The journey from professional poker player to newsletter publisher is not exactly a well trodden one, especially when you include pit-stops like software development and affiliate marketing. Well, that’s the journey Emanuel Cinca, the founder of Stacked Marketer, has traveled.
We sat down with Emanuel (Manu to his friends) to talk about creating a brand, advertising strategies, commitment to quality content and more.
Eureka Moment
You know Stacked Marketer, right? The marketing newsletter that all the smart people you know find in their inbox every day? The newsletter that is free to sign up for, has over 60k subscribers and is valued at €3 million? If you don’t, you certainly should.
Back in 2018, Manu was looking for something new to sink his teeth into. He had established his name in the affiliate marketing industry, but was on the hunt for a project that he owned, that he was in full control of.
Manu stumbled upon Morning Brew, a finance focused newsletter, and the gears began to turn about starting a marketing equivalent.
Community Is Key
Manu explained to us that there was no ‘five-year plan’ at the start, it was more about setting short term, achievable milestones and working towards them step by step. Interestingly, Manu put the initial growth down to networking and word of mouth, and paid ads had almost nothing to do with it.
“Early on, it was more organic and word of mouth. The main stages of growth were initially reaching out to friends in the marketing community, showing them what we started, and asking them to recommend it. This helped us grow to five or six hundred subscribers. Then, I reached out to other people who had blogs or email lists and did sponsored posts. Some promoted it for free because they liked it. This helped us get over a thousand subscribers.”
“We did cross-promotions with other communities and newsletters, tried some Facebook ads which were not so great. A referral program helped us to get around the four to five thousand subscriber mark.”
Let’s Get Personal
One aspect that makes Stacked Marketer so popular is its unique tone. It’s friendly, warm, and often humorous. Manu explains they were conscious of this from the start.
“It was very intentional. We try to talk as one-to-one, making people think we’re talking to them individually. We avoid saying ‘our readers’ and just say ‘you.’ Our persona is plural because we’re a crew, but we try to have the same type of personality. We keep the tone informal.”
“We’ve gotten feedback from people who prefer dry and serious news, but we didn’t want to cut out the humor completely. We chose topics that are more uplifting and positive for the poolside chat section to wrap up the newsletter on a good note.”
Engaging your audience through personalization is a very effective way of fostering loyalty and trust in affiliate marketing.
Use a more relaxed, one-to-one communication style in your content and avoid impersonal language. People don’t want to feel like they’re reading a legal document when reading your content, they’ll get bored and switch off. They want to feel like a real person is speaking directly to them.
Value of Transparency
In an industry that is shrouded in secrecy, where companies hold their cards close to their chest at all times, Stacked Marketer is a beacon of openness and transparency. An example of this is the annual report they make readily available to whomever asks for it.
This report contains detailed breakdowns of revenue and profit, content performance, advertising, pretty much everything you could wish to know about them.
“Our annual report tends to be the most engaging link of the year. It helps with general engagement and builds trust. When we raised an investment round, people were already aware of our financial performance. It didn’t feel like talking to strangers. The reports show our thought process and build trust with our audience and our advertisers.”
Stacked Marketers openness with how it is run is completely refreshing. It doesn’t only help when they reach out to advertisers, it has also led to a lot of advertisers reaching out to them, due to the fact that their ad budgets, reach and engagement is open knowledge.
Be An Open Book
Last year, Stacked Marketer launched 2 new publications, Tactics and Psychology of Marketing. Both do what they say on the tin and both are also free to subscribe for.
Tactics offers actionable marketing tactics every Saturday to help marketers implement effective strategies, and Psychology of Marketing, well I’m sure you can figure out the subject matter of that one.
Go Forth and Conquer
For affiliates, there is a lot to learn from Manu’s journey and from Stacked Marketer. His approach to content, engaging with an audience, and the unique way in which he positions the brand is a lesson in forging your own path and having confidence in your convictions.
And if you’re eager to test out some of the amazing learnings you will gain from reading Stacked Marketer every morning, why not sign-up to our affiliate program here (pretty smooth segue, right?). You can get access to some exclusive offers with really tasty payouts. Our dedicated account managers are ready and waiting!