How to Get More Subscribers With Substack’s (New) Growth Engine
It's possibly the best way to grow on Substack right now. 28% of my growth comes from recommendations.
If you’ve been with me for a while you know that I built my email list from the ground up to over 3,300 subscribers within 13 months.
I attribute 28% of my Substack newsletter success to — can you fill in the blank? What is it? — recommendations.
Yep, free recommendations!
While I’ve been growing my email list, I realized how powerful Substack’s recommendation engine is and that it helps me to grow 28% faster.
One of Substack’s top newsletter authors,
, who has more than 570,000 subscribers and earns 6 figures with his product management newsletter, even shared when he had about 250,000 subs that 78% of his subscribers were coming from other Substack newsletters recommending his newsletter.In the growth chart below, you can see how fast he’s growing since Substack launched its recommendations feature:
As you can see in the chart above, as soon as the growth feature launched, it was just a hockey stick starting that day.
“(…) the recommendations feature is a total game changer. IMHO it’s one of the most impactful growth features in history (…) and, (…) totally changed the trajectory of my newsletter.”
This is a huge deal, fascinating, and one of the reasons I love email marketing as a marketing expert myself.
All newsletter starters ask the same question
“How can I add (more) new subscribers to my list?”
In my full-time corporate job as a brand manager, I have been growing email lists for the brands, products, or services that are under my belt. ConvertKit is great for this because it offers to segment subscribers and I love its analytics for presentations.
In my part-time online business, I use Substack to build my personal brand. Since I’m in the business of helping others start and grow their online presence and most of them are writers, Substack is the perfect place for me.
I love growth hacks
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I love to share growth tips for Substack because I think building and growing an email list is just part of how you do business online as an entrepreneur.
My email list is the most valuable asset in my business because I don’t “rent” just “followers” as on any social media platform, such as Medium.
I accumulate the most valuable audience in the sense that I “own” the email addresses of my subscribers.
From my coaching and mentoring experience I know most people are aware of how important it is to grow an email list but what’s holding them back from taking action is that they feel intimidated.
Fear not. I’m here to help.
Substack’s recommendation engine is a growth machine!
As
shared with me via Notes:
Instead of implementing a recommendation algorithm such as on Meta, TikTok, or YouTube, Substack decided to ask writers who they recommend to their subscribers.
In essence, writers can recommend other newsletters that they specifically pick and think are awesome.
Once someone subscribes to your newsletter, they see these in the subscribe flow:
“Hey, you should check these newsletters out. I think these are awesome!”
What I love is that I can curate the newsletters I want to recommend.
I have control over it.
There’s no algorithm involved.
My system right now is that I recommend up to 10 newsletters per month. Besides 1-3 that I stick to, because my readers love them and subscribe a lot to them, I rotate through 7-9 different other newsletters.
(Psst! Want to get a spot? Read this newsletter edition until the end for an awesome opportunity to kickstart 2024!)
I gained almost 1,000 subscribers through recommendations
Aaron shared in our Community Chat:
“Yeah, Aaron! Here! Me!”
I’m almost there thanks to all the wonderful writers and friends who are recommending my newsletter:
Guess what? A simple growth hack from
helped me.In today’s video, I’ll share his secret with you:
My success didn't come overnight
I’d like to thank
and many more who support me. THANK YOU!Let’s grow together
Are you already on Substack or hot on the heels of starting your newsletter this year?
Let me help you.
Share your Substack newsletter link in the comments. I’ll put you on my list and will recommend you with a blurb (if your newsletter resonates with me).
See what I did with Aaron’s newsletter…
Hi Substackers, MANY THANKS for all your comments, lovely messages and pledges :D I'll answer ALL of your comments asap. I'm spending my weekend with my baby, toddler and hubby and will get back to you on Monday latest :D Thanks for your understanding and HAPPY WEEKEND, Kristina
Hi guys, quick update! I created a collaborative spreadsheet where we ALL can find partners to collab with: https://kristinagod.substack.com/p/theres-now-a-new-way-to-grow-your