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Scratch the surface of anyone’s rapid growth and you’ll find a series of shout outs and shares.
Popular writers and creators will often credit their success to “consistency.”
I call bullshit.
What’s actually happening is way more about their network than about them.
They publish something. Then, one of five things happen:
- Readers share
- People featured in the story share
- Big social accounts boost it
- Peers shout it out
- Other press outlets mention it or feature it
Some people flatten this all into “word of mouth,” but I find it helpful to split it up.
For some writers, this network amplification looks—by outward appearance—effortless. Due to past work connections, existing big social presence, or even because their beat continues to dominate the discourse.
Case in point: Jen Rubin quit The Washington Post last week and launched The Contrarian, which in one day, went from 0 to 100k readers.
Substack is already, inaccurately, taking credit for that rapid rise which, as we know, doesn’t happen for the vast majority of their publications. Instead, Rubin had an external recommendation network of press, peers and readers boosting her launch.
You can build your own recommendation network too. You might even already have one going that you can amplify.
No platform required. I walk you through it step by step below.
This is part of our 3×3×3 Growth System—it’s one of the list growth strategies.
P.S. Later today, I’m hosting a live session on more organic ways to grow your newsletter list
In this play:
- Find your ideal promotion partners
- Vet your potential partners for a good match
- Set up your cross-promotions
In this play, you will identify 3 promotion partners and 1 way to promote each other.
🎯 Desired result: Grow your list
⏱️ Estimated time to complete: 1 hour
Find your ideal promotion partners
One thing I point out to Substack switchers is that, it’s not really “the Substack network” growing your list, it’s often just a few publishers sending MOST of the referrals. Same is true in beehiiv.
Find out who they are!
Identify who’s already promoting you
- Check your website or newsletter analytics for top sources of new subscribers.
- Look for individual URLs or publication names. Download a CSV if you have to, sort by source and add up the rows.Analytics help: Ghost, Substack, beehiiv, Kit
- Identify the top THREE publications, websites or writers who send traffic or subscribers your way.
Even if you have a wide range of publications referring, see if a couple clearly stand out as big drivers. Please report back on what you find in your analytics.
Or come up with a list from scratch
If no one obvious shows up in your analytics, write a list of at least FIVE potential partners to pitch for promotion.
- Think about who you are naturally recommending a lot.
- Look at who you’re following and who’s following you (or sharing your work) on social media (search for your domain).
- Skim your DMs, email inbox, and texts for writers you collaborate with or read frequently.
- Check your backlinks on Ahref (free) to see who’s linking to your work.
- Find out who writers you recommend are also recommending (you can do this by signing up to their list or scanning their social feed).
You can also use newsletter directories like Lettergrowth but I have found these are overrun by garbage newsletters and you’re better off doing the above steps.
Reaching out to people you already know, even loose ties, will work best, but it’s ok to approach people fresh too, especially if they’ve already shared your work or vice versa.
Vet your potential partners for a good match
- How much do your audience types overlap? SHOULD BE A LOT ✅
- How fast are they growing? SHOULD BE YOUR PACE OR FASTER ✅
- How much could you say about them? SHOULD BE A FAIR BIT ✅
- How often are they publishing? SHOULD BE SIMILAR FREQUENCY ✅
💡 Not sure how to answer these? Send an exploratory note to potential partners and ask!
Set up your cross-promotions
- Choose ONE place to promote them. Four great options:
- Inside newsletter editions
- On your welcome or thank you page
- In your welcome email
- On your social media
Keep it simple. We’re talking 1-2 sentences with a link.
- Choose your FREQUENCY. How often will they get seen/clicks?
- Send each partner a brief PITCH. Ask them to cross-promote with you and include what you’re offering and ask if they can do something similar.
That’s it. Ship it. Monitor performance in your source analytics and change out partners monthly or quarterly based on what’s working best.
Bonus tip: You can use what beehiiv calls “magic links” to one click subscribe new readers across platforms. This will work on a lot of the email tools. Your partner’s email tool will inject the subscriber’s email (with a merge tag) on click and auto-subscribe them to your list. Publishers disagree about the ethics of this, but I think it’s fine with a clear disclaimer.
Magic links in beehiiv | Magic links in Sparkloop | Magic links in Kit | Merge tags in MailChimp
Quick example of a recent promotion I did
Here’s their email to me with all the info I needed to promote them.
Here’s my promotion of them:
Here’s their promotion of me:
You don’t have to make your cross-promotions this loud, especially if you plan to feature a partner multiple times. Something like this could work great: “You might also like [PUBLICATION NAME]. They cover [WHAT THEY COVER]. Check them out [LINK].”
What about those recommendation widgets?
Use ‘em! By all means use them.
Just don’t become dependent on them. Know who’s recommending you and develop relationships with them independent of tech intermediaries. That makes you more resilient when you want to bail on [insert problematic tech company here].
Help docs: Substack, beehiiv, Ghost, Kit, Sparkloop (platform agnostic)
Got questions? Want to share your findings?
I’d love to hear it! You can either comment on this post or send me a question.
What's missing from this play?
Nothing, I got it! One thing, I'll share it! A lot, I'm lost!
