How This Week In React scaled its team and ad placements flawlessly

This Week in React (TWIR) is a weekly curation of news for mid/senior-level React developers.

Established in 2019 by Sébastien Lorber, the newsletter provides its audience of experienced React developers with the latest news in an exhaustive way. Every newsletter contains a wealth of external links for further reading.

“Costly mistakes”

At the beginning of 2023, the newsletter (and Sébastien’s workload) was growing rapidly. To allow him to focus more on content, he hired two virtual assistants (VA) to allow him to focus on more important work.

Emails are very unforgiving.

Many back-and-forth emails with multiple sponsors increases the chances of missing a copy update, resulting in sending an outdated ad in the email.

While introducing them to the team relieved some of his workload, it was not as freeing an experience as he hoped.

“Delegation is about building trust with your colleagues. However, they were struggling with my email process, which was largely undocumented. I needed to spend time teaching them how to do things and sometimes things do not get done perfectly.”

As a result, he recalls needing to keep a “close eye”, adding: “Emails are very unforgiving. Many back-and-forth emails with multiple sponsors increases the chances of missing a copy update, resulting in sending an outdated ad in the email.”

“Your sponsor will notice that mistake. And, because they didn’t get their expected return on investment, they will ask to be compensated. It’s a costly mistake and one which didn’t go away when I delegated out the work.”

Sébastien knew there must be a better way of managing newsletters. That’s when he found Sponsy.

Why TWIR partnered with Sponsy

Sébastien was most impressed by how Sponsy helps lean teams like TWIR manage a range of channels - including newsletters - affordably.

“When I began looking for a solution, I wanted something developed especially for newsletters that would allow me to work and delegate work more effectively.”

Alongside its easy use, Sébastien found Sponsy’s pricing structure appealing. Its fixed monthly price means Sébastien can plan without the risk of billing surprises as the newsletter grows.

Competitor comparison: Passionfroot

Passionfroot lacked the understanding of my business I need to help me work easier, faster and better.

Before committing to Sponsy, Sébastien trialed solutions from several vendors, including Passionfroot.

“I tried Passionfroot, and found it wasn’t ideal for a newsletter” recalls Sébastien. He believes this may be due to the product’s “broad” nature, explaining: “It’s targeted quite broadly and feels like it’s more for self-advertising than what I’m doing. It lacked the understanding of my business I need to help me work easier, faster and better.”

Passionfroot’s pricing structure also concerned him: “Passionfroot is commission-based. With fees to pay for each transaction, it could become more and more expensive as we grow.”

Easier sponsorship management

In September 2023, TWIR began using Sponsy and it’s been transforming operations ever since.

For Sébastien and his VAs, it means no more struggles to stay on top of tasks: “It was difficult to remember to send reminders to the sponsors to figure out who wanted to change their copy.” He adds: “I didn’t really have a process so everything was kind of messy.”

Alongside this, the team no longer has to rely on spreadsheets or dig through emails to prepare the newsletter. Sponsy has equipped TWIR with the steps necessary to produce a newsletter.

With powerful capabilities, including quicker troubleshooting and advanced automations, Sponsy’s introduction made it possible for Sébastien to delegate tasks to his digital assistants - properly and easily.

Quicker troubleshooting

Sébastien enjoys Sponsy’s “convenient” Ad Calendar which quickly informs him of upcoming bookings and more.

I can easily check our slot availability and maintain control of what’s happening.

The color-coded calendar allows the editor to see the newsletter’s performance - at a glance.

“Sponsy lets me know when things are going well. I can easily check our slot availability and maintain control of what’s happening.”

And when things go wrong? Sponsy’s ability to track a booking’s history means Sébastien can respond swiftly - with accuracy: “When a mistake happens, Sponsy makes it easier to figure out what happened and who was involved, so we can ensure it doesn’t happen again in the future.”

Time-saving automations

It’s important to have a tool that supports you in scaling successfully.

Reminders are just one of many tasks that Sponsy is making easier, according to Sébastien. He explains: “Previously, these would need to be issued manually and that takes time. Sponsy makes things a little less stressful for everyone by automatically sending out reminders such as gathering assets and approval.”

Advanced Automations like these allow Sébastien and his team to focus on more valuable work, such as seizing opportunities to scale.

“Scaling up would be much more difficult without Sponsy,” he adds. “After all, the more placements you have, the more complicated it becomes to manage them."

“It’s important to have a tool that supports you in doing this successfully. And I think this is where Sponsy is advantageous to us. It makes it more likely for me to increase the number of placements that I will put in the newsletter without increasing my costs, which will result in higher revenue.”

Results

I’m confident that I can increase the scale more by perhaps adding more placements or even publishing twice a week.

Six months have passed since TWIR adopted Sponsy and a lot has happened since then, including:

• Efficient delegation with greater oversight
• Doubling the number of placements (2 to 4)
• Significantly reducing the risk of 'costly mistakes'
• Easier management of cross-promotion operations
• More time for Sébastien to focus on planning and strategy

“Creating a newsletter can be very time-consuming, depending on the content you put inside. At TWIR, that’s around 15 hours per issue... before finding the sponsors to be able to make a living out of it,” stresses Sébastien. “It took a lot of time, but, thanks to Sponsy, I now have a calendar full of sponsors until September this year!”

Its introduction has also allowed Sébastien to look (and plan) even further ahead. The TWIR founder explains: “Eventually, I’m confident that I can increase the scale more by perhaps adding more placements or even publishing twice a week.”