Hey there, Substacker,
Hope you’ve had a fantastic week.
Today I want to give you an actionable 6 point checklist for tackling stagnation on Substack.
Stagnation is when your growth feels stuck. Slow. Rotting. Fetid. Erk.
I’ve been there. We’ve all been there. It sucks.
If you’ve been with me for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about these 6 things before - forgive me, this is for the newbies, or for those of us who need a reminder every now and then.
1) Do you have a clear offer?
You need a clear offer because it’s hard to grow if you can’t attract the people who will benefit most from your work.
A clear offer is clear to you AND clear to your readers.
To formulate a clear offer, you need to know;
who you are writing for;
what you are giving them;
what (and who) you aren’t writing about, or serving…
…. and you need to convey this clearly to your readers too.
What a clear offer looks like
You are writing for fans of J.R. Tolkien. You’re giving them a weekly email and a space to connect with each other. You’re not trying to appeal to science fiction readers, just fans of Tolkienesque fantasy.
Publication description and offer:
“This is a community of fans of J.R. Tolkien, where we geek out together on the intricacies of his work. Subscribe for weekly emails from a reformed academic and secret Hobbit.”
When people see this offer, they instantly know what they will get: access to a community and one email per week. They also get a sense of the kind of person you are, and this allows them to easily decide if this publication is for them or not.
Difficult decisions for readers lead to inaction and clicking away - if they don’t think “Yup this is for me” within a few seconds of seeing your publication, they will click away and you will lose them forever.
It’s impossible to attract and retain subscribers if you can’t convey the ‘point’ of your publication in less than 15 seconds. So make sure you are communicating your offer in a way that is clear and compelling.
2) Do you post at least once per week?
Growth stagnates when you lose subscribers every time you post.
Inconsistent posting makes it hard for you to build relationships with your readers. If you don’t show up often, then when you do, people are more likely to unsubscribe.
Consistent posting builds trust with your readers, so they are more likely to open your emails, enjoy your work and stay subscribed.
Bonus: Consistent posting to a schedule is also guaranteed to make you a better writer.
3) Are you using Notes?
I used to tell coaching clients that Notes is optional. Not anymore.
Notes - the Twitter-like social media part of Substack - has really come into its own in the past 12 months as more people have joined Substack from more diverse subject areas.
Even niche newsletters for readers who aren’t likely to be hanging out on Substack can now benefit from Notes.
If your publication is small, the most effective way to use Notes is by engaging with notes posted by other creators.
4) Are you making friends here?
Substack is a haven for introverts, but even introverts need friends.
Making friends can help you grow and (bonus!) keep your time on Substack joyful and rewarding.
Make friends by stepping into conversations on Chat, replying to Notes, responding to comment prompts in posts, restacking posts that resonate and recommending publications you enjoy.
You will be seen. You will start to be recognised. People will check out your work and want to sign up to hear from you.
Substack is getting big, but don’t let that stop you from seeking genuine connections with other creators and readers.
5) Are you recommending publications you admire?
Recommendations are my favourite way to grow. When other creators recommend your publication, you get a shortcut to the inboxes of readers who you might not meet otherwise.
To get recommendations, you need to:
make friends (see point 4);
give recommendations.
When you recommend a publication on Substack, always write a few sentences to accompany your recommendation. Be generous.
Why recommend? Because it feels great. Because when other people do well on Substack, we all do well here. Because you might get a recommendation in return.
6) Have you got a ‘channel’?
Do you have a place where you can meet new readers every week?
Without such a place, growth will be slow.
Your channel could be Substack Notes, or another social media platform like X, LinkedIn or Insta. It could be online media, like Medium, or mainstream media like Forbes.
Other channels include search engines, YouTube, meetups and events, online groups (think Facebook groups, sub-Reddits and LinkedIn groups), podcasts, and books you sell on marketplaces like Amazon.
What an effective channel looks like
An effective channel is a place people can get to know you (first), then like you and trust you. If you also tell them about your Substack publication, some of them will check it out, and then subscribe.
For example:
I publish articles on Medium. At the bottom of every Medium post, I tell people I have a Substack publication.
Medium shows my posts to its members. Search engines serve my Medium posts to people who are looking for specific information.
These are people I can’t reach with Substack Notes or on social media: new people.
People read my Medium posts, click on the link to my Substack publication and subscribe.
For my other publication (the $23K one that’s not writing about writing), my most important channel is LinkedIn. It’s a place I can show up every week to ‘meet’ new people who would be interested in my newsletter.
For that publication, I also gain new subscribers by appearing at events, posting on industry forums, collaborating with other professionals for webinars and accepting guest post requests (writing for them). But these methods are sporadic and less predictable than my main ‘channel’.
You need a channel. So what’s your channel? Where do you meet new readers every week?
What if you’re doing all this and you’re still stuck?
So what if you’re already doing all these things and it’s still not working for you?
I hear this pretty often. When a Substack creator tells me they’re stuck and I look at their publication, I usually see one of two things:
They are not actually ‘stuck’, their publication just isn’t growing as fast as they think it should be.
Their publication has a weak offer, often combined with a low-value topic.
Are you really stuck, or?
A lot of creators feel stuck when they compare themselves to the big names on Substack. Or if they aren’t getting dozens of likes and comments on every post.
Your Notes feed is (like mine) probably full of rah-rah milestones and wildly untypical growth metrics from a micro-group of viral growers. Do not imagine these metrics are normal: they are not.
Fact is, there are lots of creators growing solidly who never post their growth metrics to Substack. And there are even more growing slower than a snail. Comparison’s a recipe for despair: avoid it if you can.
Engagement is also a terrible way to measure your success. Check out some of the huge Substack publications with tens of thousands of subscribers and look at how many likes they get per post. It’s usually less than a few hundred, which is lower than 1%. Now convert that to your own audience. Yeah.
Don’t sweat on engagement, it is not a measure of growth.
You’re not stuck if you are gaining more subscribers per month than you are losing. If you are doing that, then you’re doing something right, and all you need to do is tweak, improve, write and repeat.
… or something else?
If you really aren’t growing, here’s a dirty little secret none of the other Substack ‘gurus’ will tell you: some topics just don’t do well on Substack.
Your topic might not be a good fit for Substack. Your audience might not be into emails as a format, they might not be app users. Your topic might not be compelling enough to attract readers. Or it might just be really hard to ‘meet’ your ideal audience.
More likely, you aren’t getting in front of new people often enough, or there’s not a compelling reason for them to subscribe when they do see your publication.
If you’ve started on Substack with a topic that you now recognise is hard to grow, it’s fine to pivot. Tell your subscribers what you are doing and why, and try a new direction.
A topic pivot might lose you a few subscribers but the ones who stick around are there because they believe in you as a writer, and want to see what you do next. And if you weren’t growing with your old topic you have nothing to lose!
Final thoughts
If your growth is stagnant on Substack, check these 6 things:
Do you have a clear offer?
Do you post at least once per week?
Are you using Substack Notes?
Are you making friends here?
Are you recommending other publications?
Have you got a way of meeting new readers every week?
If you’re doing all these things and still not growing, have you considered that you’ve got a hard-to-grow topic (Substack’s dirty little secret…)
So how are you doing? Are you stuck, or not? Which of these 6 things really moved the dial for your publication? Tell me in a Note, and make sure to include a link to this post.
Until next time,
Karen
P.S. Big shoutout to my newest paying subscribers Elizabeth, Lora, Mark, Marc and George. Your support allows me to put more time into this publication and keep creating helpful content like this 🥰
Karen tells it like it is: maybe your topic is not of interest. Tough love!
Thanks for putting this together, Karen. The “clear offer” point really hit home, I realized mine was way too broad and probably confusing people. Also, I hadn’t thought about Notes as something that could really drive growth; I’ll start engaging more there. Appreciate the reminder that slow growth is normal and it’s OK to pivot topics if things aren’t working. Super helpful checklist, saved for regular review!