Over two years back, I read among my preferred e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo design for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began destroying Beehiiv Engage My Audience.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so emotional.
Being a permanent designer is tough. I’m usually getting pitched different devices and solutions that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I presume I was psychological since I spent the last six months checking out various e-mail and newsletter systems to assist develop my e-newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some excellent options for composing e-newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me give a precise “yes”.
The problem with lots of existing e-newsletter systems is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I desire a newsletter platform that lets me completely personalize my e-newsletter layouts, makes it incredibly easy to compose and send out emails, and gives me tools that help me evaluate metrics and obtain more subscribers.
I believe I have actually finally found the best device.
Yet, I recognize beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact right for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for e-newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly newsletter system that makes it easy to layout, write, send out, promote, generate income from, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former staff members at the well-known newsletter firm Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to assist designers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking great deals of growth principles from taking Morning Brew to over 4M subscribers.
In this article, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I love (and hate) about it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to lastly select it as my e-newsletter system of selection.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months back, I accidentally came across beehiiv. The amusing story is that I have actually watched for a modern e-newsletter platform for rather some time currently. I have actually put things off hard when it pertained to ultimately launching my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a few other indie platforms. After that, Substack. And lastly, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many e-newsletter makers look up to popular newsletters with numerous customers– I recognize I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I appreciated a lot. They have terrific material, lots of subscribers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get even a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a quest to find out how these huge newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their e-newsletters? How do they obtain more subscribers? How do they produce a newsletter design that remains on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to answer all of my inquiries. I believed to myself, “damn the people that constructed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter development and development.” I questioned who these developers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and growth staff members at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I recognized this was going to be a various newsletter system. One that’s concentrated on developer growth.
Since, any kind of creator understands, you need development to be able to make a living off of an e-newsletter. And finding the best newsletter stack (that ranges) commonly means making use of numerous various devices to aid accomplish one goal– one system for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to establish referrals. It can obtain costly.
So when I figured out beehiiv did every one of these things in one system, and it was free to start using, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content developer that wants a platform that allows them to send custom newsletters with or without needing to have a site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those devices.
If you’re an independent writer, media company, startup, or web content designer, you should seriously thinking about checking out beehiiv. It’s completely complimentary to start and you only pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you really end up needing to pay for beehiiv it’s probably a good sign that individuals love reviewing your things.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for authors called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by thousands of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and make use of the platform as your all-in-one solution for sending out e-mails (while creating an archive of previous concerns).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to development. beehiiv enables you do to all things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to encourage your existing subscribers to get the word out.
beehiiv likewise gives you an internet site comparable to Substack. Yet, if you have your very own web site already, you can also utilize beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I make use of) to send your web site subscribers straight to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can incorporate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable people to subscribe to your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This gives you the flexibility to utilize various marketing networks to obtain your newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a wonderful Substack choice.
Exactly how to begin utilizing beehiiv email marketing software application.
Enroll in a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Start trial” switch on beehiiv’s website.
The free plan will permit you to have up to 2,500 subscribers, provide you access to web site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, breakthrough modification, analytics, outside embed forms, and much more. It’s an extremely generous offering for those just beginning (or for those seeking a brand-new system to migrate to).
Onboarding Beehiiv Engage My Audience
After producing an account, you’ll go through an onboarding process that will ask things like, “is this your initial e-newsletter?”, “what other platforms have you utilized?”, “do you have any kind of paying customers?”, and extra.
You’ll after that produce a name and link for your e-newsletter’s web site. On the free plan, your newsletter will certainly survive on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site URL may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll likewise choose your brand name colors and design to make certain your newsletter template looks right.
Navigating your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will have described info on how many sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Target market,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Design,” and” Assess.” And at the extremely lower you’ll see the setups alternative.
Dashboard is your major nerve center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you develop and release e-newsletters, Messages is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can see who your clients are (and damage them down right into sectors), 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 e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you design your newsletter landing page and post template, Evaluate is where you can see all your analytics, and Setups is where you can handle every one of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin composing, with little to no rubbing. If you’re just starting, and have a concept you wish to write about, I recommend just going to the “Compose” section in the navbar and clicking on “Begin writing”.
You can modify your template and designing later– focus on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor supplies a tidy and easy to use interface for composing.
When you start creating, you can enhance headings, include links, and style your material exactly how you such as.
beehiiv gives you lots of choices for different sorts of content like videos, links, pictures, and much more.
The group at beehiiv is also constantly releasing item feature and updates so I make sure there will certainly be a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Optimizing your settings and templates
Once you have an e-newsletter that prepares to send out, it’s time to create your e-mail template and change some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, give it a description, include your logo design, switch on or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and much more.
Next, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your layout.
You can modify background colors, boundaries, spacing, typefaces, picture styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary point you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Just try the platform for free and see it for yourself!
Vital beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a great publishing platform for any type of e-newsletter maker.
Below are several of the necessary features you can find with beehiiv:.
E-newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting system. It makes it incredibly simple to compose and send out emails. I mentioned above a few of things you can do with your settings and e-mail design so I’ll spare you some extra reading.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has an actually modern-day and minimalistic feel. It’s certainly among the far better e-mail editors I have actually ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv newsletter, all of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a web site. Think about it as a website for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and an area where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you’re familiar with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, consisting of the complimentary one, provide you an internet site. However, the free plan places your internet site on a beehiiv subdomain so if you wish to add a custom domain name to remove all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can subscribe to your e-newsletter straight from your beehiiv site or via embed kinds.
If you currently have a website, and want individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed type. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various choices– a complete width, a fixed width, and a slim embed. I directly use the slim embed.
You can discover the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Types” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally a choice for attribution tracking if you want to ahead UTM parameters for tracking functions– rather neat.
However, there are a few features I desire beehiiv had when it pertained to subscribe features. I make certain the team is working on updates for these, however I mentioned a couple of concerns I had in the benefits and drawbacks area listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a remedy for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing subscribers on your listing to forward your emails to pals and colleagues and if they obtain other people to sign up for your listing, you can award them. These incentives can be in whatever type you want. I have actually appear lots of e-newsletter business offer benefits in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your clients right into a word of mouth growth engine for your e-newsletter– offering you another method for growing your e-mail listing.
However, to obtain access to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to an extra exceptional plan. I’ll go over all the plans later on in this post.
Premium registrations
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 real followers. Registration profits is most definitely a beast of its own. If you’re seeking a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can create “premium” concerns of your newsletter that are only sent to paying subscribers. This can be really financially rewarding relying on what your newsletter has to provide. For instance, Trends.co is a preferred costs e-newsletter that creates millions in revenue a year merely by having pay-only newsletter material.
Data analytics
Among the things I enjoy about beehiiv is how clean and simple the analytics are. You get real-time date on how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and customer count Beehiiv Engage My Audience.
You get access to all the metrics you require to obtain a bird-eye view on how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging into your control panel and seeing that customer count go up is definitely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (free) Launch plan provides you whatever you need to start and grow your e-newsletter (approximately 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you every little thing in the Launch plan with the addition the ad network, referral program, custom-made domain name, polls, and accessibility to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) provides you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
Every one of these plans are quite charitable in my viewpoint.
For instance, if you have 100,000 clients you will pay around $329 per month. In contrast to some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would certainly bill $679 each month for the same quantity– making beehiiv a fantastic Kit option for many customers.
I’m not sure how the unit economics work on this, but beehiiv is certainly cheaper (presently) than what it can be.
beehiiv advantages and disadvantages
Naturally, with every system, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Right here are several of the pros and cons I have actually directly experienced while making use of beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Right here are some of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to establish and begin sending newsletters totally free.
Tidy and modern-day customer analytics.
Lots of versatility with email styles.
Referral program feature.
Website hosting.
Develop costs options to monetize.
Polls.
To be sincere, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But naturally, I don’t wish to be biased so I’m going to state some disadvantages.
Cons of using beehiiv
Right here are a few of the disadvantages I have actually located while utilizing beehiiv:.
Limitations around incorporating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding customized font styles.
I make use of Webflow as my web site building platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a long time ago). I’m not going to go in too much detail why I like Webflow so much however you can read my Webflow evaluation if you wish to find out more.
Right now, there truly is no other method I can incorporate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site other than utilizing an iframe embed. I directly do not such as using iframe’s because they have a tendency to decrease my web site a little bit. Every time a web page on my site (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s very noticeable when you’re on a slow net connection. However I can get around that.
The main gripe I have is that I can’t utilize a normal Webflow kind (which I like utilizing). There are methods around this by utilizing a tool like Zapier yet that would simply include added expenses that I do not require. To be honest, this is even more of a Webflow con over a beehiiv disadvantage however I thought I would mention it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far exceed the cons below. I’m likewise hopeful that Webflow will eventually create a far better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
Generally, beehiiv is a terrific service for anybody wanting to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this newsletter system far outweighs many that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have absolutely nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are additionally rather inexpensive wherefore they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 customers on your checklist is unprecedented. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k clients, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well right into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t create evaluation messages often. I only do when I really utilize the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a buddy.
I hope you located some clearness on whether beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.