With Valentine's Day around the corner (sort of), I figured I would do a little online matchmaking.

And before you stress about catfishing, don't worry—there's no way any of these matches will be wrong for you.

You see, a creator business journey is like a relationship... in a way. Go with me here for a minute.

You need to invest in it. You need to give it time. It's not always going to be easy. But at the end of the day, it should feel exciting and rewarding more days than not.

And for that reason, I think it's time to make some matches between you and our most loved Beacons features, for whatever stage of your creator journey you're in. Let's dive in. 💘

Talking Stage (when you're just starting your content journey)

Maybe you're not ready to commit yet to going all in with your content. That's fine! You can start off with something that's universally loved: offering a free download. This is a great way to, ahem, get people interested. Show your followers what you bring to the table, and you'll build a loyal core fanbase.

Defining the Relationship (when you're ready to monetize)

This is exciting! Things are getting a little more serious. You're ready to create a digital product to offer on your link in bio and charge for it. It is an emotional decision! Often creators feel nervous to charge their fans and feel imposter syndrome, but you've got this. Make sure to market it first to your loyal followers and subscribers and have confidence in the value you add.

Honeymoon Phase (when you're starting to make sales)

When things are going well with your business, it's the best feeling. You can double down on your wins by building email flows like sales nurturing funnels and post-purchase campaigns to upsell after every purchase. Marketing your products to your email subscribers will help you reliably drive more sales.

Trouble in Paradise (when you're in a traffic and sales slump)

The course of true love never did run smooth, and neither does that of business. Sometimes you hit a rut and run out of creative ideas to market your products. This is when you turn to your analytics dashboard. Here you can take a deeper dive into what drove the most sales in the past, and build upon what's already been successful for you.

Rekindling (remembering what you love about this journey)

At the end of the day, you're in this because you love it. Even with the emotional ups and downs of this entrepreneurial journey, it's incredibly rewarding, and it's good to reflect on that. Your media kit is a perfect way to do this, by syncing all your channels, analytics, and highlights in one place. Conveniently, it also helps you land those brand deals of your dreams.

And to make sure your creator business truly goes the distance, I wanted to share some great tips I received in a reply last week from Max (@maxawad) with some more ideas on how to future proof your business in the face of platform instability.

Here's what he recommended:

• building out multiple income streams (digital products, courses, and  appointments are a perfect way to do that)
• focusing on building your community (whether that's by interacting in your comments, building an email list, or starting a separate broadcast channel or discord, to name a few ideas)

Thanks for sending these ideas Max! As creators, you definitely have control over important parts of your business like these that really make a difference in long-term sustainability.

Last week we talked about the exciting new deliverability dashboard! This is a new dashboard in your Beacons account that shows you how effectively your emails are reaching your audience.

As promised, now you can take things one step further and click this new button in your dashboard: "Improve deliverability."

This opens a new modal with a custom checklist for you, showing you the top recommended actions to take to improve your email deliverability.

Expanding any of the recommendations will explain how to do it and provide a button that will take you right there.

Personally, I think this is an extremely valuable new addition. Email marketing is so important for creators as a channel to truly own your audience, build your community, and ultimately monetize. These tips will help you optimize your email strategy and have the most impact possible.

Since I also do some emailing myself... I wanted to share some of my own tips that I've also found to be helpful:

• Subject lines: Keep them short and sweet. Avoid "spammy" words and phrases, and try to create intrigue or promise some value to your readers that you will deliver on in your email. I recommend subscribing to For the Interested for great subject line inspo.
• Sending frequency: It's best practice to develop a consistent cadence for sending your email. This doesn't have to mean that you send them every day—it can be once a week, or once a month, as long as it's consistent.
• Make it easy to unsubscribe: It sounds counterintuitive, but making it easy for people who don't want to receive your content to unsubscribe helps keep your email list engaged and active, which is what you want.

👉 What do you think of the new deliverability checklist? Do you have any personal tips you want to share that you've found work well for you? Reply and let me know!

I know, I know—it’s not even February 1st yet (due to January being an eternally long month) and we’re already talking about Valentine’s Day? 

Here's a hot take. I've actually been LOVING the Valentine's Day marketing content that's been filling my inbox and on every billboard that I see in downtown Manhattan. And isn't hating on something that's popular to hate on a more boring take these days, anyway? 

It's sort of like how it’s popular to hate on Carrie Bradshaw now, who is undoubtably problematic and flawed but also human. Maybe Carrie makes us uncomfortable because she mirrors flaws we all have...

So, with that in mind, we’re claiming Valentine’s Day this year and all the pink, red, hearts, candy, and flowers that comes with it.

What does this mean for you as a creator and marketer?

Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to add a seasonal uplift to your content. With the holidays and “new year, new me” feelings behind us, and a long stretch to go until spring and summer really arrive, we ALL need something to fixate on that can bring us a little brightness and cheer. 

This year, instead of thinking about all of the negative things about Valentine's Day (which, like Carrie, are undoubtably annoying), think about the ways you can participate to spread love to others in small ways: maybe it’s a discount on your best products in your Beacons store, or an email blast scheduled for V-Day that reminds all your followers that YOU appreciate them.

It might be just the reminder they need that someone is thinking about them on that day.

Speaking of spreading the love this Valentine’s Day, we caught some of our engineering team hyping each other up this week 🥹

Shoutout Roshan (one of the newest senior software engineers at Beacons) for inspiring the awe of the team. In fact, you inspired them so much that you've been immortalized in a Slack emoji by our very talented in-house Slack emoji artist, Dylan, whose official title in Slack is Chief ChatGPT Whisperer, former VP of Human x AI Relations.

If you want to stay on top of the cool stuff that our engineers are cooking up every week, make sure you read these emails (duh), subscribe to our YouTube, and follow us on Instagram where we post new features and tutorials every week.

PS—if you need some more tips on how to stay cozy, Beacons user Nicola (@nicolandlovu) sent the sweetest reply last week with some great ideas:

• Planning a cozy night in with hot drinks and games 🧩
• Ice skating ⛸️
• Nature walks ❄️
  
• Move night 📽️

Keep sending your suggestions!

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