ENTER: Attending Office Hours raises success by 38.7%
Made up statistic, of course, but Office Hours is a motherhood of Substack wisdom
From the debate on Welcome Emails (YES, they’re critically important) to how to do a virtual book tour to an ebook-long post with 60+ pages of tips and hacks, Office Hours overflows with generosity and wisdom. Here are some of the gold mined on this thread of 1,059 comments:
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at Everything Is Amazing commanded that we all immediately edit our Welcome Page, saying “Honestly, the power of doing this is bonkers.” This was particularly welcomed since there was a recent, discouraging thread on Notes claiming that no one opens those emails. (I’m in the camp that believes they are one of our most important Substack elements and deserve to be well crafted.) Mike’s full comments following the brief highlights of today’s Office Hours*** Beth Spencer at Introvert Drawing Club echo’s Mike Sowden’s words (an interesting idea) about Welcome Pages and adds: YES. 👏 It is so important to make subscribing to your Substack a pleasurable, memorable experience.
I edit mine every week. Also give my new free members an invite to our upcoming sessions, so they get a chance to draw and chat. It’s made a massive difference in my own experience with Substack and I've met so many lovely artists that way!
*** Sandi Fanning at
, captures the main point of Welcome Emails, saying, “It’s not necessarily the email itself, but that invitation to connect, that really feels good to receive. “*** 🅟🅐🅤🅛 🅜🅐🅒🅚🅞 at Deplatformable Newsletter adds some statistics to the Welcome Email conversation stating, “Excellent Mike. Did you Realize? According to Mail Chimp, the average email open rate for all emails is just 21.33%. But you can get more than 50% with your Substack Welcome Email.”
*** Holly Starley at
echoed Mike Sowden’s call for Welcome Emails saying, “I for sure am stoked when I subscribe and receive a wonderful welcome letter--so much so that I actually remember my favorite welcome letters.” She even praises a specific one received from Michael Edward’s saying she doesn’t remember what it said but remembering she liked “his writer’s mind.”*** Kathryn Vercillo at Create Me Free says her month long virtual book tour here on Substack was great and promises to write a full post about how to do it. Please don’t forget, Kathryn, this is has great potential in many forms.
*** Victor D. Sandiego at Writes Dynamic Creed brought up an issue I had not thought about … readers who “accept recommendations” when subscribing to one author’s post, winds up subscribes to those recommended sites … but does not receive a Welcome Email. This needs more thought as it means readers will get more emails they don’t remember actually subscribing to.
*** Simon K Jones at Write More with Simon K Jones offers a brilliant idea: “I've only done this a couple of times so far but it worked really nicely: I asked in Chat for recommendations and ideas around a topic, and then used those responses to populate a newsletter post.
That way, the really engaged fans get to have that closer involvement, while the more casual readers get to benefit from the combined insight.”
*** Mark Dykeman at How about this? discusses the benefits of Recommendations to other author’s Substacks and links us to his post:
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at RAISINI offers a long form, frequently updated, overview that is next on my reading list. She says, “Sharing this post again here for any new Substackers looking to grow quicker on Substack. It covers all the basics from design, content to growth. It’s a full ebook with 60+ pages of tips and hacks. Welcome y’all and feel free to reach out to say hi 👋🏻😃
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Everything Is Amazing … again the omnicurious and knowledgeable one explains the concept of dropped emails to those of us who don’t understand it (me): “Dropped emails are the eventual result of repeat bounced emails (where they're not delivered for some reason) - at some point, the email client just blocks all future emails from that source, which is NOT GREAT for us to say the least: https://serversmtp.com/en/smtp/4-What-is-a-dropped-email/kb-3933.html”Here's something that's such a quick & easy win that it amazes me that so many folk still don't do it:
****BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE, EDIT YOUR WELCOME EMAILS****
>>Setting
Honestly, the power of doing this is bonkers. The introductory email is your first personal connection with a new subscriber. It's your welcome mat, your first friendly "would you like a cup of tea and a biscuit?", your first chance at hooking them on all your best work so far - and therefore it's some of your most important real estate in your whole newsletter, up there with your About page in importance.
This is the first email they get from you. Why would you blow it with something so generic and empty and boring that they immediately delete it?
Get in there immediately and make that email / those emails sound like yourself. Write over the top of Substack's boilerplate text and fill it out with everything you want a new subscriber to know about what you're doing. Guide them to a few previous pieces you're proud of. Ask them a question or two. Show your personality. Shake things up and demonstrate the voice you're going to use in your newsletter, so they look forward to the next time you write at them..
And if you've previously edited them, when was that? How out-of-date are they now? What can you add? (I recently realised I've been rubbish at this, so I've made a note to check through mine every week to see if there's anything I can improve.)
There are very few easy wins in this newslettering lark - but this really is one of them. Go wow them from the very start - and see how many replies you get, saying things like "hey, thanks, I actually *read* this for a change!"
Thank you so much for the mention, Joyce! Yeah, welcome emails feel so powerful if they can just be tapped into properly. I get the arguments around how few people take the time to read them, but - if we spend zero time making them not-boring, isn't that just teaching everyone to ignore them? Feels like a circular argument where nobody wins...
Your headline sucked me right in. I was actually thinking it would be a higher percentage, and then thought, how are they able to measure that? Thanks for combining these resources.