Description

Content businesses have thrived using the email channel for monetization, but how do you start and drive growth?  What are the hurdles to get off the ground? How do you leverage strategic partnerships to further build your audience and build revenue?

Launched in 2018 by three college friends — Jacie deHoop, Ellen Hyslop and Roslyn McLarty — The GIST is all about changing the game in the male-dominated sports industry where less than 14% of journalists are women and less than 4% of coverage is on female athletes. Three years later, their all-female, 20-person team works day in and day out to change those stats, providing equal coverage on men’s and women’s sports to empower underserved sports fans.

Join us for a conversation about how in 3 years, The GIST has grown their subscriber list 4x (from 100k to 500k+ in the last year), added a popular podcast, The GIST of It, to their 4x/week newsletter, regionalized their content for 10 major cities across North America, and continue to engage audiences with exciting partnerships and new content offerings like their women’s sports business newsletter and new college sports newsletter.

Takeaways:

1. Finding the balance between quality and growth can be hard. Newsletters grow faster when you understand the data analytics of where your audience is coming from and which channels are allowing higher quality growth so you can properly segment.

2. Providing a value exchange through referral programs strengthens acquisitions, as does using automation tools to hone in on a user’s specific city and initially beta testing the length, the design, and the tone of voice to develop more long-term loyal subscribers.

3. Thoughtful, strategic brand partnerships can drive revenue and growth, while also strengthening relationships with their audience. The GIST built partnerships with Under Armour, Nike, Adidas; from a sports league side, the NBA, the WNBA, and a few different teams as well, Fanduel.