Write2Sell: Consistency
How often should you write to grow your paid subscribers? What % should you paywall? And how to approach Notes? My findings from 20 top bestsellers on Substack.
I keep hearing that long-form emails should come weekly.
Or bi-weekly.
And Notes? Use them frequently, but you don’t have to do it daily to grow.
Oh, and you don’t have to engage either.
Right?
No, No, and No!
I don’t think so.
So I was doing a weekly email and an occasional note for two months now. No engagement.
The results?
Well, could be better. If I isolate the effect of my imported subscribers, I’m at around a 3% conversion rate of paid subscribers.
Here’s the split so far:
Not great, but not terrible.
According to Substack the average is between 5% and 10%, with 10% being the one to aim at. Everything above is more than great! So I have room for improvement.
On average, I gain at least one paid subscriber with every paid email I send.
I’m sure I can make more, so I’ve researched some bestsellers on Substack to study their models and find new ways.
When you reach a certain level of paid subscribers you become a bestseller. You receive a tiny little badge next to your name showing if you have:
hundreds of paid subscribers
thousands of paid subscribers
tens of thousands of paid subscribers
They look like this:
So.
I’ve looked at around 20 bestseller newsletters. I’ve analyzed their writing patterns and monetization strategies, but for today let’s focus on consistency. More will come in the future posts.
For today I specifically looked at:
frequency of writing
share of paywalled posts
frequency and content of Notes
Which newsletters did I analyze?
I took some from the list published here. I also did my research on Substack and looked up writers with badges.
You can easily find them.
Now, let’s break down their writing.
Frequency of writing
Common advice I heard: it’s best to write once a week or twice per week but not more. Why? Because you don’t want to spam.
But I don’t want to take that for granted.
I don’t always listen to what people say, I’d rather look at what people do.
And good that I did it again this time!
It’s simply not true!
Once a week is NOT it!
Look what I’ve found: