I was reading among my favorite e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the email and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly began tearing up. Beehiiv Audience Segmentation…
Being a full-time designer is difficult. I’m frequently obtaining pitched various devices and services that don’t appear to be worth my time.
I guess I was emotional due to the fact that I invested the last 6 months checking out different email and e-newsletter systems to assist construct my e-newsletter. And to be fair, there are some fantastic alternatives for composing newsletters. However I couldn’t locate one that made me give a certain “yes”.
The concern with lots of existing e-newsletter platforms is that they do not really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me completely tailor my e-newsletter styles, makes it very simple to compose and send out emails, and offers me devices that help me analyze metrics and obtain even more subscribers.
I think I’ve ultimately found the right tool.
Yet, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s in fact ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, create, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your e-newsletter.
Produced by former employees at the famous e-newsletter company Morning Brew, beehiiv intends to help developers launch and monetize their own e-newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m mosting likely to explain my personal experience with beehiiv, things I like (and hate) concerning it, all of it’s features, and why I decided to ultimately choose it as my newsletter system of choice.
My individual experience with beehiiv
A few months ago, I mistakenly came across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter platform for fairly a long time now. I’ve procrastinated hard when it pertained to ultimately introducing my newsletter.
Initially, I attempted Mailchimp. Then, a couple of various other indie platforms. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up utilizing beehiiv.
I’m sure many newsletter developers appreciate popular e-newsletters with countless subscribers– I understand I do. The Morning Brew newsletter is one I looked up to a great deal. They have great content, tons of customers, and a clever referral program that allows them to get back at more customers.
So, I went on a hunt to determine just how these big newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they develop an e-newsletter layout that stays on-brand?
When I found beehiiv for the very first time, it appeared to respond to every one of my concerns. I thought to myself, “damn the people that built this tool truly comprehend e-newsletter production and growth.” I examined who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I went to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were a few of the very first marketing and development staff members at Morning Brew– my mind exploded.
I recognized this was mosting likely to be a different e-newsletter system. One that’s focused on developer growth.
Due to the fact that, any type of developer knows, you require development to be able to earn a living off of a newsletter. And finding the best e-newsletter stack (that scales) frequently suggests utilizing several different devices to help achieve one objective– one platform for your e-newsletter, one system to generate income from, and one platform to set up recommendations. It can get costly.
So when I learnt beehiiv did all of these things in one system, and it was free to begin making use of, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there already a system for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, of course there is. Substack is an excellent platform made use of by hundreds of independent writers. With Substack you get your very own web site and utilize the system as your all-in-one solution for sending e-mails (while producing an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s devotion to growth. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of much better analytics, even more layout flexibilty, and a referral program to motivate your existing clients to obtain the word out.
beehiiv also provides you a site comparable to Substack. However, if you have your own website already, you can likewise use beehiiv’s sign-up embeds (that’s what I use) to send your internet site customers directly to your beehiiv email checklist. On the same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a device like Revue to enable individuals to register for your e-newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to get your e-newsletter out right into the world, making beehiiv a terrific Substack alternative.
How to start using beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean content maker that wants a platform that permits them to send out custom e-newsletters with or without requiring to have a website.
One of the most effective e-newsletters have the right devices to construct and scale their newsletters. beehiiv targets at giving you those tools.
If you’re an independent writer, media business, startup, or web content creator, you need to seriously considering checking out beehiiv. It’s entirely cost-free to start and you just pay when you reach over 2,500 customers on your list.
If you in fact end up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s most likely a good indication that people enjoy reading your stuff.
Register for a free plan
The very first step is to sign up for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s web site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, offer you accessibility to internet site hosting, a newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, exterior embed kinds, and extra. It’s a very generous offering for those just starting (or for those seeking a new system to move to).
Onboarding
After developing an account, you’ll experience an onboarding procedure that will ask points like, “is this your very first newsletter?”, “what other systems have you made use of?”, “do you have any kind of paying clients?”, and a lot more.
You’ll then create a name and link for your newsletter’s website. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will certainly reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your site link might be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand name design and colors to see to it your newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
Once you reach your main dashboard, you’ll see every one of your analytics and setups.
You will have outlined details on the number of sign-ups you’re getting and where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see options for “Start creating”, “Messages”, “Audience”, “Expand”, “Generate income from”, “Layout” and” Evaluate”. And at the very lower you’ll see the setups option.
Dashboard is your major control center (screenshot over), Beginning writing is where you create and release newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see all of your previous newsletter versions, Target market is where you can watch who your subscribers are (and damage them down right into segments), Grow is where you have accessibility to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run advertisements, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your newsletter with ads, Design is where you design your e-newsletter landing page and post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can handle all of your admin stuff.
Creating your newsletter
beehiiv makes it easy to begin creating, with little to no friction. If you’re simply beginning, and have a concept you wish to blog about, I suggest simply going to the “Create” section in the navbar and clicking on “Start writing”.
You can fine-tune your template and styling later– concentrate on the material first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a tidy and straightforward interface for composing.
Once you start composing, you can optimize headings, include web links, and style your web content how you like.
beehiiv gives you lots of alternatives for various types of web content like video clips, web links, photos, and much more.
The team at beehiiv is additionally continuously releasing product feature and updates so I make certain there will certainly be a lot a lot more material features depending on when you read this.
Enhancing your settings and templates
When you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to create your email template and adjust some setups.
Below, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, offer it a summary, add your logo, switch on or off a welcome email to very first time customers, and more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your design.
You can edit background colors, borders, spacing, font styles, photo layouts, and extra. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever solitary thing you can enhance with your e-mail template due to the fact that it’s a whole lot. Just try out the system absolutely free and see it on your own!
Crucial beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of outstanding features that make it a wonderful posting system for any kind of newsletter developer.
Right here are a few of the essential features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder Beehiiv Audience Segmentation
At its core, beehiiv is an e-newsletter publishing platform. It makes it incredibly very easy to write and send out e-mails. I mentioned over a few of the important things you can do with your setups and e-mail layout so I’ll spare you some added analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s newsletter builder is that it has a really contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s certainly one of the much better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Website hosting
When you develop a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you desire) live on a site. Consider it as a website for your e-newsletter that’s a home to every one of your previous issues of your e-newsletter, and a location where people can register for your e-newsletter.
If you know with Substack, it’s virtually similar to that.
All plans, consisting of the totally free one, offer you an internet site. Nonetheless, the free plan locations your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to add a custom-made domain name to get rid of all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Obtaining customers is essential. Besides, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter directly from your beehiiv web site or via embed forms.
If you currently have a site, and want people to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing website, you’ll need to use an embed kind. This is what I make use of on this site (you can see the sign-up embed on the right hand column of this blog post if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have 3 various options– a full width, a repaired size, and a slim installed. I personally make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your settings.
There’s additionally an alternative for attribution monitoring if you intend to forward UTM specifications for tracking purposes– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a few features I want beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make sure the group is working with updates for these, yet I mentioned a few concerns I had in the pros and cons area below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things concerning beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other e-newsletter platform, is a service for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your list to ahead your emails to buddies and coworkers and if they get other people to sign up for your checklist, you can award them. These rewards can be in whatever type you desire. I’ve seem many e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously transform your subscribers right into a word of mouth development engine for your newsletter– offering you another method for expanding your email listing.
However, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll have to upgrade to a much more superior plan. I’ll discuss all the plans later on in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true fans. Registration profits is definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re seeking a platform to monetize your e-newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying customers. This can be very rewarding depending upon what your e-newsletter needs to supply. For example, Trends.co is a prominent premium e-newsletter that generates millions in profits a year merely by having pay-only newsletter content.
Information analytics
One of the things I love concerning beehiiv is exactly how clean and easy the analytics are. You obtain real-time day on just how your newsletter is doing, with open/click prices and customer count.
You obtain accessibility to all the metrics you need to get a bird-eye sight on exactly how your newsletter is in fact doing. Logging right into your control panel and seeing that subscriber count go up is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses 4 different pricing plans. You can check them out listed below.
The (totally free) Launch plan gives you whatever you need to start and expand your e-newsletter (as much as 2,500 clients).
The Scale plan ($ 39/month) offers you whatever in the Launch plan with the enhancement the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain name, polls, and access to premium memberships. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 76/month) gives you whatever in the Grow plan with addition of priority support and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are fairly generous in my opinion.
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 certainly bill $679 monthly for the same quantity– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for numerous individuals.
I’m not sure just how the unit business economics service this, however beehiiv is definitely less costly (currently) than what it can be.
beehiiv benefits and drawbacks
Of course, with every platform, it has its benefits and drawbacks. Right here are some of the benefits and drawbacks I have actually directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Here are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter system of selection:
- Easy to establish and start sending newsletters absolutely free
- Clean and contemporary client analytics
- Lots of flexibility with email layouts.
- Referral program feature Beehiiv Audience Segmentation
- Website hosting
- Create premium choices to monetize
- Surveys
To be straightforward, I haven’t seen an additional e-newsletter platform that has been able to package all of these features with each other so well.
However obviously, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to state some cons.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are several of the disadvantages I’ve located while using beehiiv:.
- Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv
- Limitations around adding personalized font styles
I make use of Webflow as my site structure platform of choice (I graduated from WordPress and Squarespace a very long time ago). I’m not mosting likely to go in way too much detail why I enjoy Webflow a lot yet you can review my Webflow evaluation if you wish to discover more.
Now, there actually is nothing else way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow internet site besides using an iframe embed. I personally don’t such as using iframe’s since they have a tendency to slow down my web site a little bit. Whenever a page on my website (with a beehiiv embed) loads, the sign-up installed is the last thing to load on the web page. It’s really obvious when you get on a slow internet link. But I can get around that.
The primary complaint I have is that I can’t make use of a routine Webflow kind (which I like making use of). There are methods around this by using a tool like Zapier but that would just add additional expenses that I do not need. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage but I thought I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros far outweigh the cons right here. I’m also enthusiastic that Webflow will ultimately create a better way to incorporate with beehiiv.
Final Thought
On the whole, beehiiv is an excellent solution for anyone wanting to study the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The functionality of this newsletter system much outweighs several that are currently on the marketplace. And with a charitable free plan, you truly have nothing to lose for trying it.
The paid plans are also relatively affordable wherefore they are. Paying only $329/month to have 100,000 clients on your listing is unheard of. If you were to have a newsletter with 100k subscribers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it can cost you well into the thousands each month.
Anyways, I do not compose evaluation blog posts often. I only do when I actually utilize the tool myself and would certainly recommend it to a good friend.
I hope you discovered some clarity on whether or not beehiiv is an excellent platform for you.