#How to Sustain Your Substack for Long-Term Success

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Section 20: How to Sustain Your Substack for Long-Term Success

Summary of my Udemy Course “From Zero to Substack Hero.” Image source from the video location I will also upload them to my Substack soon. Dear Readers and writers, happy weekend! I am pleased that my account became a Substack bestseller in April 2025, gaining 99K subscribers for my education and community activities as a writer, editor, content curator, and nominator of the Substack Mastery…

[branding-consulting]

The Rise of Subscription-Based Content: What It Means for Marketers

https://jpcdn.it/img/1f16b6e2a28e0b12a5d89df1522b896f.jpg

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, subscription-based content has emerged as a powerful model for businesses looking to build long-term relationships with their audiences. From media and entertainment to SaaS and e-learning platforms, companies are leveraging this approach to create consistent engagement, improve customer loyalty, and generate recurring revenue. But what does this shift mean for marketers and, more specifically, for a marketing agency navigating this trend?

Understanding Subscription-Based Content

Subscription-based content involves offering valuable content on a recurring basis, often in exchange for a monthly or annual fee. This model is widely used by:

Media Platforms (e.g., The New York Times, Netflix, and Substack)

Software Companies (e.g., Adobe Creative Cloud, HubSpot, and Salesforce)

E-learning Providers (e.g., MasterClass, Coursera, and LinkedIn Learning)

Unlike traditional content strategies that rely on one-time interactions, subscription-based content ensures continuous engagement, fostering brand trust and customer retention.

Why This Matters for Marketers

For marketing agencies, the rise of subscription-based content presents both challenges and opportunities. Here’s how marketers can adapt and thrive in this landscape:

1. Focus on Value-Driven Content

Subscription-based models require high-value, exclusive content that keeps users engaged over time. Agencies must shift from a short-term promotional mindset to a long-term content strategy, emphasizing quality, relevance, and consistency.

2. Emphasize Customer Retention Strategies

Unlike traditional advertising, where success is often measured by conversions, subscription models prioritize customer retention and lifetime value (LTV). Agencies should develop content that keeps subscribers coming back, such as:

Personalized newsletters

Exclusive webinars and live Q&A sessions

Community-driven content experiences

3. Leverage Multi-Channel Distribution

A marketing agency must craft a cohesive multi-channel strategy that delivers content through email, social media, podcasts, and gated website content. The goal is to meet audiences where they are while maintaining a seamless brand experience.

4. Use Data to Drive Content Personalization

Data analytics plays a crucial role in understanding subscriber behavior. Agencies should utilize:

AI-driven content recommendations

Behavioral tracking to optimize content formats

Performance metrics to adjust strategies in real-time

5. Create Membership-Based Marketing Services

Just as brands are adopting subscription models, marketing agencies can offer their services on a subscription basis. This could include:

Monthly SEO content packages

Ongoing social media management

Regular performance reports and strategy updates

The Future of Subscription-Based Content Marketing

As the digital landscape becomes increasingly saturated, subscription-based content will continue to rise as a preferred model for engaging audiences. Marketing agencies that adapt their strategies to align with this trend will gain a competitive edge by offering sustained value, fostering deeper relationships, and securing long-term client success.

Final Thoughts

Subscription-based content is transforming how businesses engage with their audiences. For marketing agencies, embracing this model means shifting towards value-driven storytelling, personalization, and retention-focused strategies. By staying ahead of this trend, agencies can help brands cultivate lasting relationships and sustainable revenue streams in an evolving digital world.

If you're looking to integrate subscription-based content into your marketing strategy, our marketing agency can help you navigate this shift and develop a winning content plan. Contact us today to get started!

[rafat]

On Breaking Away: 18 Years Of Lessons On Journalist-As-An-Entrepreneur Life

Back in 2003, I wrote this rather bombastic “screed” about life as an individual journalist-entrepreneur, then a year into my journey on solo media entrepreneur life back then through paidContent.org (now defunct).

I was in my 20s then, barely two years into my career out of school and was a know-it-all, living in an East London tenement with a leaky roof, creating my own path on the backs of early blog publishing tools like Blogger, pMachine (anyone remembers that?!) and MovableType. This was 2003 and I had been blogging for four years then, had a Btech in Computer Engineering, MA in New Media journalism and loved the merging of reporting skills, DIY tech publishing tools and immediacy & freedom of blog journalism world. I was barely making subsistence money and still happy to just be doing my own thing.

Fast forward to 2020s, a year like no other for media, and the Substack generation is the new blogging-in-pajamas generation. Lots of hard knock lessons we learned back then still apply and figured I would jot them down, might be helpful to the new generation of journalists-as-entrepreneurs.

If you want control of your own destiny, then you’re in for the long-haul. This will take much much longer than you think or the initial reception will indicate.

If you can, give yourself two years as a good ballpark before you can become fully self-sustaining. After that time if you aren’t, you know the answer from there...

Own the stack and everything else along with it. While tools like Substack and others are enticing to get you started, there’s nothing like having your own site, where are you can do whatever you want to without the constraints of whatever choose any of these third-party providers will create. These days creating a Wordpress site and putting an email newsletter other, charge for it and dozens of other things in it are very easy these days and don’t require any technical knowledge, and even if they do, you can find cheap freelance talent to help you put it together and maintain it.

OWN your email newsletter list, don’t outsource that part to anyone or any entity.

While the newsletter format is great it get started, don’t ignore a standalone site which will allow you to better showcase previous work, archives, and pull in people better through search/SEO than just a newsletter format can. Also be ready to be multi format: podcasts, online webinars etc, whatever it takes to build the paying audience.

Subscriptions aren’t the only way, don’t let the herd guide you on this. Smart, long lasting businesses — even solo journalist entities — have multi pronged revenue streams built into them, including advertising, yes that dreaded A-word these days.

There’s nothing called the first mover advantage, that’s a myth in media. It works in platforms but popularity doesn’t necessarily mean revenues.

However crowded a sector you are in is, you can create your own whitespace by your own unique worldview. So better know what your unique worldview is before you get started.

Starting out as an ad-supported site/newsletter doesn’t mean you can’t convert to paid later, it’s just harder but it can be done. In fact a hybrid free+paid makes most sense for maximum impact.

Pace yourself, or else you will burn out quickly. Don’t “out-blog and out-news anyone to death” as I foolishly said 17 years ago when I started on my solo journey.

Frequency of output does matter, and consistency in frequency matters. You can be daily or weekly or mix of both, anything longer people won’t know how to value your work when deciding to pay for it, or not.

Bring original reporting and original thought into the world, that is what people will value in the short and long term. One step removed from original editorial is one step too many removed from success.

Build franchises people return to every year or every quarter. Yep, lists matters, and there are meaningful ways to do it.

Ignore and break the silos in whatever industry/sector you are writing about, the forward looking people in your sector will thank you for it.

Don’t write for praise of fellow journalists & media people, they have no bearing on your success, write for the audience that will care for what you write and build.

VERY IMPORTANT: Pay up for good financial advice, company structure and tax advice, your future self will thank you for it.

Stay solo or hire more people? You don’t need to know the answer right away, don’t worry about it, you’ll figure it out along the way. Just make sure your financial/company structure is set up right way for either, from the start.

Over a period of time, you’ll figure out what you are good at, and more importantly, what you aren't good at. Ask for help from experts and you’ll be surprised how many are willing to help you pro bono.

Will anyone miss you if you stop your newsletter/publication tomorrow? That is the ultimate mark of impact you can have, it will take time to get there.

“Fuck it, I’m going for it” will take you a long way in building your own destiny. Fuck the naysayers.

[whatimconsuming]

“come for the tool stay for the network” is a classic strategy for bootstrapping social networks. it aimed to solve a hard problem: how do you convince people to join your social network when there’s nobody else to socialize with?

The strategy was to build a single player tool w/ utility and then add social features (follows, likes, comments, etc.) but w/ creator-focused platforms, “come for the tool, stay for the network” is now “come for the creator, stay for the network”

Creator-focused platforms realize that wherever the creator goes, the audience and attention follows. therefore, platforms strengthen their network by attracting top creators. IG, TikTok, Snap, Spotify, Substack, and Triller (lol) all have creator funds that use this approach. but there’s a few issues with this model:

it’s hard to make a sustainable living unless you’re a top creator

creator payouts are determined by opaque processes

content and social graphs are rarely portable across platforms

At mirror, we’re thinking about ways to put more power back in the hands of creators and their audiences  but we aren’t a “company”, in the traditional sense. instead, we’re building a creator-focused protocol.We work w/ creators to understand their needs, write smart contracts, deploy them to the Ethereum network, create interfaces to access these smart contracts, and have the goal of developing a new type of network for creators and their audiencesDecentralized protocols aren’t social networks. they’re cryptoeconomic networks  instead of “come for the creator, stay for the network”, I think the mantra of creator-focused protocols will be more like “come for the creator, stay for the economy.”  here’s the differenceA social network is:

owned by shareholders (mainly finance firms, execs, board, early employees)

governed by shareholders (board, CEO, sometimes activist hedge funds)

most code is private

data is secured by the company’s eng team

network becomes global over time A cryptoeconomic network is:

owned by the community (through a protocol token)

governed by the community

open source

secured through distributed consensus, cryptography, and public / private key pairs

global from day one

Creator-focused protocols will be more like internet-native economies than traditional social networks.   they’ll have:

community-led committees

native protocol tokens for governance, value capture, and utility

decentralized grant programs

an open developer ecosystem

A few years ago, this sounded crazy   but since 2018, DeFi protocols like Uniswap, Compound, and AAVE have earned billion dollar treasuries, launched protocol tokens, and started experimenting with community-led initiatives like grant programs.Over the next few years, I think creator-focused protocols will reach a similar scale  I believe successful creator-focused protocols will go through three phases: 1/ Creator Mode 2/ Org. Mode 3/ A Protocol Economy

1/ Creator Mode  Goal: help creators generate on-chain revenue by selling crypto-native products.  this is a good first step bc:

- convinces creators that it’s worth spending more time using crypto protocols

- gets a creator’s audience to on-ramp to ETH

- helps future experiments In terms of deciding what to build, I like @ljin18’s framework for creator lifecycles.   there are four stages: 1. create something 2. build audience 3. monetize 4. manage and grow business As a creator-focused protocol, monetizing NFTs is a safe bet given all the interest, activity, and novel use cases at @viamirror, we’ve built smart contracts to help w funding and monetization: - tokenized crowdfunds - reserve auctions for zNFTs (h/t @ourZORA) - revenue splits We’ve also built a crypto-native publishing stack to help w/ content creation: - decentralized identity w/ ENS (kinda like a Cash App handle + Twitter username) - decentralized storage w/ Arweave Here’s a few things we’ve learned from building a creator-focused protocol so far - launch features with a specific use case in mind and then generalize it - optimize smart contracts for security, mechanism design, composability, and gas efficiency - use guarded launches w/ funding caps to limit downside risk One of the most common pieces of feedback we’ve received is that creators want to build sustainable recurring-revenue businesses using crypto-native tools  over the past few years, protocols have iterated on Creator Mode. I think the next couple years will be about Org. Mode 2/ Org. Mode  Goal: help creators and communities build sustainable crypto-native businesses  Creator Mode is like being an independent artist while Org. Mode is like being signed to a record label. In Org Mode, instead of value flowing to a single wallet, value flows to an ERC20 token.  here’s how it could work: - issue an ERC20 token (crowdsale, airdrop, mine) - develop on-chain revenue streams  - funnel revenue to a treasury contract - redistribute funds through governancethere’s a ton of tooling to be built for Org. Mode traditional stack: - financing - payment processing - monetization - marketing automation - product analytics plus, web3 stack - multi-sig capabilities - on-chain analytics - governance - treasury mgmt - token rewards programs At @viamirror, we think it’s useful to hone in a specific use case, provide the tooling it needs to be successful, and expand from there.  some options: - publication DAO - investment clubs - decentralized grant programs - social games for curators / collectors As your protocol builds tools to help creators / communities start, manage, and scale crypto-native businesses, it becomes time to think about how to decentralize the protocol itself.   this brings us to the final phase: A Protocol Economy 3/ A Protocol Economy  Goal: Build a community owned / operated protocol with minimal involvement from the initial development team. Ongoing development is driven by community-led committees with active participation from creators, curators, collectors, and a developer ecosystem. Over the past few months, DeFi protocols have started entering this phase. they’re managing billion dollar treasuries, tokens with billion dollar market caps, and coordinating hundreds of people without any formal top-down structure  it’s pretty mindblowing. We’re still learning about best practices in the protocol economy phase but here are a few key components: - a protocol token. your token can be used as currency OR capital. - third party developer ecosystem. requires a suite of tools like audited / well-tested smart contracts, documentation, subgraphs for querying on-chain data, SDKs, grants, and bug bounties  over time, the best protocols will have tens or hundreds of apps integrating w/ them - community-led committees. focused on managing product roadmap, budgets, monetary policy, long-term strategy, etc. - community benefit programs. could include universal creator income, insurance for smart contracts, p2p zero-interest loans, pooled savings account, etc Just how we saw a few DeFi protocols scale over the past few years, I think we’ll see the same w/ creator-focused protocols soon  they’ll go from Creator Mode -> Org Mode -> A Protocol Economy Come for the creator, stay for the economy.

[un-enfant-immature]

Veteran tech journalist Dan Frommer launches his own subscription publication, The New Consumer

Dan Frommer has worked at some of the best-known publications in tech and business journalism — he was editor in chief of Recode, an editor at Business Insider and he’s even done some writing and chart-making for TechCrunch. But he’s also started his own things, including the tech news site SplatF and the mobile travel guide startup City Notes.

Now, five months after leaving Recode, Frommer is launching a new publication, The New Consumer — an umbrella term he’s using to describe the changing landscape in e-commerce, online advertising and direct-to-consumer brands.

The goal, he said, is to become the first thing that industry executives read in the morning, whether they’re CMOs at Fortune 500 companies, or the founders of direct-to-consumer startups or “anyone who’s in the professional world [trying to figure out] what’s next, how are people using technology differently, how is technology influencing how people spend money differently.”

These are all topics covered by the major tech news sites and general interest publications, but Frommer said he will focus less on “covering the day-to-day moves at tech companies” and more on “the messy lines between the announcements,” and on what is and isn’t working.

“That thing that this company announced a few weeks ago, is it actually working?” he said. “Are people actually using it, is it successful or not and why? What are we learning from it?”

Dan Frommer

The core product at The New Consumer will be the Executive Briefing, a newsletter that Frommer plans to put out twice a week, and that you’ll need to pay a $200 annual subscription fee to read. He said that this month will be a “paid beta,” where you’ll need to subscribe to read the newsletters, but you’ll get 13 months of access for your money, rather than 12.

Frommer also plans to publish non-paywalled feature articles (like this piece about cookware startup Great Jones), and to organizing events such as industry dinners as well.

He added that he’s hopeful that the subscription model can allow him to build a sustainable operation that he can spend all or most of his time on.

“I’m committed to this for the long term,” he said. “This is a job I’d love to be doing for 10 years, 20 years. But I also recognize that I have to iterate a little bit meet the market where it is.”

The New Consumer is starting out as a one-man operation, with Frommer citing Ben Thompson’s Stratechery as one of his inspirations to build an “individual news agency” that’s focused on newsletters and supported by subscriptions. At the same time, he’s interested in expanding the team if things go well.

“Consumer spending represents the majority of all money around the world,” he said. “This is something that could eventually stretch to all kinds of verticals, from sports to entertainment to personal finance.”

Substack celebrates its first birthday with 25K paying newsletter subscribers

[toomanysinks]

Veteran tech journalist Dan Frommer launches his own subscription publication, The New Consumer

Dan Frommer has worked at some of the best-known publications in tech and business journalism — he was editor in chief of Recode, an editor at Business Insider and he’s even done some writing and chart-making for TechCrunch. But he’s also started his own things, including the tech news site SplatF and the mobile travel guide startup City Notes.

Now, five months after leaving Recode, Frommer is launching a new publication, The New Consumer — an umbrella term he’s using to describe the changing landscape in e-commerce, online advertising and direct-to-consumer brands.

The goal, he said, is to become the first thing that industry executives read in the morning, whether they’re CMOs at Fortune 500 companies, or the founders of direct-to-consumer startups or “anyone who’s in the professional world [trying to figure out] what’s next, how are people using technology differently, how is technology influencing how people spend money differently.”

These are all topics covered by the major tech news sites and general interest publications, but Frommer said he will focus less on “covering the day-to-day moves at tech companies” and more on “the messy lines between the announcements,” and on what is and isn’t working.

“That thing that this company announced a few weeks ago, is it actually working?” he said. “Are people actually using it, is it successful or not and why? What are we learning from it?”

Dan Frommer

The core product at The New Consumer will be the Executive Briefing, a newsletter that Frommer plans to put out twice a week, and that you’ll need to pay a $200 annual subscription fee to read. He said that this month will be a “paid beta,” where you’ll need to subscribe to read the newsletters, but you’ll get 13 months of access for your money, rather than 12.

Frommer also plans to publish non-paywalled feature articles (like this piece about cookware startup Great Jones), and to organize events such as industry dinners as well.

He added that he’s hopeful that the subscription model can allow him to build a sustainable operation that he can spend all or most of his time on.

“I’m committed to this for the long term,” he said. “This is a job I’d love to be doing for 10 years, 20 years. But I also recognize that I have to iterate a little bit to meet the market where it is.”

The New Consumer is starting out as a one-man operation, with Frommer citing Ben Thompson’s Stratechery as one of his inspirations to build an “individual news agency” that’s focused on newsletters and supported by subscriptions. At the same time, he’s interested in expanding the team if things go well.

“Consumer spending represents the majority of all money around the world,” he said. “This is something that could eventually stretch to all kinds of verticals, from sports to entertainment to personal finance.”

Substack celebrates its first birthday with 25K paying newsletter subscribers

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/21/new-consumer-dan-frommer/

[fmservers]

Veteran tech journalist Dan Frommer launches his own subscription publication, The New Consumer

Dan Frommer has worked at some of the best-known publications in tech and business journalism — he was editor in chief of Recode, an editor at Business Insider and he’s even done some writing and chart-making for TechCrunch. But he’s also started his own things, including the tech news site SplatF and the mobile travel guide startup City Notes.

Now, five months after leaving Recode, Frommer is launching a new publication, The New Consumer — an umbrella term he’s using to describe the changing landscape in e-commerce, online advertising and direct-to-consumer brands.

The goal, he said, is to become the first thing that industry executives read in the morning, whether they’re CMOs at Fortune 500 companies, or the founders of direct-to-consumer startups or “anyone who’s in the professional world [trying to figure out] what’s next, how are people using technology differently, how is technology influencing how people spend money differently.”

These are all topics covered by the major tech news sites and general interest publications, but Frommer said he will focus less on “covering the day-to-day moves at tech companies” and more on “the messy lines between the announcements,” and on what is and isn’t working.

“That thing that this company announced a few weeks ago, is it actually working?” he said. “Are people actually using it, is it successful or not and why? What are we learning from it?”

Dan Frommer

The core product at The New Consumer will be the Executive Briefing, a newsletter that Frommer plans to put out twice a week, and that you’ll need to pay a $200 annual subscription fee to read. He said that this month will be a “paid beta,” where you’ll need to subscribe to read the newsletters, but you’ll get 13 months of access for your money, rather than 12.

Frommer also plans to publish non-paywalled feature articles (like this piece about cookware startup Great Jones), and to organizing events such as industry dinners as well.

He added that he’s hopeful that the subscription model can allow him to build a sustainable operation that he can spend all or most of his time on.

“I’m committed to this for the long term,” he said. “This is a job I’d love to be doing for 10 years, 20 years. But I also recognize that I have to iterate a little bit meet the market where it is.”

The New Consumer is starting out as a one-man operation, with Frommer citing Ben Thompson’s Stratechery as one of his inspirations to build an “individual news agency” that’s focused on newsletters and supported by subscriptions. At the same time, he’s interested in expanding the team if things go well.

“Consumer spending represents the majority of all money around the world,” he said. “This is something that could eventually stretch to all kinds of verticals, from sports to entertainment to personal finance.”

Substack celebrates its first birthday with 25K paying newsletter subscribers

Via Anthony Ha https://techcrunch.com

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

How Top Writers Are Scaling Beyond Medium & Substack

If you’re making some money on Medium or Substack, you’re off to a great start — but the top writers don’t stop there. They adopt smarter, less obvious strategies to grow their audience, increase income, and sustain long-term success. Want to know their secrets? Below are a few additional tactics they use that aren’t in your typical playbook. And if you’re serious about taking your writing…