How I make my Substack newsletter work for and in my business

Making your newsletter an organic part of your business + 3 new favourites

I recently relaunched Substack for small business owners, freelancers and creatives, my self-paced course helping you to set up your Substack, devise a strategy and start writing and growing. Check it out!

When I decided to move my small business newsletter to Substack in late 2022, I did so because I wanted to build more community around my newsletter and because I liked the idea of creating additional resources for paid subscribers. But from the beginning I’ve also been really clear about wanting my Substack newsletter to be more than just my newsletter—I wanted it to be for my business as well as part of my business.

In this post, I share how to make your newsletter work for and in your business, whether you’re on Substack or not.

Your newsletter as a marketing tool

If you have a newsletter you’ll probably will have started it for marketing purposes. You might genuinely love writing, or maybe you use your newsletter only for shop updates, or you’ve just heard that a newsletter is a good thing to have for your business (which it is).

Newsletters are a great marketing tool, because people sign up for them deliberately and because they bring you directly into someone’s inbox.

Yet newsletter growth is slow for many small business newsletter. So often I work with small business owners who are excited about setting up their newsletter and then…crickets. Their family members sign up, maybe two or three friends. I’ve been here. It took me two and a half years to get to 250 subscribers (and bizarrely, I’m now at nearly ten times that number).

Your newsletter is a chance to create a personal connection and to be a human in someone’s inbox.

Slow growth can be so disheartening, but remember: you don’t need thousands of people on your list. And, the people that are on your newsletter list really want to be on your list. I’d much rather have 250 people that really want to be on my list, than 1,000 social media followers (which I never had, I think).

I will often tell my clients that their small business newsletter can really stand out from the crowd and the noise. Because your newsletter is not like Amazon’s newsletters, or like emails with dental bills, or like reminders to rate your hairdresser on Google. Your small business newsletter is a chance to create a personal connection, to be a human in someone’s inbox.

Your newsletter as part of your business

But the secret to having an effective newsletter that feels genuinely good to write, is to have it be more than a marketing tool.

An effective, joyful newsletter is an intricate part of your business. It is an organic part not just of your marketing but of your offerings, your products and services.

For me, this means that I see my newsletter as offering exactly what I do through my products and 1:1 mentoring, just at a different degree. Whether it’s my newsletter, 1:1 mentoring, my group programme Marketing without social mediaor the self-paced course Substack for small business owners, freelancers and creatives, all of these provide the same thing: my support to help you create a slow, gentle and profitable business. What differs is the level and extent of support, which is naturally far greater in 1:1 mentoring than in my free newsletters.

Having your newsletter be an organic part of your business has two benefits:

1. It makes your audience truly familiar with what you provide and especially with your vision, values and approach. Whenever people are considering working with me through 1:1 mentoring, I always recommend that they read my newsletters if they haven’t done so already, to get a sense of me, of my values and approach.

2. It makes it much easier to come up with topics. When you no longer see your newsletter as additional to your business, but part of your business, everything you do in your business becomes a possible topic (yes, even if you run a product-based business). Every question from a (potential) client, every decision you make about materials, every choice you make in how you run your business, becomes a possible topic.

In my recently relaunched course Substack for small business owners, freelancers and creatives I explain how this works in more detail, and give an example of what this looks like in a product-based business (Curious? Click the video below for a peek at the behind-the-scenes video).

In addition to 3 foundational videos and 2 update videos with new Substack features, Substack for small business owners, freelancers and creatives now also includes a bonus behind-the-scenes video in which I share how I use Substack for and in my business. That video includes my strategy, but also how I’m building community and how I’m setting boundaries around Substack for myself.

Do you use your (Substack) newsletter for and in your business? How can you make your newsletter more than just a marketing tool? And do you have any questions about this? Leave a comment to join the conversation.

If you’re new to Substack: you can comment by clicking the button—you’ll be prompted to set up an account which requires very little personal info and takes only one minute of your time.

work with me | My 1:1 mentoring books are now open! 🎉 I’ve got space for two new clients starting this summer.

strategy | Switching up my newsletter strategy and working on a mini-workshop all about money mindset for paid subscribers (coming in July).

Female Owned | A check-in with my 2024 financial and business goals.

a book | I was fortunate enough to read an advance copy of Elizabeth Strout’s new novel Tell Me Everything and it was such a joy to be in her universe again (affiliate link).

a mini-adventure | A friend and I finally spent a long-postponed day together, wandering through an exhibit that definitely challenged my thinking and having a leisurely tea in the sunshine

a slower pace | As things are starting to slow down at my part-time teaching job I’m savouring the slower pace, working from my lovely study and generally feeling more space.

What’s on your lists of favourites this month? What did you read, see, hear, drink, eat, observe that made your day?

I’ll be back in your inbox in July with a post on money mindset, including a mini-working for paid subscribers only. In the meantime, I’ll be savouring more space in my days and hopefully more sunshine too. Have a lovely rest of your week x

Female Owned is more than a newsletter. If you are ready to do business differently, I’d love for you to become a paid subscriber and become part of our gentle community of small business owners, freelancers and creatives. You’ll get bonus resources (the accountability club! the mini-mastermind! the new mini podcast series!) and behind-the-scenes posts right in your inbox.