A Simple Promotion Strategy Cheat Sheet.
Insight: On setting up a winning offer.
Read the publication strategy cheat sheet as well!
“Promotion refers to increasing intention on a product through advertising or a discounted price.” Investopedia.
Why promote?
Offering special discounts tied to specific deadlines encourages action. Therefore, a promotional strategy is fundamental to a product’s success, including your publication.
Promotional events are essential marketing tools, designed to increase brand and offer awareness, create stickiness by fostering loyalty among existing users, or showcase value in unique ways.
Imagine a business vendor offering a special deal at the end of a quarter to encourage timely closure of deals and claim commissions - such promotions are legally authorized and widely used by businesses to provide extra incentives to both businesses and consumers.
Since we're discussing the promotion of a unique product - your publication - let's review the key aspects of a promotional strategy.
What can you promote?
Promoting your publication can take many forms:
Free digital giveaways where you offer existing or new ebooks, compiled professional tips, etc., in exchange for the user's contact information (typically an email address) or feedback. This helps expand your subscriber base and engage with your audience.
Free product giveaways where you provide books, branded merchandise, and clothes, in return for a user action to encourage engagement, loyalty or increase awareness. This can generate excitement and increase user engagement with your publication.
Discounted rates for a limited time to celebrate milestones or encourage free subscribers to upgrade to paid subscriptions. This strategy can attract new subscribers and incentivize existing ones to commit to your publication.
Evergreen discounts which are discounts based on group memberships (e.g. students, seniors, book clubs) without an expiration date. This can create a sense of exclusivity and encourage long-term membership, contributing to subscriber retention.
When should your promote?
Consider timing your promotions to coincide with widely recognized public holidays such as President’s Day, Black Friday, or local holidays. This aligns with users' expectations for special offers.
Alternatively, especially for publications on platforms like Substack, consider offering promotions tied to significant milestones like reaching a certain number of subscribers or celebrating your publication's anniversary. Ensure these promotions are logically tied to discounts or combination offers.
My recommendation is to not over-promote your publication, as that may devalue your product, or reduce its perceived value, or create an impression of desperation.
Explore nuanced, evergreen offers that run consistently throughout the year, such as student or senior discounts, or promotions linked to specific dates like quarterly customer loyalty days or milestone celebrations.
Evaluate the success of your offer periodically to gauge its effectiveness, resonance with your audience, conversion rates, and appropriateness for your target demographic.
If you promotion fails to convert, or achieves limited success, it may be time to return to the drawing board and ask:
Is my target audience accurately identified ?
Is my offer appealing?
Is my timing appropriate?
Is my messaging effective?
‘How’ to promote ?
For promotions in steps 1 and 2, you may choose to set up a page on your Substack publication site directing users to download a ebook in PDF or epub directly from a post. Keep in mind that if users are not subscribers, you may not be able to collect their email addresses on a free post.
Generally, it is advisable to use specific tools that can track analytics for your free giveaways. Options include landing page tools such as Convertkit, analytics tools like docsend, or flippingbook, an sales tools such as gumroad, or buymeacoffee, or any tool of your choice.
This approach can be used on any platform you choose to write on, including your own domain site.
Steps 3 and 4 can be set up done right here on Substack, as demonstrated in the post below.
You can design promotions for different conditions, as outlined in the above post.
Conclusion
Effective promotion requires careful planning, strategic timing, and continuous evaluation of results. By aligning your promotion strategies with your target audience's preferences and needs, you can maximize engagement and drive conversions for your publication.
I hope this was helpful. Do you have learnings or success tips to share?
For tailored guidance on building a custom promotion strategy for your newsletter, reach out for a paid session. Email me at hellotechmadesimple@proton.me to get started.
Thank you! Great information 👍♥️
These seem highly effective ‘Best Practices’ vis a vis Commercial Aspects. With respect - what % of Substack authors might they apply too ? Would one be correct in assuming approx 100% of authors self publishing here would love to increase ‘exposure (reach) & readership ?
It’s my perspective that your ‘topics’ are essentially ‘Problem Solving’ & Solutions - thus extremely appealing, valuable & at the same time easily Accessible .. but many of us perhaps require ‘Lateral Solutions’ to ‘Solve Problems’ such as the obvious ‘conundrums’ I’ve alluded to in this reply. There really are no ‘short cuts’ - though astonishing talent and or ‘message’ usually breaks through if given even the tiniest ‘opportunity’ via ‘word of mouth’ for example.
My faves among your excellent Posts are the simple solutions to improve our capabilities in Presentation and/or ‘Site Management’ (what I often call ‘workflow’) ! And please note - am quite aware your audience reflects an astonishing spectrum of ‘Platform’ & Operating Systems’ ie Hardware/Software just to be ‘in the game’ ! Keep up the excellent work thanks ! Always glad to lend a hand here .. even in ways that may not be evident !