Mike Higgins' First Issue of Green Bay Buzz, Edited Live

Mike Higgins had not sent a single issue of Green Bay Buzz when we started recording. It was written, and it was going out the second we figured out a few things. So this episode is a live edit. I read his first issue top to bottom, gave him my opinion on each section, then we looked at his Facebook ad.

Why Green Bay works

Mike's pitch is simple. Online, everybody is trying to be a big fish in a pond of 330 million people. In Green Bay, you can be influential among a much smaller group. He put the city at about 105,000 people, with about 150,000 in the surrounding towns and about 275,000 in Brown County.

I like that size. The NFL team is a draw, the city and area are well defined, and there is real local media to pull information from. That media makes the sourcing easier.

Then there is Mike. He has the personality to become a leader in town, and his business is real estate, where one customer is worth a lot. If you position yourself as an awesome guy helping the community, people will want to come to you to buy and sell homes. He was honest that it might not even end up being real estate. A business owner who advertises with you might want to retire, and suddenly you own a pet grooming company.

Small choices that make it look like yours

Before the walkthrough, Mike covered what he had already decided. The name Green Bay Buzz has a nice sound to it. The colors had to be green and gold, but not the exact Packers shades, because those are trademarked. For structure, he looked at what we do in Leander and what Scott Groves does in Henderson, and mostly copied it.

My first note was a background color. Almost every email has a white background. A very light green means a reader knows it is yours before reading a word. Mike's logo was also small, because the Beehiiv default is small and it isn't obvious you can make it bigger. He had already fixed that by the time we checked.

The featured event, and why every section needs a photo

He opens with a short editorial, then a featured event of the week. I love that one. Events are the main reason people sign up, so give them a taste at the top. You can eventually charge for it. For now it is free.

Mike critiqued his own pick. He featured Dave and Buster's and said he would have gone more local, like a church breakfast. I disagreed, since my kids love that kind of place and I would want to know about it. It depends on your town.

His news item was too long. People have short attention spans, so I wanted at least one photo per section, and the story cut to about half. Write like you're writing on Twitter, one line per paragraph.

The real estate section

Mike's issue had a house that had been for sale for eight or ten years, next door to Aaron Rodgers's old house. It had just closed that week. A house everyone knows is a great story.

My advice was to always run a real estate section. For Mike it is the obvious move. We had been featuring the most expensive house on the market, and it was almost always in the top three clicks. It also gets readers used to real estate, so when he later asks if they want to sell their house with no realtor fees, it isn't new. It is the same logic as running ads for free, so your audience learns this newsletter has ads.

We have since moved to three houses: one cheap, one typical, and one of the most expensive in town. That idea came from Scott in Henderson. Mike also pointed out that real estate might not run every issue, and that is fine.

Be the fun version

Green Bay has real competition, since it is a real city with its own media. So I told Mike to be the fun one. Add GIFs, joke around, and think of the Savannah Bananas. Do to news what they did to baseball. Morning Brew style writing fits too.

The other advantage is perspective. AI will not know that a new Chick-fil-A is going next to a McDonald's at a weird intersection that is already backed up. A person who lives there does. Mike's assistant Ashley writes the newsletter, and he adds the funny GIFs. I told him to let her do the first draft, then edit it down and make it sound like a resident.

Sourcing is simple. They are in the local Facebook groups, and Google News has a local section. During the week they drop links into Discord, then write the issue later. I had never heard of Google News, and Mike has been obsessed with it for two years.

The Facebook ad

Mike's first campaign cost $30 and got zero subscribers. The ad went to greenbaybuzz.com instead of the subscribe page. The site also had nothing on it. I told him to connect his Beehiiv site to that domain, which means setting up DNS.

When we looked at the ad itself, I had three notes:

• Open on the problem. Instead of "weekly scoop straight to your inbox," the video should say "tired of missing fun events in Green Bay?"
• Use footage from a real event. I film a local event with a bounce house and booths, and I think it holds attention better than stock shots of a town. The video is what gets someone to read the text.
• Cut the text. One sentence is enough. Say "free" more, and replace the logo with "free forever."

Then test it. Create a second ad rather than replacing the first, and Facebook will send people to the better one. Check that the pixel is on the subscribe button, so a subscribe tells Facebook it worked. Mike had already pasted his Facebook pixel into Beehiiv.

Lead magnets, more sends, and a podcast

A few ideas for later. Make a checklist of how many stories, events and restaurants belong in each issue, and give it away as an opt-in for our local newsletter insiders. Mike liked that. Sending more than once a week opens ad slots and gets people to see you more often.

He could also plan restaurant spotlights ahead, film a short video at each one for Instagram, then turn it into a 20 second GIF in the newsletter that links to the video. A local podcast with the same name as the newsletter is another good fit, since he wants to meet more business owners. I suggested renting a local studio space for it, and we agreed the cost is the downside.