Transitioned Newsletter to Substack
by Dianna AllenHey IH! It's been a long while since I've chatted about BMP.
To be honest, I took a little break from it as I worked out some life situations. Things just happen and that's okay! Anyways, I've hit the ground running again and last night I made the switch to using Substack.
I started BMP with Mailchimp (do not recommend), then switched to MailerLite (do recommend), and have decided to take it one step further and move my subscriber list AGAIN.
Why?
Well, Substack offers the insane ease of setting up a freemium business model.
I've been toying with the idea of creating a premium tier for BMP and I decided to just jump right into it.
So, to give some background:
BMP originally was designed to send out weekly meal plans (full 7-day plans for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks). What made this appealing to people was not only that the desired goal of it is to save money, but also because each week was themed. Therefore, the meal plans were always exciting.
As I jumped back into BMP the past few weeks, I surveyed my subscribers in hopes of analyzing exactly what they want.
I've found most are okay with receiving new recipes ideas and others are seeking the meal plans.
With that awareness, I immediately knew how to separate a free tier from a paid tier.
Now:
- BMP sends out a weekly free newsletter that includes 3 recipes.
- BMP also sends out a weekly paid-subscription newsletter that includes a 5-day meal plan for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Complete with a grocery list for ease of shopping.
Why did I drop 2 days from the initial meal plan idea? Because it's unrealistic to not have a cheat day or an overall 'fun' day where you just don't worry about what you're eating.
Why did I drop 'snacks' from the meal plans? Because I wanted to :p
Feels great to back and I'm excited to see how Substack works out! I've already converted 1 subscriber to the paid tier, so that's just fucking awesome.
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Interesting insights. I noticed you're charging $5/month for the paid tier. Have you heard of the penny gap? You could feasible charge double but retain more than half of your paying users.
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Thank you for the insight, I do agree that I could do that. But at the end of the day, my project is aimed to help people on a budget and I'd rather be inclusive of more people who do really need the help versus those who can pay a higher premium.
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Woah, this is awesome! I'd love to know how SubStack works out for you. I had been sending out a newsletter using MailGun and it's really not ideal at all.
Coincidentally, I'm working on an app called AvoToast around algorithmic meal planning, more focused on weight loss than budget, but definitely keeping budget in mind too. So I'm excited to see where BMP goes. There's definitely a lot of people looking for things like these. Good luck!
Edit: and subscribed!
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Oh wow, thank you for subscribing, Josh!
And yes, I agree. I think disrupting what people know as traditional meal plans is needed! For me, that was always my intention as not everyone wants to be body builder level 1000 -- rather they just want to have a plan for the week and their wallet.
So far, Substack has left me impressed... but I was also looking for simplicity rather than a million features available.
I'll be interested to hear about your progress with the weight loss meal plans :)-
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Of course!
Definitely. I lost 50lbs almost entirely focusing on food and with very little working out (that came later), but I think people get overwhelmed because they think they need stop eating what they love, eat only salads filled with expensive foods, workout 5x a week, etc etc and it just sets them up for failure! I love that you build in cheat days now. That was something I quickly ran into building customized meal plans for people, and something the plans you usually find online neglect. Sometimes I just want to grab some Chicken McNuggets :D
Awesome, I'll definitely take a look then. Is Substack handling the subscription part on your landing page? I loved the built in Apple Pay :)
Certainly! I'll be posting it here! I'm gearing up to relaunch right now in time for the new year :)
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First of all, I had no idea Substack had Apple Pay integrated, that's amazing hahah
But yes! Substack is managing the payments, so easy for me as I'm not that advanced with code.
Looking forward to your relaunch :)
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Very interesting. I assume you follow Stratechery as well considering the parallel business models?