In the Pit with Cody Schneider | Marketing | Growth | Startups
email newsletter playbook: how to drive 3,000 weekly clicks
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- A warmed email list is an invaluable asset that can drive significant traffic and engagement, distinguishing newsletters from other media.
- Establishing a consistent, process-driven approach with templates and workflows is crucial for producing impactful newsletters without striving for perfection.
- Understanding the customer journey is vital for structuring newsletters effectively, helping guide subscribers through different stages of awareness and decision-making.
Deep dives
The Value of a Warm Email List
A warmed email list is highlighted as an invaluable asset for brands, capable of driving substantial traffic and engagement. It is pointed out that many businesses do not prioritize building and maintaining their email lists, which can have significant consequences for their marketing efforts. Weekly newsletters can generate thousands of clicks, making them a powerful tool for business owners. Companies that leverage their email lists effectively create consistent touchpoints with their audience, ultimately leading to increased brand loyalty and conversions.
Strategies for Building Effective Email Newsletters
To effectively manage email newsletters, businesses are encouraged to establish a repeatable process for generating content, including the use of templates. Structuring newsletters with clear expectations helps in maintaining consistency across communications, which is essential for audience retention. A comprehensive understanding of the customer journey plays a crucial role in shaping the content strategy for newsletters, allowing businesses to resonate with their target audience's needs. By addressing the specific beliefs and motivations of customers at different buying stages, marketers can develop content that effectively drives engagement.
Overcoming Content Creation Challenges
Generating compelling content for email newsletters can be daunting for many businesses, but structured ideation processes can streamline this effort. Utilizing tools such as AI can assist in developing engaging content based on prompts and questions that extract insights from marketers or clients. Emphasizing the importance of delivering valuable content consistently, businesses are encouraged to prioritize focused themes or topics that resonate with their audience. By creatively leveraging existing knowledge and content, companies can overcome mental blocks associated with content creation, making it a less daunting task.
The Importance of List Management and Reactivation
Maintaining a clean and active email list is fundamental for effective email marketing, as it directly impacts deliverability rates and engagement metrics. A systematic approach to reactivating dormant subscribers is essential; businesses can implement targeted re-engagement campaigns to rekindle interest. The practice of regularly cleaning the list by removing inactive subscribers helps maintain a healthy sender reputation while ensuring that communications reach engaged audiences. This proactive stance not only improves performance metrics but also enhances overall email marketing effectiveness.
Harnessing Technology to Streamline Processes
Advancements in technology, particularly AI, are leveraged to automate and enhance the email newsletter creation process. By utilizing workflow templates and predefined structures, businesses can create a cohesive and efficient system for content management. The effective integration of AI can save time and effort while maintaining the integrity and quality of content, thereby solidifying audience engagement. With the right tools, businesses can consistently deliver high-quality newsletters while minimizing the manual labor involved in content generation.
In this episode, I sit down with Louis Shulman of Orbit Flows Marketing to dive deep into why a warmed email list is the single most valuable asset a brand can own. We explore how consistent, process-driven newsletters can drive thousands of targeted clicks weekly, share real-world examples and metrics, and unpack the exact frameworks, templates, and AI-powered workflows Louis uses to produce hundreds of newsletters a month for some of the world’s fastest-growing companies. Whether you’re resurrecting a dormant list or scaling a six-figure send, you’ll walk away with concrete steps to build, clean, and monetize your newsletter with repeatable, bite-sized automation.
About the Guest
Louis Shulman
Louis leads client success and content strategy at Orbit Flows, where his team of five writers produces over 50 email newsletters per week for a collective audience exceeding one million subscribers. He’s spent years perfecting the playbook for turning long-form expert conversations into high-impact weekly sends that consistently deliver 3,000+ clicks per issue.
Key Takeaways
- Email Newsletters as Owned Media: A weekly newsletter is an asset you own and control, unlike social platforms or paid ads.
- Process Over Perfection: Success comes from simple, repeatable systems (templates, cadence, checklists)—not chasing “perfect” content.
- Customer Journey Mapping: Structure newsletters around problem-aware, solution-aware, and vendor-aware stages to guide subscribers down your funnel.
- Bridge of Belief: Craft content that anticipates and answers subscriber objections before they arise—turn objections into subject lines.
- AI as an Accelerator: Treat AI like a managed teammate—define clear sub-steps and approval checkpoints to get 90% of the work done, then add human polish.
- List Hygiene & Segmentation: Start conservatively, re-engage dormant subscribers with win-back sequences, and prune non-openers after five sends to protect deliverability.
- Lead Magnets & Growth: Educational email courses and targeted downloadable assets (e.g., “5 Day Course on Accounting Pitfalls”) drive higher opt-in rates than generic “join my newsletter” pitches.
- ROI in Click Equity: With a 170,000-subscriber list sending twice weekly, 10,000 clicks per send saves upwards of $800,000 in paid LinkedIn ads annually.
Episode Highlights
- 00:00 – 01:00 – Why Email Is King: The host frames newsletters as the most valuable, yet overlooked, marketing channel.
- 01:00 – 02:00 – Sponsor Break: Acclaim Podcasting: Full-service agency that builds your weekly content machine (acclaimpodcasting.com).
- 02:00 – 04:00 – Volume & Scale: Louis shares that Orbit Marketing dispatches 50+ newsletters weekly to 1M+ subscribers—and how one weekly send drives ~3,000 clicks.
- 04:00 – 07:00 – Defining “Newsletter”: Establishing clear expectations, consistent format, and landing-page first mindset for newsletter signups.
- 07:00 – 11:00 – Customer Journey & Content Strategy: Reverse-engineer subscriber beliefs at each funnel stage; problem, solution, vendor.
- 11:00 – 15:00 – Objections into Subject Lines: Proactively address subscriber doubts (e.g., “Is TikTok still worth it?”) in your newsletter copy.
- 15:00 – 18:00 – Ideation & Prompts: Three core content buckets—personal stories, business strategies, industry insights—and 100+ ghostwriting prompts for weekly topics.
- 18:00 – 22:00 – Templates & Systems: Pin down a weekly structure with 3–5 sections to eliminate decision fatigue and ensure consistency.
- 22:00 – 26:00 – AI-Powered Workflow: Build “Orbit Flows” with templates, voices, knowledge bases, and spaces—treat AI like a junior teammate with incremental approvals.
- 26:00 – 30:00 – List Building & Hygiene: Start small with new or cold lists, run win-back sequences, remove non-engagers after five weeks to maintain deliverability.
- 30:00 – 34:00 – Lead Magnet Mastery: Email courses and downloadable guides convert far better than generic newsletter invites—package education, not just tips.
- 34:00 – 38:00 – Productizing Internal Tools: How Orbit spun its own AI newsletter engine into the OrbitFlows SaaS platform, with live demos of templates and research pipelines.
- 38:00 – End – Final Advice & Connect: Louis drops his top three rapid-fire tips for B2B founders and shares where to reach him next.
Resources & Links
Guest Socials
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisshulman/
- Orbit Marketing: https://www.orbitmarketing.io/
- X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/LouisShulman/
Brought to you by
- Acclaim Podcasting: https://acclaimpodcasting.com
OrbitFlows (Built by Louis & Team)
- Product Site: https://orbitflows.com
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