What I learnt from growing my newsletter from 0 to 100 subs
I set 100 subs as my year-end goal, but I reached it within 1.5 months. Turns out that it was a very conservative goal.
Here's what I learnt growing my Substack newsletter from 0 to 100 free subs:
- Be consistent.
It took 8 editions for me to get to 100 subs.
This also includes being consistent with the day and time.
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Start by asking your close friends to subscribe. This got me 5-10 odd subs, which was enough to give me the motivation to continue.
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Know the best way to post on each platform.
Dropping links is not the solution. For e.g., on LinkedIn a long text post with the link in the comments works better.
- Even though I don’t have the biggest Twitter following, I convert the original post to a Twitter thread and promote it on Twitter. For e.g., this thread got popular
- Impress people so much that they promote it for you. By far, the biggest boost happened when SergeEleonore promoted my newsletter on this thread by gaby
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I still have to explore communities like Reddit, IndieHackers, hackernews, mindtheproduct, theproductfolks, creatorsofproduct as a way to get more people interested; but I am learning.
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I hope this helps someone else in the beginning part of their journey. I know I have a long way to go, but DM me if you want to know more.
Interested in checking out the 'stack? Here's the link https://thediscourse.substack.com
Thank you for sharing this. I was looking for something like this as I am growing my newsletter.
Hope this helps! Keep at it
Fantastic result @kavir and thanks for sharing the insights!
I also passed the 100 bar not long ago. Been using a similar approach and I can see your content is way professional and neat. I'd love to hear your opinion how should I improve my newsletter :)
Thanks so much @felix12777! I see that you're a No Code Maker too! We should connect on Twitter
I really dig your newsletter and it's got a specific audience, which is great. And a fun name!
You should add more subscribe CTAs to your newsletters, maybe that should help. Hope this helps!
Hey @kavir that’s amazing! Thank you so much. Would you mind I grab your comment as a testimonial?
Thanks for the feedback too
Sure thing! You could include my twitter handle in the testimonial @kavirkaycee
Thanks Kavir :) Please let me know how can I be helpful with.
Such valuable advice!
Thank you so much!
Congrats ! The hardest part of the exponential growth is the beginning ... and suddenly, something happens.
Subscribed and looking forward to read you :)
Thanks @Johan_Bavaud 🙌🏽
Thanks for sharing your lessons! I'm 3.5 months in at 40 subs :) Always looking for effective ways to promote.
Yes, it is a long game. Keep learning and experimenting.
Congratulations for reaching 100 subs @kavir.
But I've had different experience w.r.t to,
When I stopped maintaining regular schedule and sent Newsletter only when its ready, it increased the opening rate exponentially.
I believe the reasons are -
• After a while the reader will loose interest if the email comes 'bam on the time', every week. They know it will come, they know it will be there to read it later along with dozens of other newsletters they have subscribed and never read.
•We can produce greater quality content in our newsletter when we do it without the rush of having to stick to the schedule and naturally higher quality means greater readership.
In fact, I've conducted a A/B testing between the newsletter without schedule and another weekly, on time newsletter. The one without schedule has 80% higher opening rate.
This can bite back, if the friends are not interested in our content then the mere increase in subscriber count is not worth anything. It's the opening rate and conversions (if any) that matters, so if we are asking our friends to subscribe, we should ensure that they are genuinely interested in reading our content, that they pass it on to their contacts with similar interests and not spam them(Unsubscribes have greater negative effect) .
Interesting counterpoints @Abishek_Muthian. Thanks for sharing.
Your points make sense. I would like to add the following points too: