Finetuning My Substack Plan

The Substack - Vs Beehiiv Difference

I started Substack and Beehiiv during the summer, and I was still doing a heavy load of Virtual Events and other things.

You may know, I’m a tester, and I like to push things to the limits.

I also like to see what is actually working, boots on the ground.

Now, I started this experiment with the concept that Beehiiv and Substack are essentially the same, with Beehiiv being more geared towards commercial authors who want to buy their leads with Boosts from other Beehiivs, and that Substack was more geared towards true writers, and get their leads organically.

Turns out, I got the difference in the two correct . . .

But my assumption that they are essentially the same is, I am now believing strongly, incorrect.

That’s right, I was incorrect in assuming they operate essentially the same.

Here’s why:

Because it’s easy to buy ads to run in other Beehiivs to get someone in a commercial Beehiiv newsletter to just click, I am now believing that a Beehiiv subscriber is a much less committed subscriber than Substack’s organically generated subscriber.

Because at Substack, even though it’s a super easy, one click, frictionless optin, it’s done on the Substack they are subscribing to, so they see what they are getting, not from a blind link.

When I did the Ezinearticles experiment 18 years ago, I found a significant difference in LTV (long term value) between the quality of the leads.

And so I can already see that the quality of an organic Substack lead is significantly higher than the quality of a Boosted Beehiiv lead.

So that brings us to the next point:

Isn’t it harder to get subscribers organically, than to pay for them?

Well, sure, right up front.

It’s easier to pay $300 instantly than to work for 3 hours chatting with folks.

But that’s just the front end.

Folks, I’ve literally only chatted in Substack maybe 4-5 hours total, over the last couple months.

And I’m getting near daily subscribers for free, organically . . .

In fact, in the last 28 hours, I’ve gotten 4 free subscribers - and 3 of those are recommended by 3 different newsletters.

This tells me I’m not relying on one source of leads, and it also tells me that the work I do organically will scale and grow easily over time.

So . . .

Because of what I’ve written in this letter, I’m rethinking my Substack strategy.

The biggest immediate change is this:

Instead of doing - and teaching - a generic one-size-fits-all-platforms newsletter approach, I’m fine-tuning and dialing in specifically for Substack.

This means I can be laser focused on the EXACT triggers that work RIGHT HERE.

Plus - I’m building out a method for Substackers to easily create their own recurring membership they can sell for $29 - $97/month instead of the typical $8 - $10/month most sub stackers are doing.

And as I’m doing that, I’m building out a complete Substack enrollment funnel, and I’ll plan on making that super easy and teaching it too!

On that note, I’ll be launching a Substack Newsletter Mentorship soon, actually I wrote much (probably most) of the copy today . . .

So I’ll be announcing that soon!