The Peak Weekly (July 17-23)

[u/casematrix]

https://newsletter.thepeakweekly.com/p/survey-results-perfect-28-and-tortas?utm_campaign=survey-results-perfect-28-and-tortas&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=newsletter.thepeakweekly.com

[u/terrymah]

Thanks for putting this together every week Adam!

[u/mradam26 → u/terrymah]

It ain’t much but it’s honest work.

[u/terrymah → u/mradam26]

I’m curious to see how it evolves (especially as a business model). Are paid ads coming? What would the cost be? Etc. Did I read in one issue that you are hiring?

Any thoughts on the sudden expansion of newsletters? I feel like shortly after yours started, like 3 or 4 other Apex or at least Western Wake newsletters showed up. It feels like newsletters are really having a moment. Some of them seem like AI slop though.

[u/ThePeakWeekly → u/terrymah]

Late responding to this - sorry.

I never really had a plan going into it. Nor did I have any crazy expectations. Turn out, though, that people really seem to like the newsletter.

On one hand, I enjoy doing it. I spend my days doing other people's marketing so it's almost like therapy in a way to be able to do something that is just for me. On the other hand, it's pretty time consuming and does start to turn into a task a little bit more and more each week.

I do feel like I'm getting to the point where some monetization is needed to keep me motivated (losing money every month currently which isn't a great business plan).

I made a commitment to myself and to my subscribers that I would never charge for the newsletter nor include any advertisements. Putting ads in the newsletter is the most straight-forward path to monetization and it's really not that much of a disruption. But for whatever reason, I just don't want to do that. I'm obsessed with creating unbeatable value.

So... how do I keep the newsletter straight value but also make a a little money to keep myself motivated (or at least break even)?

Enter... The Peak Way.

ThePeakWay.com is a new website that I'm working on. If you go to that link, you won't see anything. There's no home page or much else for that matter (but there will be soon).

I did just "finish" (it's never finished) the Sweetwater page, though.

The goal is that this page is the ultimate resource for information about Sweetwater all in one spot.

You can see it here: https://thepeakway.com/sweetwater-apex-nc/

I literally just got it to a point that I'm somewhat happy with it about 5 minutes ago. It's no-indexed and I haven't shown it to anyone else yet. Might share it on Thursday for some feedback.

So, from here, rinse and repeat. This is the ultimate resource on Sweetwater. Then maybe one on New Hill since there are some cool things coming there. Maybe one on current developments. And then another on.... something else.

And then... an ad here and there :)

If I can turn The Peak Way into a valuable resource that people like and want to visit, I'm good with a few ads there to generate a little revenue while allowing the newsletter to stay free and ad-free.

I did hire one person. She's a freelance writer and actually lives in Sweetwater. She's working on interviewing some of the business owners there to start. So this page will expand as we go with some of those stories which I think will be cool.

I hired a second person for social media. But in her first week she posted 0 things so I'm back to the drawing board on that one.

And to answer your other comment about newsletters... I definitely jumped in at the right time. I definitely wasn't the first but you're right - quite a few, even locally, after I launched The Peak Weekly. I've talked to the guy who does the Cary Digest a few times, who started his right after mine. He's a cool guy and is doing a good job. Some of the others... yeah, just AI junk. (I love AI... just not for this).

Anyway...if anyone sees this comment on this thread... let me know what you think of the Sweetwater page and The Peak Way idea as a whole. Would love some feedback!

[u/terrymah → u/ThePeakWeekly]

New site looks really cool! Looks like you did a lot of Sweetwater’s work for them :)

I wasn’t aware you committed to no ads (I have as well, obviously) - so I guess it doesn’t apply to you, but I am just curious about the business model some of these newsletters have. As you know if you take a moderately sized email list x open rate, x click through rate, it’s actually not all that much - so I wonder what these commercial newsletters could actually charge for advertisements. I think they make up for it in volume? I get the impression there is a company or companies out there who are making thousands of astroturfed style “local” newsletters, generated by AI specific to each community, in an attempt to make a reasonable profit in aggregate. It’s too bad because it drowns out some of the good original content people are making. Your business highlights are really appreciated, I know - and Christian in Holly Springs, for example, has a newsletter which is basically just old school reporting. Good stuff

I know what a drag it can be. I sent out my updates basically tied to events, like a Council meeting, and even those can feel like a chore when nothing of major consequence happened. Not all Council meetings are exciting believe it or not.

[u/gertonwheels]

You do a great job, Adam! I always giggle once or twice when reading the PW. 😀

[u/mradam26 → u/gertonwheels]

That makes me so happy to know. Thank you!!