Howdy, Marketer! 

Before beehiiv, email platforms like ConvertKit and MailChimp were mostly used as tools for email marketing - and they were pretty good for that use case.

Newsletter-led media businesses were already enabled by platforms like Substack (that’s where I started Marketer Gems too!) 

But… When beehiiv entered the market, it  understood that offering easy monetization was the best way to provide value to newsletter creators.

beehiiv’s initial marketing was led majorly by its founder, Tyler Denk, through his own newsletter - Big Desk Energy (which is now also a song).

beehiiv supports the creator economy with an owned audience instead of relying on social media algorithms. 

It treated newsletters like scalable businesses instead of digital diaries and captured the most valuable segment of the market: the builders.

Today's Treasure Trove

• What is beehiiv? 

• beehiiv’s Target Audience

• Marketing Strategies of beehiiv

• Campaigns They Could Run Next

• Wrap up

What is beehiiv? 

Some stats:

• Twitter (X): 33.6K followers

• Instagram: 18.9K followers

• YouTube: 18.8K subscribers

• LinkedIn: 54K followers

• Tyler Denk’s LinkedIn: 56K followers

• Tyler Denk’s Twitter (X): 37.7K followers

beehiiv is a newsletter platform that lets creators publish, grow, and monetize their email lists. Just as Shopify made it cool and easy to start an e-commerce store, beehiiv makes it cool to start a newsletter business. 

It’s almost as if the market is bifurcated: bloggers and thought essayists turn to Substack; content creators wanting to build a media company often choose beehiiv.

beehiiv’s Target Audience

People in the creator economy and interested in growing a media business are the perfect fit for beehiiv. 

There are also established creators currently on platforms like Substack making decent money but hitting ceiling issues – either with monetization, growth tools, or platform limitations. They're sophisticated users who understand email metrics and are willing to migrate if the value proposition is strong enough. 

And there are small media companies and agencies managing multiple newsletters. They need white-label solutions, team collaboration features, and robust analytics across different properties. They're decision-makers with budgets, looking for platforms that can scale. For them, beehiiv positions itself as infrastructure for growth with a creator-first revenue structure rather than just an ESP.

Marketing Strategies of beehiiv

You cannot talk about beehiiv without talking about Tyler Denk.

He is in the trenches, sharing revenue numbers, talking openly about his Morning Brew days, discussing product decisions in real-time. He's built credibility by being transparent about both wins and losses. 

Founder-led marketing, especially in B2B, creates trust faster than any ad campaign ever could. People buy from people.

beehiiv also has a robust content strategy that creates genuinely useful resources like in-depth guides on newsletter monetization. They provide operational knowledge, financial strategies, growth tactics that actually work.

A huge part of this is quite subtle but effective. They built a newsletter and podcast called Creator Spotlight - a separate distribution arm. It features success case studies mostly from beehiiv users. 

It is produced and managed by the beehiiv team but it is not overtly advertised as such. This helps the company to be a valuable resource for those in the creator economy while also covertly positioning beehiiv as the structure to replicate that success. 

The referral program is their strongest growth hack. Before beehiiv, growing a newsletter was a lonely, single-player game. You had to fight for every subscriber on social media. beehiiv productized collaboration. They built a "Recommendation Network" directly into the onboarding flow. 

When you subscribe to Newsletter A, you are prompted to also subscribe to Newsletter B and C. This turns competitors into collaborators. By reducing the friction of cross-promotion to zero, they created a network effect where every new successful newsletter on the platform actually helps other newsletters grow. 

Their ad network strategy deserves its own discussion because it's solving a massive pain point. Newsletter creators traditionally struggled to monetize unless they had huge lists. They had to hustle for sponsors, negotiate rates, handle contracts. 

beehiiv created a marketplace within the platform where creators can plug into ready-made advertising opportunities. This is a business model transformation for small creators, which helped generate positive word-of-mouth on social media. 

Campaigns They Could Run Next

Based on where beehiiv is and where the market's heading, here are campaigns that could move the needle for them.

1. A "Migration Made Easy" campaign specifically targeting Substack creators would be timely. Substack's been making moves that haven't sat well with all creators, for instance - the Notes and Videos feature that feels like forced social media. beehiiv could create a comprehensive migration package: technical support, design assistance, subscriber import verification, even temporary ad revenue guarantees. Make it so easy and risk-free that the decision becomes obvious.

   In the past, they’ve done similar campaigns at pivotal moments (or flubs) for their competitors.
   

2. TV networks have "The Upfronts" where they pitch their upcoming shows to advertisers to secure budget. beehiiv could host the first-ever "Creator Upfronts."
   It would legitimize newsletters as a primary advertising channel and position beehiiv as the broker of the new media economy. It would generate massive press and attract enterprise-level advertisers to their ad network.
   

3. To cut through the digital noise and introduce something tangible, beehiiv could launch a limited-run campaign where they help their top 100 creators print and distribute a physical edition of their newsletter for one month.
   They could partner with local coffee shops in major tech hubs to stock these physical newsletters. Seeing a digital brand in the physical world creates a premium association. It would create incredible user-generated content (UGC) as creators post photos of their physical papers in trendy cafes, reinforcing the idea that beehiiv creators are legitimate publishers.

Wrap up

What makes beehiiv's marketing work is the coherent strategy underneath it all. They understand that in the creator economy:

• Trust matters more than features

• Education sells better than promotion

• Showing beats telling every single time

They've built a platform that creates its own marketing because it genuinely solves problems serious creators face every day.

That positioning, combined with founder authenticity and genuine value delivery, creates a real community.

✌️,

Tom from Marketer Gems