Hello! I’m Jenn, welcome to my newsletter where I go off on tangents.

Rebranding Coffee Marketing

Formerly “Coffee Marketing”, a newsletter I wrote for over six years.

I began the newsletter as a free marketing resource for specialty coffee businesses, but it hasn’t been solely about marketing for a long while.

After a decade of freelancing, I decided to move over to Substack for a clean break and an updated newsletter that incorporates more personal essays along with the regular content you’ve come to expect from “Coffee Marketing”.

About tanJennts

Free subscribers — Twice a month on Wednesdays, you’ll receive an issue right in your inbox. The format will be the same as Coffee Marketing:

• notes from Jenn: A short list of things that have happened recently.

• the tanJennt: An essay or feature, including how-to guides, articles, personal reflections, interviews, and in the future, short-form journalism. I aim for at least one marketing-esque piece for every fourth issue. Some example topics include:

  • Coffee marketing

  • Culture

  • Freelancing

  • Cultural identity

  • Food

• social media: A quick text update on new features and tests on the big social networks. I sift through the noise and give you a summary of things that are relevant to small business owners.

• digital strategy: A few links on how to improve your digital strategy.

• interesting reads: Articles I’ve read recently that I’ve enjoyed. These run the gamut of topics but are almost never about marketing.

• plant update: A plant feature from my container garden!

To get a sense of what I like to write about, here are some of my favorites:

• Do what you love and it’ll still feel like work — An essay about the glorification of “doing what you love.”

• Nostalgia in marketing — How the psychology of nostalgia is used in marketing.

• F**k email etiquette — An essay on how we should stop putting all those niceties at the beginning of every email.

• Please just let me be mediocre — An essay on the pressures of being really good.

• How to prepare for a press interview — Useful tips on how a business owner can prep for that press interview they’re about to have.

What others say

As a marketer, I’m terrible at marketing myself so here are some snippets of what others have to say about my newsletter:

Enjoy the newsletter. Always surprised and delighted to find something I really want to click on.

I always forward your emails to people. Your content is rich, educational, relevant and inspiring. Thank you.

Yours is one of the very few newsletters that I want to receive in my primary gmail inbox. I’m always learning and intrigued about the topics you choose. Thank you for raising the important issues and thank you for consistently sharing high quality information!

The average tanJennts reader:

• is a specialty coffee professional, copywriter, writer, freelancer, or marketer

• enjoys coffee or the stories it inspires

• trusts me to explore the various tangents that my interests take me

• seeks inspiration and guidance in digital marketing

Free & paid plans — "Why should I pay?"

Paid members sustain the work that goes into my free newsletter. It is just me, spending several hours working on each issue. Creative work takes time, energy, and mindspace. If you have the monetary means to do so and you’ve benefitted from my work, please consider the paid plan. If you’re subscribing as a business, it’s likely you can write this off as an expense.

Individual: $5/month or $50/year
Group/Company (minimum of 4 seats, annual): 10% off the above pricing (learn more about group subscriptions)
Founding member plan: $150/year

Free

• Twice a month

• One original feature or essay per issue, digital marketing links as described above

Paid

• Everything in the free plan plus—

• Two additional emails a month (four total per month). Each is a singular piece, such as bonus content to an existing interview or published piece, or photo essay. For some of these, I may unlock them after 60 days for free subscribers to peruse.

• I'm open to suggestions!

• My gratitude

Founding member

You receive one 30-min consult session per year.

• Everything in the free and paid plans plus—

• One 30-min consult session per year

• A big thank you for your generous support

You can also leave a tip:

Buy me a coffee

About me

I work in the specialty coffee industry as a digital marketing consultant, writer, and photographer. This is a job I created for myself and I love it most of the time (who actually loves their job 100% of the time? I’d love to know). I’m on the board of GoFundBean, a nonprofit that supports, uplifts, and defends the hourly coffee worker.

I’m an editor-at-large at Sprudge, “the world’s most popular coffee publication.” My bylines there are in-depth features on a whole range of topics like coffee unions, giant roadside coffee pots, and the still-somehow-controversial gesha vs. geisha debate.

I’ve been writing on the internet for a long while, dating back to LiveJournal and Xanga days. Prior to that, I began journaling around the age of 5 in my puffy, hot pink Princess Jasmine diary. It came with a plastic lock and key!

Inspired by coffee, powered by chips

Let’s see: my rescue dog Zoey takes up a giant chunk of my time. I love chips, donuts, plants, jigsaw puzzles, and unironic walks on the beach. I often take up random crafting projects, usually like to travel but haven’t flown since January 2020, and I do what I can to give back to the communities I’m in.

Digital marketing coaching

I work with specialty coffee businesses, organizations, and manufacturers on improving their digital marketing strategies and processes. If you’d like to hire me for consulting work, review the services I offer. This is the very last thing on my About page because my newsletter is not a means for me to push my marketing services.