A few weeks ago I shared a big newsletter growth opportunity on the Letterland pod: Combining short form video (think IG Reels, TikTok, Linkedin Video) with "viral" quizzes related to your newsletter.
But I didn't have a great example of someone CRUSHING it with this strategy... until now.
Enter, Milly Tamati of the Generalist World newsletter.
Milly writes a great newsletter for a niche audience of "generalist" professionals — people who are good at a bunch of stuff, rather than specialized in one skill.
And — over the past few weeks — she's been using TikTok and quizzes to add 500+ new subscribers to her newsletter every day. For free.
Here's the step-by-step breakdown (for you to steal) of exactly how she's doing it...
Milly's TikTok + Quiz playbook
First up, Milly created a "fun but useful" quiz for her audience to take:
Like the best "'buzzfeedy" quizzes of ye olden times (~2012), Milly's quiz triggers an "open loop" — making visitors curious about what their generalist archetype would be.
To see your results, you need to hand over your email address and subscribe to the newsletter.
One thing I really like about how Milly set up this quiz is that she used an "easy" domain: generalistquiz.com — rather than a subdomain or page on her normal website.
That's a big deal when you're trying to convert traffic from IG Reels or TikTok — because you can't give them a "clickable" link.
So your quiz URL needs to be short and memorable if you want people to bother typing it out.
There are a bunch of great quiz tools out there (or you could just make your own with AI). But Milly — and a few other newsletter operators I know, like Ali Abdaal — use ScoreApp (no affiliation).
Promoting on TikTok
After creating her quiz, Milly started to promote it in short TikTok videos like this one:
Some of Milly's videos have hundreds of views. Some have hundreds of thousands. That's just the nature of TikTok's algorithm.
But she nails the basics of making a great TikTok video:
- strong hook directly calling out her target audience
- "raw" (genuine) but high quality production and narrative
- strong call-to-action at the end of the video pitching the quiz
Milly has a niche audience, so I love how she often calls out to this audience directly in her opening hooks...
"Fun, highpaying jobs... for people with non-traditional careers..."
This instantly tells the viewers if the content is "for them" or not. Meaning most people swipe away... but the few who stay are highly engaged.
You can see the proof of this in the super high conversion rates: It's possible for Milly to generate hundreds of quiz signups from just a few thousand views of a video.
The Results
Right now, according to Milly, she's averaging over 3'000+ new subscribers per week. Totally free — with strong newsletter engagement and retention.
And there's no reason why this wouldn't work for your newsletter too!
Just...
- Ideate some "viral" quiz ideas (use chatgpt as a brainstorming partner)
- Create your quiz using a tool like ScoreApp
- Choose 1-3 short-form video platforms to test out (yes, IG Reels and TikTok are the most popular ones, but don't sleep on YouTube Shorts, Twitter Videos or even LinkedIn's shortform video tool if you have a more male or professional audience)
- Be consistent: Record and publish a new video every day for at least a week before giving up
- Let me know how it goes so I can share your story with the other ~30k operators on this newsletter!
