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133. That’s the total number of newsletters on Substack that recommend the Freelance Writing network. And of the 10,500 subscribers to this newsletter, 10% of those have arrived as a result of recommendations from other newsletters.
Not every newsletter is equal, in that sense. The top recommendation has brought me 245 new subscriptions, while a few dozen have brought one or fewer. It depends a little on a few factors: How big a newsletter is, how quickly they grow, and how relevant they are to your audience.
The latter point has been the most significant, in my experience. 10 newsletters have recommended mine and since stopped, and many of these were in subject areas that were simply not relevant to the Freelance Writing Network. As a result, they did not generate many new subs. I am still grateful to those writers—but clearly the results meant they were not the best recommendations for my work.
Recommendations are a valuable, potentially powerful, tool for growth, and I’m going to explain a few ways in which you can use them to help grow your audience. It might not net you 1000 new subscribers, but it’s certainly beneficial to help increase your audience over time.
First, navigate to the ‘Recommendations’ section on your publication dashboard. From there, click ‘Manage’ and you’ll see your current recommendations.
Hit ‘Add recommendation’ and you can type in a newsletter, explain your reason for recommending and then add. Any newsletter creator that you recommend will receive a notification that you have recommended them, and you can both track how many subscribers have been generated.
And as a quick note on that: If you enjoy reading this newsletter and want to recommend the Freelance Writing Network, please do! I’m very appreciative of everyone who does so.
I have a few little tips and tricks to help you find new recommendations. Just recommending other newsletters and doing nothing else is unlikely to find you many, particularly in the earlier days of your writing.
See what I did just now? I just asked people to recommend my newsletter outright. It can be as easy as that. Do you have a few readers who publish their own Substacks? Have an active community, even if it’s small? Why not just ask your readers, be that in a newsletter post or via the chat?
People can’t read your mind. If you think your readers might like to recommend your newsletter, you can ask them directly.
Notes is, as always, a valuable tool for growing your newsletter. You can easily post that you are looking for new recommendations and ask for writers who are interested. I would add that this should probably be on a mutual basis, whereby you recommend their newsletter and they recommend yours.
By using Notes, you can find creators in your niche. You might state some information about your publication and ask who is interested in mutual recommendations. You might even reply to the Notes of other people. You don’t have to go wild with it, but being a little proactive with this side of Substack is helpful.
I don’t recommend doing this loads, and again the recommendation would be on a mutual basis. I have done this on a handful of occasions, whereby I found newsletters of a particularly similar size and/or niche. I would message the creator directly, stating why a mutual recommendation would help both of us, and then awaited a response.
The responses were mixed, to say the least. One writer even blocked me! A few ignored and a few others said yes. The few who said yes have generated over 25% of my total subscriptions from recommendations, so it was well worth the time taken to get in touch.
I would just emphasise not to excessively use cold DMs. This is a direct technique for specific, highly relevant newsletters. Make your mini pitch specific to that person for the best chance of success.
Recommendations on Substack are not a guaranteed method of growth, but they can certainly help you. You still need to do everything else that comes with publishing: Post regularly, engage in the community and on Notes, make your publication look smart, trendy or professional.
But used right, recommendations can accelerate growth. And if the right newsletters recommend you, even help you to find relevant and potentially passionate new readers of your work.
Is there anything you have done to find success with recommendations on Substack? Or are you struggling to find anyone? Let me know your thoughts or ideas in the comments!