Do I really need a Substack newsletter?
Not only do I want to make a Substack newsletter, but I need to.
As Mauro Sacramento explained in “How To Start a Newsletter on Substack,” I never really thought I needed a Substack newsletter.
Like Sacramento, I have realized since that I was wrong.
Not only would Substack give me the option to share my voice and my story, but it would also allow me to make some moolah, and who doesn’t like raking in a pretty penny or two?
While Substack invests deeply in writers and helps them “gain the independence they need to do their best work,” as stated in “Investing in writers,” by Substack Blog, I’m looking to invest in myself and take charge of my own efforts moving forward.
Here are some reasons why Substack would be good for me:
- I’m new to blogging and need a quick way to capture emails.
- I’m not selling a product, nor do I plan to anytime soon — I’m more so trying to sell myself, my value, and my story to anyone who is willing to listen.
- I’m open to platform changes.
- I don’t need enhanced analytics and demographic data.
But, Erik Jones in “Revue vs. Substack: What Writers Need To Know,” poses whether Substack’s business model, of which charges a 10% cut from paid subscriptions, is the best option for writers like me when there is Revue, a platform offering the same tools while only taking a percentage of your profit if you choose to use their paid option.
Despite this, I still think Substack is my way to go. Not to mention that it is a very well established platform that is currently on the rise and radar of many writers, it is also a “reliable, customizable, logical, scalable, and controllable” platform to create content on, according Sah Kilic in “How Good Is Substack for Your Email Newsletter?”
“Substack is like Medium and email had a baby, but it took after email.” — Sah Kilic.
Although Substack seems right for me, I can’t help but wonder whether it would be right for my audience.
While I may know only a select few in my primary circle of parents, coaches, teammates, and fellow student-athlete peers, I believe a broader community exists of people who are willing to read about it and pay for it.
But how do I reach that broader audience through a subscription based newsletter?
To answer this question, I plan on doing three things in accordance with Louis Nicholls in “21 ways to grow your newsletter faster in 2021:”
- Cross-posting content
- Experimenting with sending and posting frequency
- Add personalization to showcase my personality
One way to reach that broader target audience is to “cross-post content to relevant forums” because it’s important now more than ever to get your work, that you took the time to create and craft, out there!
By utilizing Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, I can disseminate my content to a multitude of online communities. In fact, according to Nicholls, some individuals reached 10x more people having only done with 0.1x more work.
Nicholls also mentions experimenting with sending and posting frequency, whether that be once a week, three times a day, etc. It turns out that people who subscribe to newsletters like newsletters, therefore, they actually want the content they subscribe to and pay for, and they want it as frequently as possible.
Because “humans buy from (and subscribe to) other humans,” adding personalization to showcase my personality, whether that be communicated through my writing style or aesthetic choices, will help me authentically connect with my audience.
Substack convinced me that it is a strong contender for my entrepreneurial endeavors, now all I have to do is convince YOU that it would be worth your time and money to subscribe to mine!
