Finally, given your conversion rate is so excellent but "numbers are still very low," it sounds like you should focus on growing your free list.
To grow your free list, the highest leverage things you can do are publishing good content consistently and making your work easy for potential readers to find.
Here are some tactics for doing that:
Make Substack your primary landing page: Linking to your Substack from your social media bios and including Substack's subscribe embed on your website will drive more potential readers to your page. This improves your Substack’s SEO (which is largely based on number of links) and helps ensure that your fans can subscribe to your work directly rather than having to remember to visit your website or see your social media posts.
Write a strong one-line description: Your one-line description should demonstrate the concrete value of reading your newsletter. Ideally, it should imply both the intended audience and intended purpose, so someone can quickly identify themselves as a target reader. Two great examples of one-liners are Technically and Kosmic Cooking Club. Read more tips for your one-liner in our guide here.
Use calls to action in your posts: In every post, you should use buttons and email headers and footers to ask readers to sign up, become a paying subscriber, comment, or forward your emails to their friends. Ted Gioia does a great job of highlighting his subscribe button and publication description here.
Celebrate and share testimonials: Collect and re-share quotes when your readers celebrate your newsletter. This might mean asking for permission to use quotes from readers who email you a compliment directly or it may be re-sharing (and saving) public tweets from people talking about your newsletter on Twitter. These testimonials can be shared with readers in the writer's About page and can be highlighted at launch moments, ahead of special offers, and at key milestones in the publication's journey.
Conduct targeted outreach to the press and community leaders. Whether in advance of your publication launch, breaking news, or a big story, you can create your own “press list” of journalists and influencers (in your industry, locality, or community) to reach out to for promotion. This can include both people you know personally and cold outreach. This encourages other influential writers and leaders to share and/or cite your work, as Edwin Dorsey explains here - https://on.substack.com/p/going-paid-the-bear-cave. You can even offer to give these people comped paid subscriptions to your newsletter.
Publish interviews or community spotlights to “borrow” other people’s audiences. For example, Delia Cai writes about growing her list by interviewing media figures like Ann Friedman, and Chinese Storytellers published a spotlight interview with reporter Karen Hao. These can be effective because your interviewee is likely to reshare your newsletter post to their audience as well.
Improve your publication tags: For Substack’s current discovery features, broader tags are more useful than specific ones - especially if they fit in our featured categories list on Reader. I might try changing your tags to INSERT TAGS to increase the chance your publication is found.
Comment on other writers’ publications: Substack includes a link to your publication when you comment elsewhere. When you engage with and discuss with other writers (e.g. comments, threads), more of their readers will find your own work as well.
Include two sentences about the publication at the top of posts: You might consider publishing a few sentences about your publication at the top of free posts. It can be short and include a subscribe button. This way, new readers who find and love one post will know that your newsletter publishes more content. Here are examples: Byrne Hobart, The Diff https://diff.substack.com/p/surfing-the-right-s-curve; Isaac Saul, Tangle https://www.readtangle.com/p/new-rules-for-the-debate.
Bailey!!! Thank you!!! (So many exclamation marks...) This is all so useful. I will review step by step. Some of this I've been doing, but altogether this is ramping up--and I am grateful for your time spent here. Mostly, I've been focusing on content and connecting with the people I already have on board--just as I did in my teaching in the past. (A creative writing program.) But this is all good! Exciting. Have a great day!
Hey there! Thanks for writing on Substack.
First off, that conversion rate is awesome. Congrats!
Second, we are always looking for inspiring Substacks to feature. Please tell us about them here: https://bitly.com/substackstowatch
Finally, given your conversion rate is so excellent but "numbers are still very low," it sounds like you should focus on growing your free list.
To grow your free list, the highest leverage things you can do are publishing good content consistently and making your work easy for potential readers to find.
Here are some tactics for doing that:
Make Substack your primary landing page: Linking to your Substack from your social media bios and including Substack's subscribe embed on your website will drive more potential readers to your page. This improves your Substack’s SEO (which is largely based on number of links) and helps ensure that your fans can subscribe to your work directly rather than having to remember to visit your website or see your social media posts.
Write a strong one-line description: Your one-line description should demonstrate the concrete value of reading your newsletter. Ideally, it should imply both the intended audience and intended purpose, so someone can quickly identify themselves as a target reader. Two great examples of one-liners are Technically and Kosmic Cooking Club. Read more tips for your one-liner in our guide here.
Use calls to action in your posts: In every post, you should use buttons and email headers and footers to ask readers to sign up, become a paying subscriber, comment, or forward your emails to their friends. Ted Gioia does a great job of highlighting his subscribe button and publication description here.
Celebrate and share testimonials: Collect and re-share quotes when your readers celebrate your newsletter. This might mean asking for permission to use quotes from readers who email you a compliment directly or it may be re-sharing (and saving) public tweets from people talking about your newsletter on Twitter. These testimonials can be shared with readers in the writer's About page and can be highlighted at launch moments, ahead of special offers, and at key milestones in the publication's journey.
Conduct targeted outreach to the press and community leaders. Whether in advance of your publication launch, breaking news, or a big story, you can create your own “press list” of journalists and influencers (in your industry, locality, or community) to reach out to for promotion. This can include both people you know personally and cold outreach. This encourages other influential writers and leaders to share and/or cite your work, as Edwin Dorsey explains here - https://on.substack.com/p/going-paid-the-bear-cave. You can even offer to give these people comped paid subscriptions to your newsletter.
Publish interviews or community spotlights to “borrow” other people’s audiences. For example, Delia Cai writes about growing her list by interviewing media figures like Ann Friedman, and Chinese Storytellers published a spotlight interview with reporter Karen Hao. These can be effective because your interviewee is likely to reshare your newsletter post to their audience as well.
Improve your publication tags: For Substack’s current discovery features, broader tags are more useful than specific ones - especially if they fit in our featured categories list on Reader. I might try changing your tags to INSERT TAGS to increase the chance your publication is found.
Comment on other writers’ publications: Substack includes a link to your publication when you comment elsewhere. When you engage with and discuss with other writers (e.g. comments, threads), more of their readers will find your own work as well.
Include two sentences about the publication at the top of posts: You might consider publishing a few sentences about your publication at the top of free posts. It can be short and include a subscribe button. This way, new readers who find and love one post will know that your newsletter publishes more content. Here are examples: Byrne Hobart, The Diff https://diff.substack.com/p/surfing-the-right-s-curve; Isaac Saul, Tangle https://www.readtangle.com/p/new-rules-for-the-debate.
I missed two links in there: https://on.substack.com/p/how-to-polish-your-publications-about
https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/notes-on-my-pandemic-reading
Bailey!!! Thank you!!! (So many exclamation marks...) This is all so useful. I will review step by step. Some of this I've been doing, but altogether this is ramping up--and I am grateful for your time spent here. Mostly, I've been focusing on content and connecting with the people I already have on board--just as I did in my teaching in the past. (A creative writing program.) But this is all good! Exciting. Have a great day!