A complete guide to a top 1% newsletter (9 unfair fixes)⚙️
Value proposition, problem stacking and the 'but what?' test.
Hey Part-Time Creator,
Welcome to a subscriber-only 🔒edition of the newsletter. Every week, I tackle a burning question about product growth, productivity, work, and communication, so you can learn how to apply the findings to your part-time thing. Let’s dive into this week’s newsletter.
Check out: Part-Time Creator Club 🧰
Read time: 5.3 minutes
The newsletter game is more competitive than ever.
2022 felt like the early days. 2025 things are ramping up—free content is x10 what it used to be.
If you don’t up your game, you’ll get left behind.
So there are two options:
👎 Play small — Spend time writing sub-par pieces to please the algorithm but stay mostly still, mostly doing what everyone else is doing and feeling like a 5/10.
👍 Go big — Invest your time in making what you’ve got 2% better every week and you’ll be surprised where you end up.
I’m guessing you want to go big, so here’s a short guide to exactly how you do that.
I’ve spent 10 hours this week researching the most impressive newsletters right now so you can leverage it for your newsletter. Let’s go.
The newsletters 🔥:
Tom Orbach - MarketingIdeas
1. Show your value proposition in the first 25 words
Readers have limited time and they’re here for one reason and one reason only:
To solve their problem.
Aka you’ve got all of 5 seconds to convince them that you can do that. That means every word matters (especially in the intro). I call it the S.O.V (speed of value) but first, you must offer up the bait.
So here’s the key question:
⁉️ What’s your value proposition?
(Aka what value are you willing to give them if they read).
You see, this is what Tom does right off the bat. No fluff, no extra words, no faffing about, straight into it.
The value proposition: I’ll teach you how to keep attention.
Remember, you don’t always need to spell out the ‘so that’, your audience is smart. Check out the example below, Tom’s audience is a bunch of marketers, they know why it’s important to keep attention.
He simply tells them what’s at risk if you get it wrong and then jumps straight into it.
❌ Fluffy - In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, consumers are inundated with messaging, making it imperative for brands to establish immediate relevance. The most pivotal consideration when an individual encounters your ad is, “Does this align with my needs?” If this core question isn’t effectively addressed within the initial three-second engagement window, you risk losing that prospect’s attention—potentially forever—diminishing conversion opportunities and brand impact.
✅ No-fluff - The most important question anyone asks when seeing your ad is: 'Is this for me?' If you don't answer that in 3 seconds → they're gone forever.
2. Use imagery to tell stories
Blocks of text are all over the internet. We love to read. But when faced with block of text after block of text, readers can get bored, overwhelmed, and fatigued.
So break it up with imagery, and not just any imagery.
Stock footage was ‘okay’ 10 years ago, but these days, people expect more and my favorites are people creating imagery that matters, that adds something to their stories, something that summarizes what they are saying.
🖼️ Tell your story and add imagery to bring it to life
A great example below, Ash visualizes what is hard to put into words. Brilliant. His value is helping you see ideas in new ways.
🧰 The Fix - Invest time in telling your story with visuals.
3. Inject personality everywhere
AI is here.
What is one to do but sit in the corner and cry? Well, yes —some days. But mostly no. Instead, like anything, change brings about tears and also opportunities.
What is this golden opportunity you ask? Well, it’s time to be more you.
And really you. Not like half-baked and sort of you but also hiding under the covers you. You like really, really you. All the bells and whistles (or none if you don’t like that). Inject yourself (fully) into your writing.
💁♀️ Don’t hold back, say things exactly as you would.
Tell the world:
What you like
What you do
How you think
What you feel
Give it both barrels. Here’s a great example.
❌ No, no, no - ‘These events raise concerns about their effectiveness and prompt a broader discussion on the allocation of marketing budgets in consumer brands.’
✅ Yesssss - ‘These parties look bad and make me seriously question marketing spend at consumer brands.’
4. Stacks reader problems and write about them
Content = Pick a problem, and
solve it.
You and I both know this.
But there is a new creeping realization I’ve had that I’ve called ‘problem stacking’. Here, writers are not solving one problem, they are solving two problems that relate to one another. 🤯
When you write content, your best bet (if you’re trying to come up with content ideas on the reg) is to write out all the things you want to know as your target reader.
So for this newsletter, here are some problems I want to solve for me (and you):
How to research with readers.
How to improve my landing page.
How to improve the customer journey
How to create a buzz about the stuff you’re doing.
How to build a product or service that works for your schedule.
For Aakash, he’s a Product Manager helping other Product Managers get better at the Product Manager thing. But he’s not simply writing, ‘How to be a Product Manager’, he’s problem stacking: