The Offer (This is the Biggest Mistake I'm Seeing Substack Creators Make Right Now)

A huge mistake for many publications, and how to fix it

Hello!

Thank you for letting me into your inbox. This week I wanna talk mistakes.

My biggest professional mistake was partying (hard) until very late the night before a 6:00 am work trip to a production trial in a potato chip factory on the other side of the country. I woke up many hours too late, after my plane had departed without me. Because the person in charge of the trial (me) was vomiting in an airport lounge 1,300 km away at the designated start time, the trial had to be delayed. The potato chip line sat idle - at a cost of $15,000 per hour - until I arrived on the next flight, to the cheers (or was that jeers) of the entire production crew.

Yes, I did almost lose my job over that mistake. Yes, I did suffer the most horrible hangover that day in a very hot, very loud potato chip factory for a ten hour production run. Missing that plane was a big mistake.

Earlier today I made a dingbat move with email automation in Gumroad and mistakenly sent hundreds of past customers an email they shouldn’t have got. It was a very embarrassing mistake, but not a big mistake.

Big mistakes can cost you dearly on Substack. Image: stockking on Freepik

The ‘big mistake’ I want to talk about today is not big in the sense of cost-your-employer-$45,000-and-almost-lose-your-job big. It’s not even a particularly embarrassing mistake.

It’s big in the sense that it’s a mistake that deeply impacts a creator’s ability to achieve success on Substack. It’s quite a common mistake and it’s one that is difficult to identify in your own publication.

If you make this mistake it will hinder your ability to get and retain subscribers and if you have paying subscribers it will limit your revenue too. That’s why the mistake is a biggie.

What’s the mistake, Karen? (Get on with it!)

Okay okay, here goes.

The ‘big’ mistake is not having a clear offer.

A clear offer is a promise to readers about what they will get when they subscribe to your publication… and clear communication about who the publication is for.

Do you have a clear idea of what you are offering your readers and who it is you are writing for? And are you letting your readers know what you can do for them in multiple places, in clear language?

How a clear offer helps with Substack growth

When you are clear on your offer your marketing and promotional efforts get a million times easier. Want to write a ‘Subscribe with caption’ call to action (CTA)? Want to tweak your publication description? Need to create an email signature that features your publication? If you aren’t sure of your offer that will be a chore. If you know your offer it’s simple.

Tip: The ‘offer’ of this publication is “Posts to help Substack creators do better on Substack, delivered straight to their inboxes each week”. If that sounds a lot like the CTAs I use on my subscribe buttons, that’s because it is. With a clear offer, I already know what to tell people about my publication, because it’s baked in.

Clear offers help you make decisions. If you can’t decide what to write about, your offer will give you a clue. Should I write about cryptocurrency next week? Nope, because I promised to help you with Substack. Decision made.

Clear offers make growth more predictable. When you know who you are serving, it’s easier to figure out where to promote your newsletter. For example, if you know your publication is for older readers you know not to waste your time on SnapChat.

Clear offers make it easier to keep your readers happy because you know how to deliver the content they signed up for. Happier readers means fewer unsubscribes and more consistent growth.

But I already have an offer…

If you already have a clear offer, are you communicating that clearly? Perhaps not.

Your offer needs to be front and center of everything you do with your publication. Put it everywhere! To you this will seem too obvious, perhaps even spammy. But this is not something to be coy about. Why would people subscribe if they can’t figure out what they will get? Also, people are used to seeing the obvious on the internet, in fact they expect it. So be obvious.

Explain your offer (what readers get when they subscribe) in ALL these places:

• Subscribe CTAs

• Publication description

• Your ‘hero post’ on your homepage

• About page

• Paid benefits, if you are accepting pledges or payments

(Tip, your paid benefits are shown to most new subscribers. To check what they see, go to https://[yourpublication].substack.com/subscribe . Edit paid benefits in the payments section of the publication dashboard.)

How to make or refine your offer

Step 1 Figure out who you are writing for

Can you describe your ideal reader? What are their main interests, their cares, their concerns?  What are their backgrounds and their demographic characteristics?

For example, if you write about cooking and New York, your ideal reader might be a female between the ages of 18 – 65 who lives in New York, or wishes she lived in New York.  Her interests would include food, cooking and (perhaps) travel.

Take a moment to describe your ideal reader in one or two sentences.  If you already know someone who loves your work, use their name so you can really visualize them.

Being able to describe your ideal reader makes it easier to promote your work, because you know what type of content appeals to them and you can more easily figure out where to find them online.

Identifying your ideal reader makes it easier to find them. Image: Freepik

Step 2 Why Will They Read?

Now that you know who your ideal reader is, it’s time to list why they will read your work (or listen to your podcast, or enjoy your music, or love your art….)

This is a tough one for many Substackers.  It can be challenging to describe why people might be attracted to or interested in your work.  Here’s some inspiration:

• People read The Rubesletter • by Matt Ruby (Vooza) a newsletter by the New York Comedian because they want to be entertained, they are fans, they like Matt’s writing.

• People read Femstreet, a newsletter for women in tech, to learn about issues in tech, leadership, growth and funding.

• People read The Bear Cave to get inside news about problems at publicly-listed companies so they can “short sell” the stocks of those companies.

• People subscribe to #the100dayproject to commit to 100 days of creating.

Why are people interested in your publication?  Is it to get news or information they can’t find anywhere else?  To hear a unique voice or point of view?  To be entertained or inspired?  To join a community of like-minded people?  To learn from you?  

You can also ask yourself: What do my readers want more of?  What problems do they have that I can help with? What are they bored of/angry about/upset with?

Once you have answered these questions you have described your promise to your readers. 

Exercise

Try completing the prompts below to help you refine your offer.

My readers are: [Example] Females between the ages of 18 – 65 who lives in New York, or wishes she lived in New York.  Interests: food, NYC, cooking.

My readers what more of (and don’t want): Unique recipes, strange New York anecdotes, don’t want pop-ups and ads, no more than 5 min read.

They come to me for: Unique recipes, my funny stories.

My promise to my readers is: I will entertain, I will provide unique recipes, I won’t send them anything too long.

Final thoughts

The most common big mistake I see with Substacks that have slow growth is no clear offer. That means the promise of the newsletter is either wishy-washy or not communicated effectively (and often) to potential subscribers.

This is one of the toughest mistakes to fix if you are deep into your Substack journey. Discovering whether your offer is robust is a process that requires uncomfortable self-reflection.

Fixing a weak offer can mean making significant changes to a publication, which feels scary. But any changes you make will be rewarded with easier growth and more predictable subscription patterns, so it’s worth putting the work in.

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Okay, that’s it for this week. This was a tough post to write, and - perhaps - a tough post for some of you to read. If you are struggling with this, let us know in the comments so we can send virtual hugs and claps-on-the-back.

Karen