff but I’d had an ad deal I was excited about fall apart earlier that morning, and I think this was what I appreciated most (paraphrasing slightly as I attempt to read my own handwriting")…
“You gotta be delusional if you wanna win,” she said. “If you’re reasonable and a CEO, you’re eventually gonna be someone else’s employee.”
She shared a line that her father repeats often about running a business – that you’ll have several “head in your hands” moments, when you’re alone, with no one to call, and no real idea what to do next.
“And you WILL have those moments,” she said. You just gotta keep going anyways.
This was a theme across the rest of the conference that I found most valuable – really experienced operators, being honest about the challenges.
Ryan Deiss, for example talked about how AI (and perhaps Ozempic?) slashed revenue 80% with one of his companies. Alexis Grant talked about the challenges of selling, and Sam Parr had a lot more than one valuable word to share, including real talk on his own uncertainties while building his newest company, Hampton.
I’m not affiliated at all, but if you want to find the recordings, you can snag ‘em here.
Everything (Important) I Know About Newsletters…
Speaking of recordings, I recently packaged up a couple of things I think you may like. Everything (Important) I Know About Newsletters is an hour-long talk I do sharing answers to the most common questions I hear about…
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