The Rise of Atomic Newsletters 🚀

And why you should start one ASAP!

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a trend emerge in the newsletter space. Long newsletters are out. Short newsletters are in.

Josh Spector is the first creator I know who built a large audience by publishing a short 1–2 sentence newsletter called “For The Interested.”

Christian Collard recently launched, grew, and sold “8 AM” to Wisdom Media by following the same basic format.

And the inspiration for my own newsletter was my friend Jamie Northrup - Minimalist Hustler who has been writing and sending his “Minimalist Hustler Daily” newsletter for 530+ issues at the time of this writing.

These types of newsletters are what I call “Atomic Newsletters.”

Still confused?

Don’t worry.

Let’s break it down.

What is an Atomic Newsletter, Exactly?

You may have heard about the concept of writing an Atomic Essay.

The idea was popularized by Dickie Bush as a way to stay consistent with publishing content on a daily basis.

An atomic essay consists of:

• One single idea.
• A maximum of 250 words.
• Published via a single screenshot.

What’s the point of atomic essays?

Instead of writing a 2000 to 3000-word blog post that garners little attention, you write a short 250-word essay to gather data and see what type of content resonates with your audience.

Once you validate your ideas, you can then spend the necessary time to produce longer pieces of content on topics that have proven themselves.

It’s a smart data-driven approach to audience growth and content marketing. And it’s a concept you can easily apply to starting and growing a profitable newsletter.

The Atomic Approach to Newsletters

An atomic newsletter is a short 1–2 sentence email that links to either a piece of curated content or created (original) content.

Each newsletter consists of short curiosity-driven headlines designed to make your reader click and consume relevant content around their topic of interest.

Because dedicated newsletter platforms like ConvertKit and Beehiiv make it insanely easy to track basic metrics like the number of opens and link clicks, you get to make an informed decision about what type of content your readers enjoy.

Starting an atomic newsletter is also low friction. All you need is a reliable ESP — which is usually FREE until you reach a specific number of subscribers — and you’re good to go!

Why Start an Atomic Newsletter?

Imagine you start an atomic newsletter in the health niche.

Over the course of a few weeks, you send several pieces of content on various diet strategies. Everything from the Mediterranean diet to the Zone diet.

Once you dig into the data, you notice a few things:

• One edition of your newsletter, which linked to a video on the keto diet, received 3x more opens and clicks than any other diet you shared.
• The open-and-click rate on an edition of your newsletter, with a video discussing the vegan diet, received the lowest overall engagement.

What conclusion can you draw from this?

For starters, you can safely assume your subscribers are more interested in keto as a diet strategy than veganism.

Why? Because the data proves it.

Armed with this knowledge, you can now create long-form original content around the keto diet and not waste time with content that focuses on a vegan diet.

You can also use this information to promote an affiliate product on the ketogenic diet or even create your own offer.

The atomic newsletter approach allows you to quickly gather data on what type of content your audience wants before wasting your time on creating content they don’t.

How to Monetize an Atomic Newsletter

Although there are many different ways to monetize an atomic newsletter, the easiest way is with sponsorships and referral links.

Sparkloop makes this easy by giving you access to their Upscribe widget for co-registration.

You can also grab individual referral links to include in your newsletter

Each time your subscriber successfully subscribes to one of your recommendations, you get paid.

Growing Your Atomic Newsletter

Attracting subscribers to your atomic newsletter can be achieved with either organic content marketing or paid traffic.

As mentioned above, you can let the data from curated content inform the type of content you produce. Better still, you can use your newsletter to distribute your newly created content to your subscribers.

This creates a boomerang effect that looks like this:

CONTENT → NEWSLETTER → CONTENT → NEWSLETTER → ∞

An infinite loop of original content that pulls in new subscribers educates existing subscribers.

Organic Growth Channels

Keeping with the example above, you could write an article on the ketogenic diet and publish it right here on Medium.

Next, you can repurpose your article into a Twitter thread or LinkedIn post and distribute it across those platforms as well.

And, if you really want to expand the reach of your content, you can become active in Reddit forums and create videos on the topic for TikTok and YouTube.

All of this content should link to your newsletter with a strong call to action for readers and viewers to sign up.

You can use Typeshare to distribute the content across your social media profiles in a way that is quick and painless.

Paid Growth Channels

Besides monetization via co-registration, you can also leverage the Sparkloop Partner Program to have established newsletters, with larger audiences, promote your newsletter.

Other paid traffic sources include:

• Meta Ads
• Bing Ads
• Twitter Ads
• Google Ads

As long as you pay close attention to your CPA, stay within your budget, and monetize in a way that offsets your advertising costs, you can create a paid growth flywheel that scales easily and effortlessly.

Dropping Your Own Atomic Newsletter

Growing a newsletter takes time and consistency.

However, the atomic newsletter method removes the stress of constantly creating fresh content for your readers.

I believe we will see an even bigger shift toward this type of newsletter format in the coming months and years because of its simplicity and low level of friction to start.

Due to the fact you are leveraging other creators’ existing work, you can spend the majority of your time focusing on networking and growth.

What better way to network than by sharing other creator’s content?

We hall have hobbies and interests that we’re passionate about.

Each of us consumes content daily from sources we know, like, and trust.

Why not share that same content with others as a way to build an audience?

What do you think?

Will you start an atomic newsletter?

Let me know in the comments!

My name is Evan 👋 I’m a happily married ❤️ father of three boys 👨‍👦‍👦 who likes to drink black coffee ☕️ and read Jack Reacher novels 📚 I also love newsletters! 📩

If you want daily tips on how top creators start, grow, and monetize their newsletters join Newsletter Alchemy here.

Some of the links in this article are affiliate links.