FMS FinPub Pro – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Copywriter Chris Cimorelli joins me to talk about his latest promotion. This newsletter promotion generated $4.5 million in subscription sales in the first 24-hours, making it the #1 single sales day for a promotion at Agora over the past 7-years. It went on to sell $8.8 million in subscriptions over it's 5-day launch window.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Many of the most legendary direct response marketing promotions had a concept built into them that elevated the promotion itself.

A concept that only indirectly had anything to do with the benefits of the product. These were more than simple sales letters or VSLs they were full blown PROMOS.

We start this episode looking at some of those promotions and follow the conversation into more nuanced territory around what makes an editor more promotable, new promotional formats, the nature of relationship building with the prospect and customer, and more.

In this episode I'm joined by Brian Hicks, founder of Angel Publishing, Rob Braddock, the king of "Fintertainment" whose written a ton of big winners in FinPub, and Sean MacIntyre, a senior copywriter with a decade of experience working for the major Agora publishers and working closely with Mark Ford.

In the past four years, Rob Braddock has written and / or chiefed more than $60 Million in financial copy. Connect with Rob at Big Idea Promos.

Sean Macyntire runs the Youtube Channel Copy That!

Brian Hicks publishes at Angel Publishing

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Here in Financial Publishing we've all watched the rise of The Morning Brew, The Hustle, Milk Road with interest.

The media attention and venture attention on them and the newsletter boom fueled by the Substack & Beehive boom made newsletters finally seem "cool."

Here in FinPub we've been running newsletter subscription businesses for over 60 years. 

So what do these two industries have in common?

Matt McGarry joined me to explain the model & thinking of these rising "Newsletter-First Media Companies".

Matt's got a ton of experience here as he managed acquisition media for The Hustle and Milk Road and now has a media agency helping newsletters in that world acquire customers.

Check out Matt McGarry's Newsletter Operator

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If you're in the Financial Newsletter or Trader Education industries then check out FMS PRO, the business community for Financial Publishing. 

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

I've been wanting to talk to John Carter on here for awhile for a few reasons.

First, because John founded Simpler Trading and built it into one of the top trader education companies in the industry.

Second, because John's approach to building the business has always steered away from the hype side of promotion.

Third, because he exited a large portion of the business when he sold 2/3rds of it to a private equity company.

Basically, he's carved his own path through FinPub and built a unique business.

In this episode we go talk through both John's history of building the business and what he sees customers responding to in today's market environment.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Conor Lynch had massive success with more traditional trader education newsletter model. 

He was publisher on one of the fastest-growing publishing companies in that last decade. He and the team he was working with grew from $0 to $50 million in annual sales in just a few short years.

Then they faced disaster – the FTC brought a case against them for their promotional claims.

Since settling that case Conor has moved on and is launching a new business.

But he’s decided to launch using a completely different marketing and business model.

High ticket coaching.

This model changes everything about how you build your business.

The copy, the offers, the sales process, the staffing mix, the regulatory risk, and more.

When he told me I had to wonder what was driving Conor’s decision to switch to high ticket coaching when he has already proven a master of the more traditional newsletter and trader education model?

That’s the thrust of today’s FinPub Pro conversation.

Join me as we dive into the perils and opportunities of both models. 

This episode kicks off a multi-episode miniseries called Closers focused exclusively on phone sales. The rest of the series will be featured in the soon to launch FMS PRO community (Check the Financial Marketing Summit.

• Episode 1: In FinPub Pro, This interview with Conor Lynch: He built a $50 million FinPub. So why is he ignoring that model out and launching his new business with a phone-first model?
• Episode 2: John Cardis: Building for phone. How to build a sales team, product models, and more.
• Episode 3: Outbound Backends with Lincoln Holbrook. How to capitalize on the power of phones without changing your existing newsletter model.
• Episode 4: In Vicarious Liability, with Damon Wright from the law firm Gordon Rees, we dig into the many legal issues around phone sales.
• Episode 5:  Special Crossover Episode of Tactical Marketing with David Dittman diving into the marketing issues & opportunities around customer service inbound phone sales.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Brian York, Chief Marketing Officer for The Agora companies, the financial newsletter publishing giant joins us to discuss the current state of Finpub.

This conversation started when Brian commented on my video presentation, The State of FinPub 2024 

In that comment Brian said, 

"There are 3 words here that are the most important, “Identify tight niches”.  The bull market and Covid forced FinPub into the mainstream… most businesses chased the volume with mainstream ideas.  That was a mistake.

"We need to re-focus on big, fringe ideas and go deeply into those ideas.  Customers pay us to be trusted advisors with ideas they WON’T get from their brokers.

I asked Brian to join me to elaborate on that point and to get his insights into current state of finpub.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

I’m joined by Damon Wright, Head of Advertising & E-Commerce at law firm Gordon Rees to discuss the rising dangers of Class Action lawsuits.

We dig into what they, why they are on the rise, and the most effective ways you can protect your business from individuals who target e-commerce and publishing businesses. 

Click here to download The Gordon Rees updated E-Commerce Retailer Legal Guide that covers this and many other legal issues. 

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Patrick Bove is copy chief at Legacy Reserach.

He's been writing copy in financial since 2008.

And has a growing team of nearly 30 copywriters writing for him.

In this conversation, Patrick explains what ideas are selling now.

The market has changed.

That means the ideas you use to sell subscriptions has to change, too.

Patrick talks about the current hot spots in the market. 

More fundamentally, he talks about how your promotional copy has to adjust to the market conditions. 

When I asked Patrick about what ideas are working now in Finpub he did NOT start talking about promotion types - he started talking about interest rates.

And how interest rates are impacting the world.

Why? Because when the market environment changes on a fundamental level, the ideas customers respond to also have to change.

"Yesterday's big promos are just fossils. You can't dig them up and make them work the same way."

In this conversation, Patrick also invites any copywriter who has sold $10 million or more in a year, or 50,000 front-end names in a year to join him at the Legacy Research Conversion Summit, an invite-only financial copywriter meeting with many of the top performing copywriters in the industry to talk copy.

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson

Porter Stansberry founded Stansberry Research with a laptop and $36k of financing from Bill Bonner.

(You can meet Porter in person at the June 14-15th www.FinancialMarketingSummit.com)

He and his partner, Steve Sjuggerud, and the team they built, turned that 36k into a $3 billion valuation at their IPO.

That initial money was to fund what would become one of the most successful promotions in the history of financial publishing.

In this conversation, I wanted to dig into the pivotal decisions Porter made along that journey to $3 billion.

What decisions did he make that really MATTERED?

And how were those decisions different than the decision other publisher's made along the way.

He did not disappoint.

We touch on how he got Bill to fund his now legendary direct mail promotion, "There's a new railroad across America," that launched his business.

Porter tells the story about how not long before that breakthrough another publisher had told him he would never make it in this business.

And what he realized about the quality problem in the early investment newsletter business said about some of his colleague's world views.

Porter's full presentation at The Financial Marketing Summit on his 8 Keys to Breakthrough Customer Value is available in the members area of The FMS PRO Community

FinPub Pro is produced by The Financial Marketing Summit, the #1 networking and marketing conference for financial newsletter publishers, trader educators, and digital financial media.

John Newtson, host and founder of The Financial Marketing Summit can be reached via LinkedIn at John Newtson