everything you say, I've said all along and I've not been on social media except FB maybe for a year a long time ago.
And algorithms don't help us they push the higher creators or the ones that have more subscribers and it's just the way it is. It's the way the world works and there's not a lot we can do about it except be consistent and find our tree fans.
I have always said, even when I was in sales and marketing I'd rather have 100 tree fans who believe in what I'm doing and are supporting me and that would mean financially by becoming either paid subscribers and that's not where the money is or selling digital content than having 1000 subscribers.
I also noticed that when I send my emails out to kit rather than substack, my open rate is around 30 to 35% and on substack it's about 20% now
Very few people on Linkedin read my Substack posts. Most of my engagement also comes directly from this platform even though I share all of my posts across platforms.
I needed to hear this, "people who say you email too much are not your client" YES!!! So, a yoga student of mine said she wanted to sign up as long as it isn't more than once a week (the week I decided to do 2-3x)... it was a sign from the universe that I do NOT annoy, but show UP! I love your newsletters.
Yes, I strongly agree with everything you’ve said. I’m about to hit 13,000 subs in under 6 months. I send out a daily post and people love it. Love your stuff, Wes! Keep it up.
You wrote that you believe your advice is not unique to your niche, because you found the same in other fields. But every other type of newsletter niche you mentioned is parallel- a newsletter that aims to help the reader overcome specific problems in a given field, be it investing, productivity, or the like. I sense that other types of newsletters (politics, humor, stories, news, etc.) work very differently in terms of driving subscribers, and we have to acknowledge that.
Thank you for putting this together, Wes. This is an inspiring and insightful piece that has me rethinking my approach. Looks like I have some work to do.
Lots of great advice here. Just one thing I have a slightly differing opinion about - the idea that you should send more emails. Personally, if I get more than one email a week (two maximum), I will unsubscribe at that point. There are very few exceptions to that (clearly Wes is one of them). If it happens sometimes, that's okay. But if somebody is sending me multiple emails a week on a regular basis, the majority of them need to be something I am very, very interested in or actually "need". Otherwise - unsubscribe.
I analysed my 21 subscribers and found three of them were me.
Sometimes that happens 🤓
As a newcomer to Substack, the information you have shared here has been incredibly useful thank you. I've taken notes.
everything you say, I've said all along and I've not been on social media except FB maybe for a year a long time ago.
And algorithms don't help us they push the higher creators or the ones that have more subscribers and it's just the way it is. It's the way the world works and there's not a lot we can do about it except be consistent and find our tree fans.
I have always said, even when I was in sales and marketing I'd rather have 100 tree fans who believe in what I'm doing and are supporting me and that would mean financially by becoming either paid subscribers and that's not where the money is or selling digital content than having 1000 subscribers.
I also noticed that when I send my emails out to kit rather than substack, my open rate is around 30 to 35% and on substack it's about 20% now
So everything you said ditto ditto ditto!
Very few people on Linkedin read my Substack posts. Most of my engagement also comes directly from this platform even though I share all of my posts across platforms.
While the analysis is well done, I don’t believe it applies universally. I followed it step by step but didn’t see any results.
That said, I do have a question: Why do people tend to choose 'Follow' over 'Subscribe' when both seem to offer the same benefits?
https://open.substack.com/pub/fafi25/p/the-ghost-in-the-machine-how-we-taught?r=s3i91&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I needed to hear this, "people who say you email too much are not your client" YES!!! So, a yoga student of mine said she wanted to sign up as long as it isn't more than once a week (the week I decided to do 2-3x)... it was a sign from the universe that I do NOT annoy, but show UP! I love your newsletters.
Yes, I strongly agree with everything you’ve said. I’m about to hit 13,000 subs in under 6 months. I send out a daily post and people love it. Love your stuff, Wes! Keep it up.
Thank you so much for this, it is single handedly the most impressive and straight talking newsletter on this topic. I'll start writing more notes! :)
Really useful analysis Wes. I'm going to try a few subtle changes to see if I notice a difference in the next month.
You wrote that you believe your advice is not unique to your niche, because you found the same in other fields. But every other type of newsletter niche you mentioned is parallel- a newsletter that aims to help the reader overcome specific problems in a given field, be it investing, productivity, or the like. I sense that other types of newsletters (politics, humor, stories, news, etc.) work very differently in terms of driving subscribers, and we have to acknowledge that.
I have a question. When you talk about sending more emails do you mean newsletters? If not, what are your emails about?
Thank you for putting this together, Wes. This is an inspiring and insightful piece that has me rethinking my approach. Looks like I have some work to do.
Good analysis Wes. 😀
Lots of great advice here. Just one thing I have a slightly differing opinion about - the idea that you should send more emails. Personally, if I get more than one email a week (two maximum), I will unsubscribe at that point. There are very few exceptions to that (clearly Wes is one of them). If it happens sometimes, that's okay. But if somebody is sending me multiple emails a week on a regular basis, the majority of them need to be something I am very, very interested in or actually "need". Otherwise - unsubscribe.
Great stuff. Appreciate the depth and breadth of this post. Many thanks!! David