MAYBE YOU DON'T NEED MORE SUBSCRIBERS
Plentiful sunshine. High 76F. Breezy.
What if the people receiving your emails forwarded it to friends? What if they copied the text from it and posted it on social media? What if your words traveled from the inbox into Facebook group chats and meeting rooms?
When was the last time you sent a newsletter that got 10 replies?
If none of those things happened — not even close— maybe getting more subscribers isn’t the answer.
From social media to Substack Notes, people post in the void. No comments, likes, or engagement of any kind.
Hey, sometimes things don’t work!
Your “questions to everyone” or “open invites” have good intentions, but after a dozen or so attempts, it’s time to reassess your strategy.
Stop asking “everyone” and start actually asking people.
➡️ Reply to someone else’s post. Go into the comments section of another post, or another Tweet, and reply there. Be the person that people love seeing in the comments section by being insightful, gracious, and / or funny.
➡️ Email someone directly in your network. If you’re hoping those people even see your original post and take the time to reply is a long shot. Instead, reach out and ask them. Say you’re looking for their insight for an upcoming post.
➡️ Invite someone before inviting everyone. If you’re just getting started in hosting video hangouts, live sessions, or workshops, consider inviting a few people you know directly. See if you can get three people to commit before announcing to “everyone.”
➡️ Go beyond “just sharing” and make it a big deal. Make a whole post about it. Go deeper than typing “THIS,” and explain why this piece resonated. Don’t just “curate your feed,” rolling the dice hoping that 10% of your audience might see it. Take the time to write about something (or make a video or an audio snippet), and share it directly with your audience in an upcoming newsletter (where 99% of your subscribers will see it in their inbox).
“Yeah, but Seth, I just want to post my thing and go do other things,” you might say.
Well, you see the results that “just posting” gets you.
Also, how can talking to your fans, audience, and readers be a waste of time?
Setting a timer for 15 minutes and communicating with real people five days a week will probably get you more results than the hour you spend making one Reel for 153 “people” to see (and which will never be seen again after 12 hours).
Does it scale? Fuck scale, do the work.
The strategy of “just posting” ain’t working, and it’s not going to get any easier to reach your fans in that way as we roll into the second half of 2024… er, 2026.
On our recent “Find Your People On Substack” call we talked about finding our people, which of course led to building an audience, getting more subscribers.
But what if we think beyond mere subscribers?We dream of reaching a big audience, but what does it mean if we’ve got no one to lean on? On our lowest days, who are the people that we can text or get on a phone call with?
We don’t just need a big subscriber count, we need good people in our corner.
JOIN US TOMORROW!
FINDING YOUR PEOPLE ON SUBSTACK
Pay what you want starting at $3.
Replay available if you sign up.
Saturday, May 30 at 12:00 PM EDT
Register for the Zoom call here: https://luma.com/j33otsdz
Sean Gordon co-owns Taffeta Music Hall in Lowell, MA, and makes helpful videos on Instagram for bands and independent artists about getting booked, talking about their work, building an email list, and more.
He’s doing the stuff from the venue side that we talk about from the artist side, so this upcoming Zoom call will be an informative conversation from a new perspective!
We’ll also talk about Taffeta’s memberships program, email lists, community, and what IRL marketing looks like when it’s working.
Thursday, June 4 at 2:00 PM EDT
All early bird free passes are gone, but this is pay what you want, starting at $3.
Register here → https://luma.com/sqflzmgu
JOIN US ON A ZOOM CALL!
CO WORK ESCAPE POD: Tuesday, Jun 2 at 12:00PM EDT → https://luma.com/w7n83pyx
GETTING BOOKED (AND MORE) WITH SEAN GORDON OF TAFFETA MUSIC HALL: Thursday, Jun 4 at 2:00PM EDT → https://luma.com/sqflzmgu
ESCAPE POD #123 W/ LUCY WERNER: Thursday, Jun 11 at 2:00PM EDT → https://luma.com/hh2l5cmz
See all events here: https://luma.com/escape-pods
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One of my subscribers emailed me a few months ago and said she copied something from one of my newsletters onto a post it and stuck it on her desk. She looks at it every morning. That's my win for the year. Definitely don't need more subscribers.
Fuck scale! Exactly.
Another reason I get my clients to do the work, just like you've outlined, is that when you do it daily and consistently, manually, you start to see gaps in your own content. And then you naturally fix them. And the content starts to hit right, and people begin engaging. Also one of the reasons I forbid my clients to use schedulers UNTIL they dial in. 2 weeks of shitty content scheduled is basically no weeks of content.