How I Grew My Newsletter To 1,500 Subscribers
How I Grew My Newsletter To 1,500 Subscribers
"Hey son! Do you want to start a newsletter?"
My Dad wrote that to me in January. I had to rub my eyes and pinch myself after he sent it. My Dad wanted to start a newsletter? WITH ME?!
Before he could change his mind, I created our publication, a logo, and got us all set up. Little did I know that we would have 1,000 subscribers by May.
The first month was brutal. We initially got 90 or so subscribers from telling our friends, family, and my 4,000 person email list about us. (LOL) Then we gained maybe 1 subscriber per day in February.
I was stumped. 'How do we grow on Substack from scratch?' I asked myself.
From my 7 years of time on social media, I knew of two ways to grow a following:
Go viral
Leave a shit ton of comments
On Substack, it's a bit tough to go viral. That I will admit. Getting on Substack's "Discover" page is difficult, and that's about the only way to get a lot of new subscribers. That leaves us with commenting.
Ugh, was I, Tom Kuegler, going to spend my 8th year of blogging full-time leaving comments on people's work? The answer is yes. Yes I was.
So I hit the pavement like a madman. I started leaving 10 comments per day on 10 different newsletters. I found them, left comments, subscribed, and moved on to the next one. I didn't just leave "Nice post!" type comments either. I left comments that were paragraphs long..
After a week of doing this, three things started happening:
Likes on my Notes increased
My newsletter subscribers increased
Likes and comments on my newsletter posts increased
I was getting more engagement across the board. It was almost as if commenting regularly poured gasoline on the fire of my Substack growth. 👇
By May, we hit 1,000 subscribers, a mere 4 months after we got started. So, what was the key to our growth?
"COMMENTING, TOM!" I hear you saying.
Yes, commenting definitely helped, BUT our growth came as a result of many other things at once:
Daily Notes that got traction
Weekly articles that resonated
I feel, sincerely, that if my Notes and articles weren't well written, my Dad and I wouldn't have seen much growth, despite all the commenting. You got to make good stuff at the end of the day. That's crucial.
In terms of the commenting, I developed a pretty complex system where I commented on people who were engaging with me, too. I didn't want to just give my attention to those who weren't appreciating it. I wanted to make friends. And that required a system using tools like Google Sheets, Gmail, my own private bullet journal to show me who was reciprocating.
It's a little more complicated than just going out and commenting on 10 posts per day. How do you find newsletters to comment on? What do you comment? How often should we comment? These are all questions I answer in Substack 1,000, my flagship Substack course.
In fact, this whole story is basically just an overview of what I teach in Substack 1,000. I teach you how to:
Write viral Notes
Write articles that resonate
Write headlines that get clicks
Start a newsletter that people want to subscribe to
Develop a commenting system that gets you 4-5 new subscribers per day
It's hard work, but the system WORKS. And after a month or so, the benefits start to become exponential.
And hey, if you want to go a little slower, comment less, and write the best stuff of your life, this course will still work wonders for you.
If you eventually get 5 paid subscribers at just $5 per month, that's $300 revenue in one year. This course pays for itself with just 5 paid subscribers. It ain't hard to get 5 paid subscribers, y'all. Trust me.
Tomorrow my "Summer Sale" for Substack 1,000 ends. Normally it's $400 to join, or 3 monthly payments of $150. Until tomorrow you can get the course for $300, or 3 monthly payments of $125. Get the discount right here.
It's 23-lessons, 3 hours in length, and has 6 modules:
Module 1: An Introduction to Substack
Module 2: Setting up your Substack newsletter
Module 3: Developing your mindset
Module 4: How to get your first 100 subscribers
Module 5: How to write world-class articles
Module 6: How to get 1,000 subscribers
There's also a bunch of bonuses I'm including, like:
My 5+ hour Medium course, Medium Mastery 2023 ($1,000 value)
60 interviews with blogging experts ($1,000 value)
Three 90-Minute Notes Trainings ($150 value)
2 months of access to my Discord community ($50 value)
These bonuses are only available if you sign up before this discount expires at 5 PM EST.
Sign up for Substack 1,000 at a discount right here.
Let me know if you have any questions about the course.
Tom Kuegler
Good point about not commenting on the pages that don't engage back, it feels like you are talking to someone with their back to you
An inspiring read, Tom! Thanks for sharing.
As a newbie here, your story resonates deeply with me. Especially the emphasis you place on the quality of the content. It’s a reminder for me that commenting is vital but it needs valuable writing behind!