Why we switched our email to Substack

As a business owner/marketer/digital marketer for over 20 years now, the power of email marketing was ingrained in me early.

Way back in 2002, I had a small email list for a fitness business.  We sent these emails out via Hotmail, and in those days, you had to go to your spreadsheet, and copy 50 email addresses at a time, to paste into the BCC field….

Yep – I’ve been email marketing for THAT long!

One day in 2002 (ish), I got an email from somebody in New Jersey.

My business was based in Sydney Australia.  I asked them how they got my email?

Essentially, a friend of a friend of a friend had sent it to them.

BAM – I was hooked on email marketing at that point!

Over the years, we’ve learned about Google Business Profile, SEO, Paid Ads, social media marketing, and email marketing as valid ways to help a business grow…. But email marketing has and always will be part of the mix.

So, why the switch to Substack as our email provider of choice?

We used Mailchimp.  We then switched to Sendfox.  

Both were fine.

But when Substack launched, a few key people I followed online jumped early.  Hmm… must be something to this.

In a NUTSHELL the 2 keys were:

1️⃣ SEO Power.  The emails / articles sit on the web, and have SEO power.  We’ve noticed over time that an email will get a lot of early opens, but then gather up more and more views over time as people find the emails / articles with web searches, OR scouting around Substack looking for content.

2️⃣ Built In Growth.  We’ve noticed that people simply subscribe to our newsletter due to recommendations.  Substack is working hard to build in growth via people commenting on posts, other newsletters recommending us etc.  This is very valuable and accounts for a good % of our growth, also helping us penetrate the US market, a key target for us. 

We’ve found that OUR business has achieved a lot more from our email marketing since switching to Substack.  

(note – this is NOT a paid promotional email or affiliate deal – these comments are genuine).

We are aware that new players like Beehiv are in the market. We are also aware that longer standing email providers are modelling their growth on what Substack has been doing.  

Obviously, talking to an expert like Louise Deed is a step you should take when deciding what email product is best for you.

I’ll give you a quick example though of how this can work.

Sidechain Security, a cyber security business, sends out Mailchimp newsletters to their subscribers.

We’ll be recommending that they switch to Substack because they have a very niche market, and their potential clients are often scanning the web for ideas and input around cyber security.  If they send out updates via Substack, they’ll get a good influx of links to their website, AND the articles/emails themselves may get found as potential clients search for quite specific answers to problems online.  

With a Substack article rather than a Mailchimp email, they might pick up that person as a lead into their business simply be being online with Substack.

As stated above though, talk to an expert, every business is different but ONE thing stands true in our eyes… Email marketing is a great way to grow your business!

P.S. Want to talk with an email marketing expert? Learn about my email marketing services here.