17 Comments
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Neela 🌶️'s avatar

The 7 day plan alone is worth bookmarking.

I always say that clarity beats hustle any day, and you’ve turned that into a step-by-step Substack recipe with extra French fries.

Thank you for sharing bro.

Mack Collier's avatar

Ohhhh...you had me at extra french fries! I need clarity and a checklist at all times! Thank you, sis!

Neela 🌶️'s avatar

you are most welcome :)

Mia Kiraki 🎭's avatar

Love the 7 day plan. Read this about an hour ago and just remembered to tell you this!

And the 3 Cs are everything, really. I think no other social media platform gives as much importance to all 3 as Substack does!

Mack Collier's avatar

Thank you, Mia! Substack really does reward us for nailing all 3 Cs. If you do one or two it really isn't the same as nailing all 3 at once. The combined synergies between content/conversion/community really does create something larger than the sum of the parts. Hope it stays this way!

Dr Sam Illingworth's avatar

Thanks Mack for yet another clutch post on substack growth. You are one of the few writers who backs up statistics and case studies with actionable tasks for us to do as creators. 🙏

Mack Collier's avatar

Thank you, Sam! That’s very kind of you!

Barry J McDonald's avatar

Focusing on your content first, before trying to gather your fans, is a smart play—kind of like wearing your lucky jersey before the big game. It's like the ole chicken and egg story (which came first), you need an audience, but if there's no content, there's nothing to catch anyone's attention.

Mack Collier's avatar

Thank you, Barry! And the best part is you can change and adapt your content strategy based on feedback from your community. AKA the 'pivot' that so many creators here make.

Lea Paz's avatar

Being new and still on content building and then reading this helped see a trajectory (instead of say, doing this with no map at all!).

This has been very helpful. Thanks Mack!

Mack Collier's avatar

That’s wonderful, Lea! I wish I had done this when I started, I focused on building community first. Then when I later pivoted, I lost some of my community because my new focus no longer served them. A good example of why it pays to set your positioning first then community.

Goodnex's avatar

We got it entirely backwards with the community first approach. The content first approach makes a whole lot of sense that gives you more window to learn what converts better. I'm taking the 7 day plan for a spin this weekend. Thanks for sharing, Mack.

Mack Collier's avatar

Thank you, Goodness! Let me know how it works for you!

Joe Mills's avatar

I’m looking forward to figuring out your conversion path.

Mack Collier's avatar

Hey Joe! For me, the process became much cleaner and easier once I nailed down my content strategy. Prior to this summer, I wrote about basic marketing, with a focus on customer experience and engagement. I didn't really have my audience nailed down.

In August, I pivoted to focus on helping Substack creators grow, by solving 4 different problems: How to get more engagement, how to build authority and credibility, how to improve conversion rates, and how to improve retention rates.

When I nailed down my content strategy, it became far easier to improving my conversion rate. I would start there, once you have your audience nailed down and how your content serves that audience, then it becomes much easier to convert free subscribers into paid. Hope that helps, feel free to DM me if you want to bounce around more ideas.

Bin Jiang's avatar

No plan for an offer yet, but making room for one.

Mack Collier's avatar

Figure out your offer, then build a content strategy that pushes subscribers toward that offer, then layer a conversion strategy on top of it that helps convert them. Then connect with your community and use its feedback to tweak your content and offer to make it even stronger.