Apartment Locator Ad Wins & DM Outreach Playbook

Hi newsletter operators!

Lots of great things happening in the local newsletter space lately!

Biggest thing is seeing Matt Diehl getting 1mil+ views on his cash drop video. And now seeing a lot of others trying this as well. Including me. Didn’t get anything viral happening, but still creating a lot of interest and views compared to other content. I’m a big believer that this is a great strategy to leverage in you community.

Will write up more about this, and probably do more videos on it in the future. Already did an episode with Matt last week, so make sure you check it out if you want to learn more about this, watch it here.

I’ve got two more newsletters launching this week, so will be a busy one. But hoping to get some more interviews out soon. And if you want to come on the show, PLEASE REPLY and let me know. Would love to have more readers come on the show.

Podcast spotlight

Ideas and Lessons From Local Media Growth (Solo Episode)

Top Four Takeaways

Apartment Locator Ad ROI

A single apartment-locator ad across two newsletters closed 2 leases in <30 days and proved local classifieds still print money.

• 2 deals closed = $3k–$4.5k revenue on a $400 spend
• 1 more lease pending; 8–10 warm leads queued
• Advertiser paid $50 extra per month for website I built for her
• treating this as an experiment towards a digital marketing agency

Instagram DM Prospecting

Cold email is way to complex and costly. Cold calling is time consuming and difficult to get in front of decision makers. But Instagram DMs can be done very quickly, and are more likely to be monitored by someone higher up or with say on marketing budget. I spent 10mins DMing 8 custom home builders:

• 13 % response rate (1 of 8) in four hours
• Uses ChatGPT to craft vertical-specific pitch, no personalization needed
• Keep daily volume low to avoid any kind of platform ban

Here’s exactly what I sent them:

Hey! We have over 20k locals reading our newsletters and most are upper middle class homeowners looking for custom builders (we have the data to prove it). Would you be interested in a quick 10-minute chat about getting in front of them?

Single-Word Welcome Reply

In your welcome email, ask your readers to reply “YES” or “I’M READY”. And move it towared the towards the top so they are more likely to see it and take action on it.
We did this and get 10x the number of replies vs asking “reply with your favorite local restaurant”

• Dozens of auto “I’m ready” replies every day
• Lower cognitive load beats “favorite restaurant?” prompts
• Positive signal boosts deliverability and open rates

Create a dead simple local magazine??

This one is just in the idea phase, but I think it’s worth exploring, mainly for those that are at scale (more than 10k subs and 1yr+ in). Someone is doing this in my area: a very simple, ad heavy 12 page “magazine”.

Idea is that it can make money, but more importantly is branding. Now you have another offer for advertisers, and you can get yourself in front of thousands of targeted homeowners. Don’t know anything about numbers yet, will try to find out. But seems worth exploring to see if it can make sense.

Action Steps for Operators

1. Pitch high-LTV matchmakers (apartment locators, brokers). Share my ROI story and charge ≥$500/mo.
2. DM 8–12 ideal sponsors daily with a tight two-sentence hook; scale cautiously.
3. Rewrite your welcome email: first line asks for a one-word reply.

Great reads

NextDoor Wants to be Your Local News Outlet

NextDoor is getting into the local media space. Kind of. Don’t think this is much competition. Could actually be a good thing, because it can be another source for you to pull from. Worth reading to know what’s coming from them.
Read it HERE.

10 Instagram DM Templates That Pull 36 % Reply Rates

Influencers.club shares its highest-performing outreach messages and shows how ChatGPT tweaks them for any niche. Perfect for landing local sponsors fast.
Read it HERE.

The 15 Biggest Problems Newsletters Face

Great piece from Nathan May about the state of newsletters and some of the issues that publishers are dealing with. Always good to get perspectives like this about the broader newsletter industry.
Read it HERE.