First newsletter tools campaign checklist

A first newsletter tools campaign at founder scale. Numbered so you can stop lying to yourself about which step you skipped.

Confirm a working send they can do with 10 test subscribers tonight actually closes. Creators cannot fix packaging.
Write the avatar in a sentence: US English writer, 26-40, already bounced off Substack’s discovery they never got and Mailchimp’s editor they hate, watches ‘Substack took a cut and gave me no readers’ and ‘I still write in Notes’ videos on Sunday afternoon.
Write the problem in their mouth: I write every Sunday and the tool takes a cut to show me to nobody.
Write what they already quit: Substack they feel taxed by, Mailchimp they open with dread, and a Google Doc they paste into Gmail.
Write what they watch: Substack-cut rants, Mailchimp-editor hate, ‘I have 400 true fans’, Notes-to-email workflows.
Write the reject: the 200k creator-economy guru whose last 10 posts are course ads about newsletters they do not send.
Write adjacent so the phone does not smear: 400 true fans, Sunday writing, not venture-scale media brands.
Put that sentence into the brief
Scroll as them on a fresh Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube account. Example to look for: someone exporting a CSV from Substack and still not knowing where to go. Signal: the same Sunday-writing face two weeks in a row.
Keep a 50k average-view floor. Below that, $700 a post for 1k views is a money sink.
Skip #newsletter as a roster method.
Email. The contact is usually in a bio that is hello@their-tiny-site, not a talent agency. Name a real video. Ask for the phone number.
If they won’t give a number, move on. Creator-economy gurus quote course prices for a tool mention.
On the call, Minimum View Guarantee. Example: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Talent extra.
Send the contract while the yes is still warm. Scout $1,500 / Outreach $2,500 / Dealmaker $5,000.
A login that sends, no migration call.
Tell them what to film: write in the box, hit send, show it in Gmail. Stop. Do not ask them to promise growth. Ask them to write, send, and show the inbox.
Give each creator their own code. Unique signup links, not a screenshot of ‘10k subs’ that is not yours.
Do not run a launch day on the same morning if you wanted isolation.
Two follow-ups, then stop. If you do this right, ie at scale, you will have many other creators to choose from.

Doing the scroll by hand is kind of soul-crushing. Like a media-brand launch and you will leave the 400-subscriber writer. No demo. No download guarantee. You approve every creator and every rate.

Substack-cut rants already have the audience; a send they can do from a markdown box is the product.

First newsletter tools campaign checklist

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