_Don’t miss Part 1 of this series[How a newsletter will transform your life]()_. _This post contains two affiliate links to products I wholeheartedly endorse (ConvertKit and Carrd.co)_ I want you to check out the rad website called [Cozy Cats](). The design is crisp, it loads quickly and is fully responsive (web parlance for _it looks great on mobile and desktop_). And the site’s proud creator is my 5 year old. I promise I’m not a Tiger Dad prepping my kid for the rigors of a digital-centric global economy. Nor am I using her as a conduit for all my personal _should’ve-would’ve-could’ve_. I’m just dang excited by the promise of No-Code tools for anyone looking to tinker with with digital ideas (or to document their love for Cozy Cats). Last week’s post on how [a newsletter can transform your life]() struck a nerve with the community. This week, we’ll examine TK No-Code tools to design, promote, and grow your newsletter. No audience required. No coding required. __And fit for a five year old.__ ## The most important question You could begin your newsletter as a large bcc’d Gmail, but that would quickly become untenable (primarily since there would be no way to manage unsubscribes). Thus you’ll quickly need to migrate your budding list to an email delivery service. These services will “professionalize” your emails, help you manage subscribers, provide templates, and ensure that you’re in compliance with SPAM standards. Thankfully there’s a large list of these service providers that have __free starter plans.__ And at this point in your newsletter journey it probably feels hard to anticipate your future needs, but here are some questions to consider: * Have you ever set up an Internet domain? * Will your newsletter always be a hobby? * Or, is there a scenario where your newsletter could drive revenue? * Would you ever want to pair a blog (or web presence) to your newsletter? Depending on your answers to these questions, here’s a series of email provider recommendations. ### Option 1: Start as quickly as possible with Substack.com [Substack]() is by far the easiest way to get started. You can create your account and send your first email in under 5 minutes. The design is clean and you’ll immediately have access to a branded landing page to collect new subscribers. __And best of all, it’s free__. A clean example of a Substack email Substack is doing what Medium.com did for blogging. Limiting the feature set so that creators can focus on one thing: __creating their content quickly and beautifully.__ Substack takes care of the rest. (The platform also gives you the ability to charge your audience for additional newsletters. The tech is incredible, but as seasoned newsletter creator, my personal opinion is that it’s __very difficult to monetize a newsletter in isolation.__) There are some drawbacks to consider. You can’t host your Substack newsletter on your own domain. So I could never run khe@radreads.co (and the associated site radreads.co) on Substack. Instead, the email would come from khe@substack.com and the website would be radreads.substack.com __This is a punishing limitation if you ever have the desire to scale (and eventually monetize) your newsletter.__ For starters, from a branding perspective you must __absolutely own your own website__. Next, you’ll want to control how your site appears in search results (i.e. SEO value). However, without a domain, you’ve effectively handed off your SEO value to Substack. Finally, as your newsletter needs get more specific, you’ll want to customize the way your newsletter interacts with the rest of the Internet. For instance, you may want to ask a few survey questions when a new user signs up. Or add a slider once people have read half of a blog post. Or create a sequence of emails beyond the standard welcome email. None of this is currently possible with Substack. Alternatives to Substack include [TinyLetter]() (owned by Mailchimp) and [GetRevue](). ### Option 2: I want to own my domain (MailerLite) If you’ve got a dash of tech savvy and/or the desire to _possibly_ scale your newsletter efforts, you’ll need to own your domain. Don’t know what domain to pick? At this juncture, I highly, highly recommend you pick a version of your name. Yes, [radreads]() has worked well for me BUT it also has its limitations. A RadReads podcast seems a bit odd. RadReads doesn’t really jive with some of my main topics (personal finance, solopreneurship, and productivity). So please, pretty please just buy a domain with your name (and look at extensions like .io .cc .co .net .org to expand your option set). Once you’ve picked a domain, you’ll need to take the following steps: * Buy the domain at either [namecheap.com]() or [domains.google.com]() (cost: $10-$20 per month) * Set up [a gSuite account]() to receive emails at this domain ($6 per month) Depending on your level of tech savvy, the above can take 20 minutes to a few hours. And you’ll now have the components to pick your email provider and the options available will multiply. MailerLite’s template gallery My personal recommendation is another No-code tool called [MailerLite](). Mailerlite has some key features that will enable connectivity to your website and enable you to scale your newsletter, including: * Templates (to customize your email) * Landing pages (to collect new email addresses) * Tagging and segmentation (to classify your subscribers) * Automation (to create automated emails) * Detailed reporting (click maps, surveys) And most importantly, it integrates with other providers for blogging WordPress), e-commerce (Shopify), automations (Zapier), payments (Stripe) and much much more. At this point in your journey, you may not even recognize these names, but they are key components in the No-Code ecosystem. Mailerlite has a free tier and you can access its premium features for $10 a month. Other alternatives with similar services include [Mailchimp](), [SendGrid]() and [Email Octopus](). ### Option 3: I want to specifically target groups of subscribers (ConvertKit) I grew my mailing list from 36 subscribers to 17,000 over 5 years on Mailchimp. My needs were simple since all I was doing was a weekly blast and collecting addresses via a small number of landing pages. But a subset of my audience had a request for me:__they wanted to hear from me more frequently__. But I didn’t know which subscribers those were. Leveling-up your email newsletter involves understanding how to segment your audience. You can segment them based on their behavior (i.e. which links they click), how they found you, and other rules. Personally, [ConvertKit]() (_affiliate link_) has been a godsend and while these strategies are beyond the scope of this post, they’re summarized below: [su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/ec3538J6OzY”] Alternatives to ConvertKit with powerful automations and segmenting include [ActiveCampaign](), [Aweber]() and [Sendfox](). ## No-code tools to make it all look good Having selected our email provider, a good chunk of the heavy lifting is done. But how can we use no-code tools to improve design and the experience of our subscribers? ### Graphic design tools __Get a logo__ All the email providers will give let you customize your newsletter with a logo. And even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body, there are tools easily make your newsletter more beautiful: * [The Noun Project]() or [Flaticon]() enable you to purchase simple iconography for a couple of dollars. * [Looka]() will survey your personal design preferences and automatically generate a logo for a small one-time fee. * [Canva]() is a “lightweight” Photoshop with templates to create both banners and logos for your newsletter (with a free tier) * [Unsplash]() contains thousands of free stock photography (and I’m biased towards their [one-color collections]()) Personally, I’m old-school and put these various visual assets together in Keynote and then save them using a screenshot! ### Web design tools Which brings us back to the [Cozy Cats]() website. If you’re not using Substack, you’ll want (though it’s technically not required) a website to describe your newsletter. I couldn’t be more excited to recommend the incredible website builder [carrd.co]() (_affiliate link_). To connect your domain, you’ll need Carrd’s $19/year (yes year, not month) pro plan and then you’re off to the races. Carrd lets you integrate with email providers (MailerLite, Mailchimp, Convertkit), Google Analytics, and just about any other payment and commerce service. I’ve launched countless projects on carrd.co and it’s one of the [most powerful No-code tools out there](). If you want an even richer feature set, consider the sitebuilder [Webflow](). ## Your turn Yes, a newsletter can transform your life. You can get started in 5 minutes at no cost using Substack. And if you opt for the more customized route, you’re still looking at __a setup time of under 4 hours and < $100 a year__. And there’s a surfeit of cheap accessible tools to make your newsletter stand out. Because yes, you my friend are special. Which makes your newsletter special too.