Together With Beehiiv

So – Why No Newsletter The Past 2 Weeks?

Well let us just say its because we found the gold mine of news Newsletters platform. We originally were partnered with a different newsletter platform that looked good, but once you opened the hood and realized it was a '98 Civic and not a Full Send Toyota that we really wanted, we dropped them faster than we could find a new Newsletter platform.

In this mid-week newsletter we are going to breakdown exactly WHY we moved, for a few reasons:

1. We always want to be super transparent with all of you. That is what we have been built on for years past and will be years to come.

2. It will give you a better understanding of how this newsletter will work.

3. You basically all complained like there was no end about some bugs of the other platform we were on so we moved and fixed those issue.

(As a fair warning, this newsletter is really long but important)So without further-ado, let us get real nerdy about all this:

What is Beehiiv?

Beehiiv is a newsletter platform that is built by creators and previous news writers, for creators and news writers.There are multiple points to what they can do, and why we moved. Essentially it was directly built for people who deliver news and not a traditional Newsletter. Original Newsletters are something no one read realistically. Ever bought something and they say "sign up to our newsletter" and when you do, you get spammed with the worst designed E-commerce newsletter to get you to buy again?Or worst, you decide to sign up to a Newsletter for a company that actually does deliver news but it looks like it was build on a First Generation Windows computer that was about to blow up.Well – Enter Beehiiv. The point is to be able to provide a platform for us, and other companies like Litquidity, to be able to deliver our news in a seamless, eaasy-to-read and grow way.Founded by three former Morning Brew employees and one technical advisor: Tyler Denk (CEO), Benjamin Hargett, Jacob Hurd, and Andrew Platkin (CTO). They worked across a variety of positions at Morning Brew, ranging from Senior Product Lead to Software Engineer, and they played integral roles in building one of the largest newsletter companies out there.Instead of continuing to build an established newsletter company, they decided to build the platform for others. Before explaining our old platform and why it was bad, and then diving into who this new one is great–lets lay some ground first.

How Newsletters Work:

There are two different sides to the Newsletter:

• The Platform you write on (Beehiiv)

• The Writers (Atlas News)

Platform

For the platform there are multiple ways that the platform can work. We previously were with Sendgrid, and there are great for some things and horrible for others. In the world of email, there is your traditional email. You sign up with google, yahoo or some weird one like sbcglobal.net that actually doesn't exist anymore. You make your name and send emails–simple. Then there the higher level of when you want to send newsletters on behalf of your company with your own name. I.e "[email protected]". When you want to do that, traditional email marketing platforms charge you per email sent and per user. This gets unreal expensive and virtually impossible to do if you want to send more than 1 email per week (which is why we only had 1 email per week). It was broken down like at a basic and easy to understand level:

• 10,000 Contacts + 1 Email per week is 40,000 emails/month = $450/month

The problem further is they are not strictly built for marketing. They are mainly used for API integrations (when you forget your password on our app and need a reset, it automatically pulls your data and sends a password reset with our manual work). Sendgrid is great for this area of email. The largest companies in the world use Sendgrid for this very reason, like Spotify, AirBnB and Nike. Other platforms like Mailchimp do marketing emails as well, but they are just as expensive and are utilized by all types of companies for promotional marketing, ecommerce and updates a few times a week.

The Writers

There are two main ways that writers (Atlas News) can make money from newsletters, which ultimately keeps the companies afloat–obviously. 

1. Paid Subscriptions

Paid subscriptions are straight-forward: you create interesting content that readers enjoy, and they pay you for said content. This strategy works well for inch-wide, mile-deep publications where readers digest detailed information. You will have a smaller total market, but more dedicated readers.2. Ads

Monetizing a newsletter with ads is the opposite as above. The Writers build the biggest possible audience they can and then sell ad space to companies that fit their market. Typically these ads are small shoutouts, header logos, in-article subtle links. (See our header for Beehiiv's logo). This works just how podcasts, YouTube and others do. You get the content for free and Ads are tailored to the audience. As you can tell, this is in line with Atlas News. We don't want to charge for our newsletter, for obvious reasons other than getting hate mail from you all. We want to keep our newsletter available to everyone and keep it always: Unbiased. Unfiltered. 

How Does Our NEW Newsletter Work?

Now that we have laid the foundation of how traditional newsletters work and how writers work, lets REALLY talk about why we switched to Beehiiv so you can be pumped just as much as we are. 

Beehiiv

They are not built for Integrations or Marketing: They are build for News Newsletters.Not only that, but we really originally switched for a few reasons. 

1. Tyler, the CEO, knows what Atlas News is and knew we could benefit. Our friends over at @Litquidity referred us to their platform and we got in super early after their public launch and have access to new features that come out before anyone else does.

2. They have 3 main core features that other platforms did not have. We will get into that in a second.

Beehiiv works on API email sends as well. Essentially, instead of owning our own servers and having to pay for every single email sent, Beehiiv has their own servers that we send through. On their SaaS Platform (Software as a Service), we can edit and write all our emails and have unlimited send. So when the time comes that we decide to pump out emails every single day–yes its coming eventually–then they are the obvious choice. If we stayed with the other platforms it would cost us somewhere around $1,400 a month. With the new platform we only pay for the amount of users that we have, which ends up being about 10% of the price legit. So...what else do they have that benefits us?

1. Ad Monetization

Other than the ease of use that they have created, there are plenty of features that they have that other platforms do not. One of those is Ad Monetization. In the next coming months in the new year, they will launch a program for us to find advertising sponsors. People who can read our newsletter, see what we are about and build relationships with first hand within the platform. The old way was to email 100+ companies, hire a 3rd party advertising agency, or simply just ask around like we have nothing else to do. With their new service, they will allow us to find people that fit our category. Filter by industry, company size, revenue, target market, ect. This way we can find partners, or they find us, that we actually like and want to work with. Further more, there is a way for our readers (you) to give suggestions of companies they want to see. That way ads are something you are interested in seeing, not just fillers. We wont always have ads, its a feature that we have at our disposal but does not mean we always will. We want to keep quality high and only partner with brands that we truly see a fit with. If you have a company you love and think fits our company send us an email with their links and we will check them out. 

2. Referral Program 

This features is siiiiiick. We have received tons, like 1000's, of emails from you all asking where can you re-sign up for the email newsletter with a separate email or invite a friend. We either had to build an individual page in the past or manually send you a link. With this new feature, it is now embedded into the email for you all to share–with a twist.At the bottom of the email (look at the bottom of this email), there is a referral link that you can share and be rewarded for each share. Every single email send and address is uniquely tracked and pinged to your specific email address, that way when you send 5 referrals it tallies it to your address for a referral reward. Atlas has grown to what is it by literally this. You, our readers, sharing our stories all over instagram. Now its about time we expand that to our Newsletter and reward you for doing so. Go ahead and test it out, scroll down and send our Newsletter to someone (shameless plug).

3. Journalism

Last and definitely not the least: JournalismTrue and real Journalism. They know that part of the key to newsletter like ours and other is true journalism. Unlike other newsletters from the likes of Nike, Adidas, Home Depot, Chase, ect., where as their's are mainly promotional marketing and product advertising, we are built on straight journalism. We at Atlas News, as a side note if you did not know this, are wanting to build a network of writers that cover stories all around the globe. All the way from a Mexican Narcotics Journalist, to Middle Easter Policy, America Politics, Small Conflict News, International Finance and Business and many more. All with one goal: Unbiased and Unfiltered.With their, in the coming future, partner journalism program we will be able to have multiple writers contribute to the same issue of a newsletter. Have 10 different articles we want to write about? Our partners can log-in to their account, write an article for that newsletter, and boom–auto formatted and submitted to Atlas himself (Chief-Editor and Original Owner).These articles are linked to external articles. Either other websites, apps, Instagrams or Twitters. Allowing us to provide not just the platform, but the entire business infrastructure for these other writers that want to get involved and grow their specific audiences as well.Not only that, but what about YOU? What stories do YOU want to read about?Easy.You go to your internal email settings, choose what topics you're interested in, and our newsletter will auto-format that specific newsletter tailored to you. 

• Conflict News

• International Trade

• Drug Cartels

• American Politics

• Wall Street White Collar Crime

• Finance

• More & More

(These are examples)

Anything and everything that we write on you can go in and tailor that to what you want. 

So in theory, we have 20+ different versions of the newsletter that you can read, and you read any version that you want.This entire feature allows multiple writers to come together with multiple readers and individually craft the perfect newsletter for what every single person. 

Other Features To Come

With many more features to come, and with only 3 points we made above, you can see why they are the clear choice. We want to have the full package. Website, App, Newsletter, everything–but we mainly want them to be high quality and to partner with companies that also have long term growth in mind. We want our Newsletter to be relevant, to adapt over time. Of course we know that when the app and website is live that most of our content will be consumed there. Our thought process is how do we keep our newsletter competing with our other channels and so much so, that you continue to come back to us.In February 2022, the company is releasing another channel that will change the game for writers. Unfortunately, I can’t disclose details right now but I'll come back to update this once it's live.Fortunately, you will see it first hand in about two months.

End of Newsletter

And thats a wrap. Our Newsletter going forward will be more designed towards actual news rather than long form text. We want to make the best possible content we can and want your help always. Any ideas, suggestions, partnerships, and anything else you would all love to see just email us and let us know. We will see you Sundays at 10:00am CST. – The Atlas News Team

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