Any Substack Newsletters? Traffic, Sales, and Sponsorship.
What's up Indiehackers,
I'm creating a newsletter directory (I know... another one!)
But hear me out...
This one is focused on Substack newsletters.
The idea is to allow:
- Traffic
- I'll create 3 "do-follow" backlinks via Resource, Author, and Newsletter Page.
- Get featured/linked in weekly recommended newsletters via email & twitter.
- Sales
- We can offer bundling of newsletters to paying Substack customers.
- Ex: Buy 3 Newsletters worth $5 each for $3.
- Sponsorships
- We cold-email sponsors and pitch your newsletter.
So...
Would this be valuable?
Would you pay $10+/month for any of these services?
Either way, I'd love to get a call going:
https://calendly.com/d/gkwh-m9zn/indiehackers-newsletter-call
Thanks in advance,
Chris
P.S.
Writing this post as a follow-up to @AndrewKamphey's post here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/7-newsletter-product-ideas-for-indie-hackers-041b39e5d0
Trending on Indie Hackers
Just a note on "traffic". Can you please elaborate on this? Because traffic and links are not synonymous. Substack newsletters can be listed in any newsletter directory but they (from experience) don't provide traffic. I can show you my stats. In the past month I've probably gotten 2 subscribers from newsletter directories.
From my POV, I'd say the traffic problem is how to Aggregate Demand. Substacks on their own as a "substack" don't drive "demand".
Thanks for sharing your experience with newsletter directories @AndrewKamphey.
The idea was to drive traffic via curated weekly newsletters, tweetstorms, and paid media to the main site, resources page, and writer's affiliate products.
Substack is "bring your own audience" - I agree.
Substack doesn't allow self-hosting and takes all SEO juice - sucks.
You need two blogs and two email marketing platforms.
Do you have any other ideas to aggregate demand?
P.S.
This is what I'm building: https://www.substats.com/ I'm debating its purpose and business model. It started as a joke. My favorite tagline so far is "helping substacks monetize".
Here are some ideas:
Discovery
Sales
Aggregating demand is hard. It's literally the hardest thing about a marketplace according to a16z.
from their Marketplace Glossary
I would delve into Marketplace economics to figure out how to aggregate demand for a directory.
As for the bundling, I'd study what AppSumo and Humble Bundle have done. Other indiehackers have discussed Humble Bundle style sales.