Content marketing has become a powerful tool for businesses to expand their reach and engage with their audience, especially in recent years.

And one option for achieving these aims is gaining significant traction: Substack. This newsletter-based platform offers a unique approach that differs from traditional blogs and social media, allowing creators to publish and even monetize their work. Leverage its tremendous potential, and you can establish authority in your field while building a loyal community in an underutilized space.

How it works

Substack makes it simple to upload and share written, audio, and video content that suits your marketing goals. Once you make an account, you’ll set up a page, called your “publication,” where all your posts will be found. Give it a catchy name, decide your URL domain (unique to each user), and customize it from a selection of templates; adding details such as categories and an About page will also help you brand your Substack and shape your audience’s expectations of what they can gain from it. Readers can access your publication via a shareable URL—which you can post on social media and embed into your business’s website—and then scroll through all available materials as if reading a blog.

The crown jewel of this platform, though, is its email newsletter capabilities. Everything you post to your publication can also be sent directly to interested individuals, including those from an existing mailing list and those who choose to subscribe. All you need to do is create and upload content, and Substack will handle delivery, automatically notifying your contacts when you post updates.

Your publication and newsletters will be free by default, and people don’t need a Substack account to visit or subscribe, making your content accessible to a wide audience. You also have the option, though, of putting all or even just some of it behind a paid subscription. By designating certain posts as exclusive, you can earn both extra income and guaranteed invested followers.

Why this site?

There are various ways in which Substack could benefit your business, the first being direct audience engagement. Unlike social media sites that employ algorithms to determine visibility (even when it comes to followed accounts), it delivers content directly to subscribers’ inboxes, ensuring that those who wish to view your articles, videos, and more can consistently do so. And while Substack is primarily a newsletter platform, your publication will be discoverable on Google, making it possible for new readers to find you organically. Additionally, the site makes it easy to share excerpts on social media, repurpose newsletters as website blog posts, and utilize its email newsletters as extensions of your broader email marketing campaigns.

Further, using Substack’s subscription features to sell premium, exclusive content has boundless potential—think videos that promote upcoming events, live webinars, and teasers for products in the works. You could even generate more personalized content; for example, a landscaper could upload plant-of-the-month videos, indicating to subscribers why certain species are ideal for the local climate and how they add stylish appeal to any home garden.

Should you choose to pursue this avenue, be transparent on your publication’s About page regarding the costs and benefits of subscribing and make it a top priority to craft high-quality and subscriber-focused media. If you want to see membership fees start to roll in, advertise in your free posts what’s available in your paid ones and tease occasional complimentary content, like one free video per month. Such approaches can help you foster strong relationships and, eventually, a loyal subscriber base that returns often to engage with your brand. This essentially means that you’ll be paid to market your organization.

Creating great content

Because your goal with Substack should be to nurture subscriber engagement, your content should always aim to either educate, entertain, or endear visitors. Here are some ideas for accomplishing each:

• Educate: Promote upcoming products, provide first looks at new services, and offer special coupon codes at the end of videos.
• Entertain: Write posts about trending topics that directly pertain to your target audience, or lend your thoughts on relevant social media trends.
• Endear: Post behind-the-scenes looks at your company, and share stories about your team members.

In particular, sharing your expert insights in an appealing way will help position your business as an authority in your field, boosting public trust in your brand. But whatever you post on the platform, always keep the audience’s value in mind: Why should they read, watch, or listen, and what can they gain from doing so? Striking the right balance between informative and promotional content is key since overly sales-driven messaging can put off subscribers.

With written content, for example, consider formatting it similarly to blogs, which typically introduce a topic, dive deep into it, and then conclude with a call to action that directs the reader to consider your products or services. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean it always has to be long; vary the length of your content, alternating between longer essay-like posts and Substack Notes, short-form pieces meant to share quick discernments or make audience shout-outs.

And remember one of the simplest keys to fostering engagement: be conversational. Encourage members to post comments, respond to their thoughts frequently, and even invite them to submit queries for Q and A posts—this will not only nurture a sense of community but also further increase the value subscribers gain from your content.

Tracking your performance

To help ensure long-term success, analyze all relevant metrics for your Substack by checking individual post statistics on your Posts page. Among other data, you can review total views, open rates, and link clicks. Likewise, monitor your subscriber growth to gauge the effectiveness of all your promotional efforts. Pay attention to feedback, whether through direct responses or comment sections, and you can continually refine your marketing approach to deliver the content that will best resonate with your target audience.

For more info, visit substack.com

TAKE ACTION:
Discuss your marketing goals with your team, then list ways that you could roll out these initiatives on Substack.