Getting it right is difficult. 20th August 2024 was a good day for XBTO.

Raising a flag to acknowledge a job well done, even if it isn’t done by someone I know!

LinkedIn is pushing newsletters as way to increase engagement. Not a day goes by without someone asking me to subscribe to their LinkedIn newsletter. I subscribe to some, I also subscribe to a few Substacks and Mediums on topics I find interesting. (I’m enjoying Ethan Molick’s substack on AI and Derek Watson’s on VCs).

For hedge funds, this ‘innovation’ seems like a natural extension of the work that we already do. Every month we create a newsletter for existing and prospective investors. This has got to be an ideal candidate for my favourite mantra “Can I use this again?” Well, yes and no. The first two hurdles are things you have to make a decision about and then create a framework that allows you to publish.

What can you publish? Pushing the same content in your newsletter across social media is likely to be a compliance nightmare. I’m sure you have checked all your newsletter subscribers for their eligibility to receive your information. You can’t do the same for a LinkedIn newsletter (yet). You will need a framework and process for which content you can publish and how it gets signed off.
What do you actually want to publish? A lot of fund managers like to keep the information in their newsletters relatively private. Of course, we all know that you shouldn’t write something that you don’t want on the desk of your competitors - because it will get there. However, this is actively publishing content into the public domain. How open do you want to be? Write the rules upfront, you can always change them if you think they’re wrong. If you don’t you may find yourself veering too much one way or the other.

Of course, that becomes less of a problem if you already publish updates on similar strategies that have a wider investor base (UCITS etc) You have tackled those issues before. However, that hits upon the two next things you need to look into:

How do you correctly address the audience at their level of knowledge? A LinkedIn newsletter is part of your awareness raising effort. This means you’ll be relying heavily on proving your top-line messages and reiterating your USPs/Differentiators/Value Proposition/Core Benefits (wow there are a lot of expressions for essentially the same thing). This is a top-of-funnel exercise to build your authority, brand and position in the marketplace. For those investors looking at your investment strategy, you also want to give them the next step down the funnel towards your sales team.
How do you keep it interesting? This is the hardest of the hurdles to overcome! Once you’ve stripped out all the non-compliant information, and the secret stuff, what’s left? Do you have any news or are you only recapping what happened in the markets without bringing any value? There is very little point in committing to a newsletter if no one is going to read it because it is dull. To make it worthwhile you need to bring value to your audience.
Ouff, have you read some of the snoozefests on UCITS factsheets? They need commentary so someone has to write something. However, there is no point in making extra work for your team by getting them to chop up dull stuff to stick in a LinkedIn newsletter, that will never bring value to anyone that reads it. Don’t put yourself through that humiliation, don’t bother with a LinkedIn newsletter if you can’t bring value - in the form of something interesting to read!

The same image for all their newsletters makes it instantly recognisable in your feed.

That being said… let’s move onto the XBTO newsletter! Let’s have a masterclass in doing it right! Welcome to 20th August 2024. Strap in and be impressed.

I’m going to start with the overall rightness of the newsletter, and then, because it deserves it, I’m going to go section by section. I promise you, it’s worth it.

Overall

They know their audience. The majority of individuals are not crypto insiders. They may have traded crypto personally, but not much. They are interested in crypto but not enough to jump on a Discord server. They may have FOMO or even feel they’ve already missed out. They have a finance background. The high value audience have an institutional or institutional adjacent finance background.
They understand the knowledge level of their audience. It’s jargony enough to allow the reader to identify themselves as educated about the crypto space. But when you break it down, the information they are providing is not complex, which is exactly right for the audience’s current knowledge level.
This is ‘top-of-funnel’ content. It is designed to capture interest and move their audience further down their marketing funnel. It is not designed to get this audience to use XBTO products, yet. They need more education and they will have received it by the time they’ve made it down the funnel. (This is tempered by my last small caveat at the end, remember this when you read it in a minute.)
They understand the purpose of the newsletter for themselves. They are building a brand that is reliable, straightforward, and institution-friendly, in a market that is notoriously full of unreliable actors. This newsletter is ideal for awareness and authority building. They are being very authority forward, and it’s working.
They understand the purpose(s) of the newsletter for the reader. It makes the reader more comfortable with crypto. It shows them that there are opportunities in crypto that chime with opportunities they are familiar with elsewhere. The reader will feel that they can have a conversation about crypto with a more informed colleague and not feel out of their depth. They may even be able to add a counter into the conversation and defend it. Crypto is so beset by jargon-based gatekeeping that giving someone the confidence to interact with that ‘crypto colleague’ is gold in itself.
They are providing value. In fact, this is such a good piece, it highlights, in bold, where it’s bringing value. ‘Our take,’ ‘Our market view.’ When they’re promoting the newsletter the value is front and centre ‘commentary and actionable trading strategies directly to your inbox.’
Not only do they trail the value, but they also deliver: In the second section, they’re giving the reader a comeback in the conversation with their ‘crypto colleague’ and the context that it’s appropriate.
They are intelligently repurposing work they are already doing. None of this content is created from whole cloth for this newsletter. Where the skill comes in is in identifying which of the things they are already doing will be interesting for a top-of-funnel, interested outsider. They’ve aced it because they have a clear idea of the audience, their needs and the needs of their company. (I wrote a bit about that in “Can I use this again?”)
It’s got great tone. It’s not preachy, it’s not verbose. It is authority-building without talking down to the reader. Again, it’s jargony, but it’s jargony on the finance end rather than too much crypto jargon. It’s direct. ‘Clean’ feels like the right word.

The Breakdown

The Headline

A question in the title! A classic that never gets old. But it is relevant for the audience. It’s also giving information before asking the question. The question would have a lot less value without that context.

Section 1: Market Commentary and short term outlook

The first two paragraphs:

Format: Clear headings, with the conclusion in the heading. Punchy bullets, with the key takeaway obvious in bold. Skimming these two sections shows me they aren’t going to waste my time. They are giving me upfront value.

Content: The choice of content is masterful. It reenforces one of their key messages - crypto is getting safer and is for people like the reader. Any market summary involves choice, for this target audience, this is the right choice. Nuance can come later. At this level of engagement, you’re not trying to reflect the world, you’re introducing your worldview.

The last paragraph:

Format: It’s a little denser than the first two and it’s designed to draw the reader in. You can still skim the content if you want to. The bold sections are very active, there are two drops and and serge! It’s indicating that lots is happening and you should read more. Once you skim the bold, you want to go back and read the full text to find out what all the action is about.

Content: The first bullet references real world activity that the target audience will recognise and then tells them what effect it had on the world they know less about. The second bullet is similar but adds in a bit of prediction - ‘which could boost the token price.’ Ooo! That’s value! The third bullet is all crypto and includes a possibly actionable nugget about the future.

That is A MASTERCLASS in moving a reader from their place of comfort to yours. In three bullet points! I can not stress enough how well done this is. I don’t know what they’re paying the person who wrote this, but they should pay them more. If it’s an AI, I think it’s hit AGI and I’m scared.

Section 2: What’s shaping the week ahead

This section is so perfect I am going to boldly steal it and try and use it FOREVER.

This is exactly right for the audience, giving them unbelievably targeted value. It’s events they understand with consequences in markets that they don’t - yet. It’s so clear and clean I’m getting a bit weird about it.

It’s placed perfectly in the newsletter. The first section has reinforced that crypto is a suitable place for them. Then they’ve been gently walked to the idea that crypto is somewhere they can take action with the right guidance, then…

BAM!

“We’re here! Look at this! This is our value. This is our authority. Here’s our guidance.”

The format is perfect.

Date, event, expansion if needed.

Our take: If this, then that.

And then four more times, just in case you missed how good we were the first time.

STUNNING

Section 3. Our market view & insights

For me, it started to take a dive here. But that’s because I am no longer the target for this content. (And I’m still recovering from the perfection of section 1 and 2.) Section 3 is for the finance professionals who read reports all day. This is their shiny metal to a magpie.

The writing style has changed. It’s gone from punchy, forward, active language to the pseudo academia so familiar in research reports. The sentences are longer and a few even have subclauses. There are full paragraphs. This is them saying ‘we’re not just for the flighty skimmer. You, who are attracted to this section, are a sensible serious sort of person. Like us.’

However, if you pay more attention to the substance behind the style, the content hasn’t changed that much. It’s still events that your familiar with and their effects on things you aren’t - yet. And trading strategies you’re familiar with, applied to areas you aren’t - yet. It’s fantastically well pitched, again.

Then, when you take a second pass, the style isn’t all that different. It’s the same thing, in a hat. The paragraphs aren’t that long. There are still bold catchy headings. Its brilliance is in its positioning. Standing alone this content could look fluffy, but put it after the first two punchy sections and it looks weighty and detailed. Again, brilliant. Pay them more.

Section 4: Performance recap on previous insights.

This could say anything. It doesn’t matter. Hardly anyone is ever going to read it. It serves as a useful bow on their authority building. This section says “you can trust us, we will be transparent. We won’t make all these predictions and suggestions and then ignore them if we’re wrong - see, we’ve linked to the relevant text. We are believable.” They could link to a recipe for air fryer chicken.

It’s also cleverly written. It’s dense, it’s actually a lot less well written than all the other sections but I think that’s intentional. The information is too dense to skim, if I want to get the key points I have to work. I would probably have to click the link to get the full picture. That’s too much, so I’m just going to take their word for it. Now that I’ve gotten to here, I already believe in their authority, I’m prepared to take their word for it.

G.E.N.I.U.S

Three detractions

Would this be compliant for a fund management firm regulated in a mainstream jurisdiction that managed only alternative investments? I think it’s unlikely it would get past the compliance departments of the larger funds I’ve worked with - particularly considering the medium. However, XBTO do more than just funds, are regulated in Bermuda, and crypto is is a grey area. It’s not exactly apples and apples.
I would have liked it to be attributed to a person rather than just the company. But I don’t have any data to back up my preference. Email marketing works better when attributed to a human, and I’m extrapolating. But that might be incorrect.
There is no call-to-action. People who are interested to know more about XBTO aren’t told what to do next. Existing subscribers get nothing to move on to. In socials, that tiny call-to-action nudge creates ‘Oh that was interesting, I’ll do this next.’ Without ‘click here for detailed analysis of x’ or ‘watch our video on Y’ the reader says ‘Oh that was interesting. What shall I do now? Where do I go? Oh, I’ll look at the about page. Oh, it’ s just a link to their site that I’m going to have to navigate through. I haven’t got time for that. I’ll look later…’ And they’re off.
Unsubscribed readers get asked to subscribe and that has value if you’re interested in increasing subscription. But that’s not a good stand-alone metric. ‘I have 20,000 subscribers on LinkedIn’ is only useful if that’s where they convert to customers - which is not the case here. In this scenario, you want them to subscribe so that they go on to do something else that moves them down your funnel. You need to tell them what that is.
Caveat: This was their SECOND newsletter. They were probably optimising for subscribers. I’m sure they’ll add in relevant CTAs as they grow their audience.

Addendum: If you’ve got this far, I can tell you about my limited interaction with XBTO.

In July 2024 they posted a job opportunity for a Investor Relations person. I looked at the job spec and it seemed all of the wrong we’re used to in the alternatives space. They said they wanted IR, but then they actually described sales support, some marketing, prospecting, content creation etc - it was the usual hotch-potch, it’s normal in the industry, but it’s something I’m hoping to change. (See “Raise more assets by focusing less on asset raising”)

I was still putting together After Yellow and needed to test the market. I DMed the most senior person in the UK I could find with ‘you said you want Investor Relations, I think you need a Fractional CGO.’ I was feeling forward and this approach had worked well on four other funds. I was a bit put out when I got tumbleweeds from XBTO. Not even a polite, no thank you.

A month later, they posted this. And I realised they didn’t need me. They had that weeeeelllll in hand! How embarrassing. Now I’m mostly over it and can appreciate great marketing when I see it.

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