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A weekly newsletter for HVAC business owners
One boring niche, one weekly email. Sponsorships from suppliers cover the bills within a year.
Monthly income
$3.2k
reported by author
Time to results
8-12 months
Initial investment
$100
Replicability
★★★★★
4/5
Risk profile
ConservativeRadical
How it works
Trade newsletters convert well because the audience is defined and the advertisers are eager. HVAC owners spend on tools, software and trucks — vendors will pay $500-2k per sponsored slot once you cross 3k subscribers.
Step by step
- 1Pick a trade you've worked in, or that you can honestly interview 10 owners in. Boring is good — HVAC, plumbing, roofing, pest control, commercial cleaning.
- 2Buy a starter domain (e.g. hvacweekly.com) and set up a free Beehiiv or ConvertKit account. Skip Substack — sponsor tooling is weaker.
- 3Design a template with 4 fixed sections: one industry news roundup, one interview, one 'tool of the week', and one owner-submitted question. Never break the format.
- 4Interview 5 owners over Zoom in your first month. Publish the best quotes with permission. This gives you both content and your first email addresses.
- 5Publish 12 consecutive weekly issues before pitching a single sponsor. Consistency is what makes advertisers take you seriously.
- 6Grow via 3 channels: LinkedIn (post one insight per issue), 3-5 industry Facebook groups (share the free issue link, never a paywall), and a permission-based referral to any interviewee's peers.
- 7Aim for 3,000 subscribers before the first sponsor pitch. Below that, response rates are painful.
- 8Sell 2 flat-rate sponsor slots per issue: one 'primary' at $1,500 and one 'classified' at $500. Both quoted for 4-week runs, invoiced upfront.
- 9Build a simple one-page media kit: subscriber count, open rate, click rate, past sponsors, testimonials. PDF, 2 pages max.
- 10Track only two metrics weekly: subscriber growth and unsubscribe rate. If unsub rate crosses 1%, you're padding issues — cut length.
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