Renting versus owning
Posting on LinkedIn is a bit like renting a stall at a very busy market. Plenty of people walk past, but the landlord decides where your stall goes this week.
A newsletter is the shop you own. Fewer people walk in, but every one of them chose to come through the door. When you publish, it lands in their inbox, and no algorithm gets a vote.
Why Substack in particular
You could run a newsletter on lots of tools. Substack suits B2B teams for three plain reasons:
- It's quick to start. You can send a first issue the same afternoon.
- Every issue is also a web page, easy for readers to forward to the rest of their team.
- You can export your subscriber list, so the audience stays with you if you ever move.
One job, two lengths
The mistake is treating LinkedIn and a newsletter as two separate jobs. They're the same job at two different lengths.
- Post on LinkedIn to see what lands. Short, specific, in each person's own words.
- Write the winners up properly on Substack. The post that got people talking becomes the newsletter issue, with the full argument and the examples.
- Bring each issue back to LinkedIn. One issue can give you several posts, each linking to the full piece.
- Treat a new subscriber as a good sign. They asked to hear more from you. That's a far warmer start than any cold email.
What to count
Total subscribers is the number everyone looks at, and it's the least useful. Ask instead: are the people signing up the people you sell to, and do they ever reply? A short list of the right buyers beats a long list of peers.
Where we come in
In our GTM program we turn what works on LinkedIn into newsletter issues, so you get a Substack without extra writing. Get 50 free leads to see who your readers should be.