Post Settings

July 17, 2023

Module 3 — Lesson 16

Email Settings

When you head over to the Email tab — you have 4 main steps.

Step #1: Write your subject line and preview text

The cool thing about the beehiiv editor is your subject line can be different from your post title.

Let’s say your post title was “Charlie’s Landing Page Tips”. There’s not much curiosity or intrigue there, but it’s the most descriptive title for your beehiiv website.

You can write a more intriguing subject line to entice your email subscribers to open your email

A Brief Subject Line Masterclass

Tip #1: Keep it natural

Don’t be robotic. The best emails feel like they’re a letter from a friend.

❌ 10 PRODUCTIVITY TIPS TO 10X YOUR OUTPUT IN 2 MINUTES

Tip #2: Induce curiosity

Curiosity is a powerful driver of action. Start a story that the reader needs to know the ending to.

Tip #3: Keep it focused on the reader

Nobody cares what you can do. Everyone cares what you can do for them.

Always ask yourself, “What’s in it for them?”

Tip #4: Familiarity is king

The greatest hack to increase your open rates? Write emails people want to open.

When you solidify your reputation as someone who always delivers valuable content - your subscribers open your email even if the subject line is poor.

However, another great way to boost open rates is to increase familiarity with an emoji. Emojis stand out amongst all the text and help solidify your newsletter identity.

Step #2…

A/B testing

You can also A/B test your subject lines. What does that mean? It means:

  1. Writing multiple subject lines

  2. Testing them on smaller segments of your email list

  3. Finding the highest performer

  4. And using that one to send to your entire email list.

Sound like a lot of work? Don’t worry, all you have to do is write 2+ subject lines and beehiiv will take care of the rest.

Here’s a quick video on how to set up an A/B test:

Step #3: Decide if you want to include social share icons at the top of your email.

To switch them on or off — click the ‘Display social share icons’ toggle:

Step #4: Change the ‘Read Online URL’ to a different link

We recommend leaving this blank unless you want to deliberately send those who click the “Read Online” in your newsletter to a different non-beehiiv site.

Website Settings

When you click over to the ‘Website’ tab — you’ll have 3 options:

  1. Create a URL Slug (you can insert keywords for SEO purposes)

  2. Enable an advanced email capture method

  3. Add a thumbnail for your post (this will show up on your beehiiv website)

A few thoughts:

#1: If you don’t know much about SEO, keep your Slug short so you can search your posts quickly

Derek Sivers is known for using Slugs to share his posts more easily.

#2: If you remember way back from Module 2 Lesson 1

Email capture increases your conversion rate by optimizing your archive for conversions. If readers are not subscribed to your publication, they’ll be asked to subscribe through either a popup or a gated message. You have three options when it comes to email capture:

  1. None

  2. Popup

  3. Gated

Here’re a few examples of each:

None: Just shows your content

Popup: They can read a little bit before a popup appears.

Gated: They can’t read your content until they subscribe.

#3: Your thumbnails will show up on your beehiiv website like this:

My suggestion? Use Canva or Figma to design your thumbnails.

SEO Settings

When you switch over to the SEO tab — you can do two main things:

  1. Change the title for SEO

  2. Change the title for social

Let me explain.

The title for SEO is separate from your newsletter title. So your newsletter title could be named “My Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe” but your SEO title could be “5 Simple Steps to Bake Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies”. Same thing with the description. It’s only for Google Search purposes.

You can also change the title of your post for different social media platforms. A quick best practice tip: Google SEO prefers more descriptive titles while social media platforms prefer more intrigue.

What does an example look like?

Newsletter Title: My Mom’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

SEO Title: 5 Simple Steps to Bake Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookies

Social Title: How My Mom Won The World Chocolate Chip Cookie Competition With This Simple Recipe

Man, all this talk about chocolate chip cookies is making me hungry. Let’s keep going so I can take my snack break after this 😋

Delivery Settings

You have two choices to make when publishing your newsletter:

  1. Who do you send it to? (Premium, free, or both)

  2. How do you send it? (Web, email, or both)

(To send an email to a specific segment, that’s called an Email Blast. Go to Audience → Segments → Email a Segment)

Here’s a quick video tutorial on how to use the Post Settings:

[Start at 3:14, end at 11:00]

Additional Resources

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