Category: MarketingCategory: Marketing

You’ve heard that one way to grow is to get on some podcasts. You did the research, sent out some emails, and got booked for a handful of podcasts.

It takes time to find the right podcast to pitch! To craft the email, and wait for the response. And we can’t discount the anxiety leading up to the call. The Substack superstar Sarah Fay had me on as a guest a few years back, and I was definitely nervous!

But afterwards? Crickets. No noticeable uptick in subscriptions.

All this work, and worry, and it had zero impact in the moment.

Heck, even artist Amie McNee “went on one of the biggest podcast in the world and it didn’t sell any books.”

It’s not that this “strategy” of going on podcasts is “bad,” it’s just how it works. That’s why social media is so alluring; you post something, and at least you get one like in the first five minutes. Instant gratification!

We got to hear this directly on a recent Escape Pod Zoom call, about going on podcasts as a way to grow an audience and how it wasn’t really paying off.

Even if you didn’t get a subscription, you built some trust. People need to see you a few times, hear you, notice you a few times, before they subscribe.

Sure, we’d all love more book sales, or at least more subscribers, but you’re learning how to get better at pitching, booking, and being on podcasts, all of which will serve you for years to come.

In the follow up email conversation with this person, we talked about this trust part, and arrived at this opportunity; reaching back out to the podcast host.

Send a two or three line message to the host a month later. Ask how they’re doing. Follow up on a point that was made during your talk. Mention a recent episode. Keep the connection going, continue building trust with a person who thought enough to have you on their show.

You can keep chasing the ocean of strangers, and doing what the “experts” says, which is spending time and energy trying to impress people who’d rather keep scrolling. It’s an exhausting endeavor that never ends.

Instead, you could flip it, and focus on the few people you’ve already built a connection with.

We talk about this sort of thing every week in our Escape Pod Zoom calls. Join a call with other creative people figuring out the same stuff you’re dealing with. Check our upcoming schedule here.

During a recent Substack Live someone ask about spending more time on Substack Notes to grow their subscribers, and I suggested they make better use of that time by sending an extra newsletter to their subscribers.

My job is to make great work, and maybe that’s your job, too. The byproduct is someone enjoying that work.

My work is better today because I’m introduced to great people on Substack Notes. That lead to new ideas which I can share with my subscribers.

People like Maria Popova and Jason Kottke made a career from this. They curate, inform, and share, and they’ve built an audience that supports this work. They’ve become trusted curators of inspiration by being curious, and then sharing the results of that curiosity with their readers.

You can be that trusted source, too.

I spend time on Substack Notes because of the amazing artists, writers, photographers, all doing their thing. Some of those things inform my writing. Recently Caroline’s newsletter was the basis of my last newsletter, which came from this post.

But I also find inspiration from the wide open web; I’ve got almost 100 blogs I follow in my RSS reader, and I subscribe to hundreds of newsletters.

Curate the best items you find (which most of your readers will never find on their own), and share it with your newsletter subscribers.

Denna Seymour asked me a question I get a lot: “how do you get new people when you’re not on social?”

By doing cool stuff with cool people, just like this.

I did that Lex Roman mixer thing, met interesting people, you and I connected, and now we’re talking. A few people listening to this are gonna be like, “Who’s this guy?” They’re gonna click over, and a couple of them are gonna be like, “This is cool,” and they’re gonna subscribe.

And I just keep doing that over and over again. I reach out and try to get people to do Substack Lives with me — come on, we’ll do a live stream together. They tell people, “Next Tuesday I’m talking live with so-and-so.” I put that on my website, they tell their friends, and so on.

I literally try to do that week after week after week, like 50 weeks a year. Get on a podcast, do a live, do a live stream — over and over again. That’s how I do it.

Everyone is different, and has varying bandwidth for their marketing and outreach efforts.

Have you tried billboards? Sky writing? I’m half-kidding, of course, but there’s a million different things you can do between social media and doing nothing. It’s up to you to find what works for you.

Listen to “Building a Business Without Social Media with Seth Werkheiser” here.

One person on your email list can make a big difference.

I found out that Pearl Jam posted about the local nonprofit community art center Alice and I started, Art House Grandview, on their Instagram.

Three point eight million followers. A photo of a kid at Art House learning guitar, small hands on the neck of an instrument almost too big for them. Their foundation, the Vitalogy Foundation, picked Art House as the April recipient of their Future Days Fund grant. The money goes directly into the programs where we teach kids music for free.

Joshua Heath Scott wrote a newsletter, ‘HOW GUITAR CHANGED MY LIFE,’ and someone on the email list forwarded it to Pearl Jam’s foundation, which led to them highlighting Art House Grandview.

Joshua wrote that piece as only he could, talking about how Pearl Jam’s ‘Ten’ album was a huge influence, and “I’ve spent a lot of time on this Substack trying to articulate why art and creativity matter — why guitar matters — why it’s more than an instrument, why it carries the weight of where music has been, why holding one connects you to something larger than yourself.”

This is the core of talking about what we do.

We don’t just play music, we change lives.

We don’t just write essays, we shape culture.

We don’t just take photos, we document the world around us.

When we reduce ourselves to commodity offerings (check out my song, buy my print, read my article), we can’t be surprised when it’s treated as “content.”

So talk about your work in the same creative manner in which you make it. Dare to say you’re a writer even if you’re not “published.” Call yourself a photographer, a musician, a poet.

If the ding-dongs running the United States right now can claim they know what they’re doing, you have my permission to be anything you wanna be.

Let’s not define ourselves by our primary source of income, as we were put on earth for reasons beyond comprehension, beyond punching someone else’s time clock to pay the rent.

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Join me and the Social Media Escape Club TOMORROW, April 23 at 2pm EST, as we talk about this (and more), and you’ll leave with some new ways to talk about your work – sign up here.

Don’t rely on one platform for all your growth.

“it’s up to us to grow our own publications, and that’s true whether we’re using Substack, Ghost, Beehiiv, Buttondown or anything else.” Simon K Jones

Once we start blaming an algorithm or a platform for our “lack of new subscribers,” we’re in trouble.

Get on podcasts, attend IRL events, get on other people’s newsletters – putting all your growth into Substack’s hands is risky business.