Over 2 years earlier, I read among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo design for the first time. I clicked on it and instantaneously started tearing up How To Be Hot Beehiiv.
I wasn’t sure why I felt so emotional.
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently getting pitched different devices and services that don’t seem to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional since I invested the last six months checking out various e-mail and e-newsletter systems to aid build my newsletter. And to be fair, there are some wonderful alternatives for composing e-newsletters. Yet I couldn’t discover one that made me offer a guaranteed “yes”.
The concern with many existing newsletter platforms is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want a newsletter system that lets me fully customize my e-newsletter designs, makes it extremely simple to compose and send emails, and gives me devices that assist me evaluate metrics and get more subscribers.
I think I’ve finally found the best tool.
However, I understand beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s really appropriate for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter platform that makes it simple to design, compose, send, promote, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous staff members at the renowned e-newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their very own e-newsletter– taking lots of development principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to describe my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I like (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I chose to ultimately go with it as my newsletter platform of option.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The amusing tale is that I’ve watched for a modern-day e-newsletter system for fairly time currently. I’ve procrastinated hard when it involved ultimately launching my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And lastly, I ended up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter makers look up to preferred newsletters with millions of customers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a whole lot. They have terrific content, lots of customers, and a brilliant referral program that enables them to get even more clients.
So, I took place a hunt to determine just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What system do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they get even more clients? How do they create an e-newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the very first time, it seemed to respond to every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn individuals that constructed this tool actually comprehend e-newsletter creation and growth.” I questioned who these designers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the co-founders were several of the initial marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my brain exploded.
I knew this was mosting likely to be a different newsletter system. One that’s focused on designer growth.
Because, any type of maker knows, you need development to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And discovering the appropriate e-newsletter stack (that scales) usually indicates utilizing numerous various devices to assist attain one goal– one platform for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to establish references. It can get pricey.
So when I discovered beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was complimentary to start making use of, it was a piece of cake to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material developer that wants a system that permits them to send out personalized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a website.
One of the most successful newsletters have the right tools to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv focuses on providing you those tools.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or content maker, you must seriously thinking about experimenting with beehiiv. It’s entirely free to get started and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 clients on your list.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s most likely an excellent indicator that individuals enjoy reviewing your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You might be asking, “isn’t there currently a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a great system utilized by countless independent writers. With Substack you obtain your own site and use the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while developing an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to growth. beehiiv enables you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing clients to obtain words out.
beehiiv likewise provides you a site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own site already, you can also use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I utilize) to send your internet site clients right to your beehiiv e-mail checklist. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Performance to permit people to sign up for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to get your e-newsletter out into the world, making beehiiv an excellent Substack alternative.
How to start making use of beehiiv email marketing software.
Sign up for a free plan
The primary step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” switch on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you accessibility to site hosting, a newsletter CMS, breakthrough personalization, analytics, outside embed types, and much more. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those looking for a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding How To Be Hot Beehiiv
After creating an account, you’ll undergo an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and link for your newsletter’s internet site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Cooking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
During the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand colors and design to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
As soon as you reach your major dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Begin writing,” “Articles,” “Audience,” “Grow,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Analyze.” And at the very lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Control panel is your primary nerve center (screenshot above), Begin writing is where you produce and release newsletters, Posts is where you can see all of your previous e-newsletter versions, Audience is where you can view who your customers are (and break them down right into segments), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and growth tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with advertisements, Design is where you develop your e-newsletter landing page and message template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of every one of your admin things.
Composing your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to start composing, with little to no friction. If you’re simply starting, and have a concept you wish to cover, I advise simply mosting likely to the “Write” section in the navbar and clicking on “Beginning writing”.
You can tweak your template and styling later on– focus on the web content initially.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor uses a clean and user-friendly interface for composing.
When you begin creating, you can enhance headings, include web links, and style your web content just how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for various types of content like videos, web links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is also constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will be a whole lot more content features relying on when you read this.
Optimizing your setups and templates
As soon as you have a newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to make your e-mail template and change some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo, turn on or off a welcome email to very first time clients, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can modify history shades, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, image styles, and more. I’m not going to undergo ever single thing you can enhance with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just check out the system free of cost and see it on your own!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of impressive features that make it a great publishing system for any kind of e-newsletter maker.
Here are some of the important features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly simple to compose and send out e-mails. I stated above some of the things you can do with your setups and email style so I’ll spare you some extra analysis.
The important things to note with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a truly modern-day and minimalistic feeling. It’s most definitely among the better email editors I’ve ever before written in.
Internet site hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive a site. Think about it as a web site for your e-newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s practically comparable to that.
All plans, including the cost-free one, offer you an internet site. However, the free plan locations your site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to include a customized domain to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting clients is very important. Nevertheless, that’s why you have a newsletter right?
With beehiiv, individuals can sign up for your newsletter right from your beehiiv internet site or via embed types.
If you already have a web site, and desire people to sign up for your newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to utilize an embed kind. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right-hand man column of this post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three different choices– a full size, a dealt with width, and a slim embed. I personally utilize the slim installed.
You can discover the code snippet for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s also an alternative for acknowledgment tracking if you intend to forward UTM criteria for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nonetheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it involved subscribe features. I make sure the team is servicing updates for these, however I stated a few concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks section below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can motivate existing clients on your listing to onward your e-mails to good friends and associates and if they obtain other individuals to register for your checklist, you can compensate them. These rewards can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear several newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your clients into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– offering you an additional opportunity for growing your email list.
Nevertheless, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a much more premium plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later in this short article.
Costs memberships
They say all you need to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Subscription income is certainly a monster of its very own. If you’re searching for a system to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” issues of your newsletter that are only sent to paying clients. This can be really rewarding depending on what your newsletter needs to use. For example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in earnings a year simply by having pay-only newsletter web content.
Data analytics
Among the things I love regarding beehiiv is just how tidy and easy the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer matter How To Be Hot Beehiiv.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on just how your e-newsletter is really doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that customer count go up is certainly a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv supplies four various pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (cost-free) Launch plan gives you everything you need to begin and grow your newsletter (as much as 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the enhancement the ad network, referral program, personalized domain name, surveys, and accessibility to costs registrations. This is the plan I am on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) offers you whatever in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern support and getting rid of the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are fairly generous in my viewpoint.
As an example, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 monthly. In contrast to some rivals, like Kit (formerly ConvertKit), that would bill $679 each month for the very same quantity– making beehiiv a wonderful Kit option for numerous customers.
I’m uncertain just how the device business economics deal with this, but beehiiv is certainly less expensive (at the moment) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Obviously, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few of the advantages and disadvantages I have actually personally experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are several of the pros of using beehiiv as your e-newsletter platform of selection:
Easy to establish and start sending e-newsletters totally free.
Clean and modern client analytics.
Great deals of adaptability with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Develop costs alternatives to generate income from.
Surveys.
To be sincere, I have not seen another newsletter system that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
Yet naturally, I do not wish to be biased so I’m mosting likely to mention some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the cons I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around including personalized fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site building platform of option (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in too much information why I like Webflow so much yet you can read my Webflow testimonial if you ‘d like to find out more.
Now, there actually is no other way I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow web site other than making use of an iframe embed. I directly don’t such as using iframe’s since they tend to reduce my site a bit. Whenever a web page on my site (with a beehiiv embed) lots, the sign-up embed is the last thing to fill on the web page. It’s very recognizable when you get on a slow net connection. Yet I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can not make use of a routine Webflow form (which I love making use of). There are ways around this by using a tool like Zapier yet that would certainly just add added expenses that I do not require. To be sincere, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage however I believed I would state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far surpass the disadvantages here. I’m also confident that Webflow will ultimately produce a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific solution for anybody looking to study the world of email marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs many that are presently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally fairly inexpensive of what they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your list is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands per month.
Anyways, I don’t write evaluation messages often. I just do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would recommend it to a good friend.
I wish you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is a good platform for you.