Despite around 10,000 people visiting my blog every month, only around 50 or so sign up for my newsletter. That’s far less than the supposed industry average of around 2% of your visitors converting to an email list, but at least I know why: I don’t push people very hard to do so.
There aren’t any popups or constant calls to action. Only a casual signup form at the end of each post and a dedicated signup page. I might add more incentives to join again at some point, but in general, I believe this low-friction approach is the right thing to do. Blogs are for reading. What good are they if they constantly distract you from the very thing you’re there to do? It makes my email list growth a struggle, but the sacrifice is worth it.
There is, however, a silver lining: Everyone who does sign up actually wants to get my emails. They really choose to be there.
Since cross-posting my daily blog to Substack for the last nine months, I’ve gained 900 subscribers there. Most of them, however, come from so-called “recommendations.” When you sign up to a newsletter, that person may recommend you join up to three other newsletters. It’s a feature designed to be sneaky. You can opt out, but everyone counts on you glossing over it, and voilà, you’ve now joined four newsletters at the same time! More green for everyone’s dashboard, but what will you actually end up reading? Most likely none of the emails in the barrage that is about to follow—including the one you originally wanted to get.
What’s more, Substack is a platform, and on the platform they’d like to keep you. You can browse and read publications in the app, and the line between subscribing and merely following blurs more by the day. When a new subscriber joins your email list, you can see how many publications they are subscribed to. Often, the number is 99, where it tops out. Does anyone actually read 99 newsletters on a regular basis? If so, I have yet to meet that person.
In other words, Substack may be a decent place to “get” subscribers, but are you capturing any of their actual attention with their signup? On my blog, meanwhile, the numbers are much smaller, but if each of those folks subscribes deliberately, with full intent, that’s worth more in the end.
How much stronger is the connection between me and someone like that vs. someone who just accidentally forgot to opt out while trying to join another writer’s list? 10x? 100x? In any case, I’ll take the former over the latter any day of the week.
The quality of attention isn’t as easy to measure as clicks and numbers, but it’s still the correct thing to focus on. Don’t let its nebulous nature pull you away from working towards the right end.