My Substack Newsletter Just Hit 1,000 Subscribers Through Recommendations— Here’s How
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 4,000 subscribers within 15 months.
I attribute 28% of my Substack newsletter success to — can you fill in the blank? What is it? — recommendations.
Yep, free recommendations!
I didn’t invest a single dollar in paid 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 early adopters and top newsletter authors is Lenny Rachitsy.
Lenny writes about product and brand management, has more than 620,000 subscribers, tens of thousands of paid subscribers, and earns 7 to 8 figures with his newsletter.
The minimum implied revenue in February 2023 was $1.5M up to $15M.
Even Rachitsky shared that 78% of his subscribers were coming from other Substack newsletters recommending his publication.
Thus he became one of the top three largest newsletters and one of the largest newsletters broadly.
In the growth chart below, you can see how fast he’s growing since Substack launched its recommendations feature:
“(…) 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.”
In September 2023, Lenny shared that over 9,000 other newsletters are recommending his publication.
“It’s not because of anything I did actively. (…) if people find your stuff valuable, they’ll want to share it with others.”
This is a huge deal, fascinating, and one of the reasons I love email marketing as a marketing expert myself.
All list builder 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 for 15 years.
ConvertKit is great for this because it offers to segment subscribers and I love its analytics for presentations.
However, in my part-time online business, I use primarily Substack to build my personal brand.
Since I’m in the business of helping writers and authors start and grow their online writing business, Substack is the perfect place for me.
My email list is the most valuable asset in my part-time business
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.
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
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 20 newsletters per month.
Besides 2–7 that I stick to, because my readers love them and subscribe a lot to them, I rotate through 18–13 different other newsletters.
I gained more than 1,000 subscribers through recommendations
Medium writer and subscriber Aaron shared in my Community Chat:
“Yeah, Aaron! Here! Me!”
I gained more than 1,000 thanks to all the wonderful writers and friends who are recommending my newsletter:
At the same time, publications I endorse are already getting subscribers for instance Medium writers I admire such as Walter Rhein Kristi Keller or David McIlroy:
See?
Personal recommendations are powerful.
I can help my subscribers discover other writers in my niche or other niches I’m interested in and think my audience would find valuable.
Since I fired up my recommendation machine, I’ve driven more than 1,000 of my subscribers to other writers I endorsed from my network.
Here’s how Substack’s recommendations engine works
When you’re a Substack writer you can recommend several publications to your subscribers.
- On your Settings click on Publication Details
- Go to “Recommend other publications on Substack,” select “Start recommending.”
- Write a “Why I recommend” blurb explaining why you endorse that publication.
The writers will get notified and prompted to reciprocate.
For instance, I got an email telling me Jenn Leach started recommending mine:
Cross-promotion isn’t new but still working
Recommendations are one of Substack’s cross-promotion features.
Cross-promotion isn’t new.
“Writers cross-promoting each other has been the key to discovery on the internet since its inception, notably in the blogosphere, where writers’ blogrolls helped unearth niche communities and build bonds of trust between writers,” stated Substack when they rolled out the feature two years ago, in April 2022.
If a reader trusts and likes a writer a recommendation is “one of the strongest possible signals of quality.”
“Today, Recommendations, along with the Substack app, powers a network that drives 50% of all new subscriptions and 25% of new paid subscriptions on Substack,” state the newsletter company which is about to hit 3M paid subscribers a few days ago.
Encouraged by the results Substack iterated on this feature.
In their official statement “Upgrading Substack’s recommendation network — The best way to grow just got better” a few days ago they announced an upgrade.
Here’s what you need to know.
Where can my readers see my recommendations?
There are four surface areas:
1 — On your publication’s homepage: I chose to include the publications I recommend on my publication homepage like in old blogroll days.
2 — On your publication’s recommendations page: Every Substack publication has its own recommendations page which readers can access via the footer of your Substack.
3 — In recommendations digest emails: When you make a new endorsement your subscriber will see this in a digest email together with other Substack your readers subscribed to.
4–In the subscribe flow: This is the most important surface area.
After someone subscribes to your newsletter, your endorsements are presented.
In the past, your readers could select and unselect up to three publications which were shown randomly.
Now you can follow a whole network of people or subscribe to three publications you selected.
“Now they will be able to see a list of as many publications and profiles as the writer considers worthy of attention,” shared Substack in their official announcement.
Interestingly, it’s a combination of subscribers and followers.
What’s the difference?
Subscribers get your newsletters in their inboxes and follow you.
When someone subscribes to your newsletter they get your newsletters in their inboxes. In addition, they automatically start following you.
Their built-in reader’s feed in the Substack app, and on the web will be instantly populated with notes and posts from you and your network
If someone becomes a follower, the same happens but without emails in their inboxes.
Through follows interested readers can be converted into (paid) subscribers.
Bottom Line
Substack’s recommendations engine is powerful.
In the middle of January, I had 3,300 subscribers and about 900 others recommending me and now I already have 4,000 subscribers
Recommendations played a huge role in this subscriber growth.
In my opinion, recommendations on Substack are the most engaged subscriber acquisition channel at the moment.
If you build genuine relationships, most reciprocate your recommendation if they think it’s a fit and their ideal readers should discover a publication.
My tip: Give recommendations a whirl and grow from the inside out.
There are already 17,000 writers on Substack writing in 29 categories.
Promote other writers you adore in your niche or a topic you can relate to.
As Substack reported in their upgrade announcement:
“Early data show that this approach to Recommendations increases both the number of subscriptions that Substacks enjoy and the number of followers that individuals get, helping them amass large audiences that serve as a base for ultimately finding new paid subscribers.”
For weekly tips and education on growing an email list and starting a newsletter on Substack, you can join Kristina’s Online Writing Club here and also the Substack School.
For further information, check out Kristina’s YouTube channel and the “Substack Success” playlist with value-packed tutorial videos and interviews.