Grow your Substack Community

So, hi everyone. Welcome to a brand new session of Creators on Air. This is Çınar from Newsletter Circle. Today I'm so happy to be back with a really amazing guest, Veronique.

Hi everyone.

She's actually joining from Hong Kong and I'm in Istanbul, Turkey. Today actually we'd like to focus on the art of building a community around your newsletter audience. But before, I'd like to start with saying a few words about Veronique. You are an ex-corporate writer, coach, public speaker with multiple books published by Penguin. In your flagship newsletter, the Lemon Tree Mindset, you share strategies to help people to build communities, monetize their creativities, and build a lifestyle-first business. Currently, you reach over 10,000 subscribers, and you are a Substack bestseller with over 200 paid members. And I know that building a community space at the core of your business— but before going into the details of it, maybe you can start How is life going?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that introduction. And just to give a little bit more context, I've been on Substack and in general creating for 2 and a half years. I launched my newsletter in February 2023. I had a very, very slow start, so I think a lot of people can relate. But what happened after 1 year is that I really focused on how to have a strategy, which I didn't have until that point. And I decided that the core of my strategy was going to be building a community, which is why The title of today is how to really go from a newsletter to a community. And so when you ask me, how is it going? For me, I use community as a filter, as a criteria to be able to answer that question. And there's a lot that I've been doing, especially this year to boost my community. One of them, for example, is launching a mastermind for my founding members, which is something that I do every quarter. So if you're asking me, what are you busy with? Building a community is very, very busy. So that's one of the specific initiatives that I'm doing. Another thing is doing what we're doing. Doing right now, live sessions. I don't know if many people in the audience have already used live sessions. I find them to be a very strategic format or tool to build your community because it just brings a proximity to your community, to your subscribers. Many people, when I meet them for the first time, they tell me, oh, I have the feeling that I already know you because it really creates this personal connection. And the third thing that I haven't mentioned is that I also have the Spanish version of The Lemon Tree Mindset, and there I'm also creating a community. And that started later, it started a year and a half after I launched My Lemon Tree Mindset in English, because I wanted to replicate exactly the same formula for the Spanish-speaking community. One last thing that can be useful for the people who are watching today is that every month I focus on a specific topic, and this is part of my strategy so that I keep myself on my lane and I don't go in different directions. The topic for October is actually public Speaking and how to incorporate the art of speaking into your ecosystem, because as writers and as creators, we're very often hiding behind the screen. I wanted to make sure that people in my community put themselves out there, start to do lives, podcasts, and so on.

Ah, there are lots of things to talk about actually. We will try to talk more about your community building efforts, and actually on your about page, you start by saying, okay. This is not a newsletter, this is a community. So maybe we can start with this basic definition. What is the difference between audience and a community for you? And what are the core elements of building a community?

I think that's a wonderful place to start because very often we throw the word community in and there's a huge difference between a newsletter and a community. And the way that I see it, very often when we're starting, and it's definitely my experience, It's very much one way. It's one person, one creator who is sending out weekly newsletter or whatever your cadence is, and you don't really have a lot of two-way interaction. And that's what I realized after my first year. I was doing all this work. I was really trying to connect with what I called a community, but because it was one way, it wasn't really a community. And so in my second year on Substack, I really started to focus more on how can I create these places where it can go from one to many. To actually having group discussions, collaborations, and things. And so to make it very granular, I launched initiatives like webinars. I started to offer monthly webinars to my paid subscribers, and that was a great way to participate and to have something that was really more tool-based because it allowed me also to listen actively to what people in my community want. What are topics of interest? What are some of the challenges? So webinars, for example, is a great way to start building community. Another one that I started using is the Now, I don't know how many people who are watching today have tried to launch chats at the beginning, but the chat has been definitely a channel for me to build that community so that it's not just me sharing information, but it becomes a platform where people ask questions, where people share their experience, where they might be talking about a launch that they have had. And the third one, and this is something that I only launched this year, is a mastermind. Because what I noticed is that many creators have webinars. But it tends to be still very much one way. You tend to be the presenter, you tend to share your expertise, and you might have 5 minutes or 10 minutes of questions at the end. And one of the things that my community told me, because I asked them for feedback, is that they wanted a sounding board. And I love this word, sounding board, the idea that you have peers to share ideas, to collaborate, to see what they're doing. And I didn't really have that. And I thought that the next step for me in my community was to create this safe space where it's not about me sharing on a specific topic, but bringing people together who want to talk about whatever it is. Maybe it's about building your own community, maybe it's about public speaking, it might be about publishing books. And that's something that really has helped me consolidate and crystallize this idea of community and evolve from a newsletter to a real community where it's not just about me, Is about us.

Since you already talked about Substack Chat, I'd like to learn a bit more about it because I totally agree that it's a challenge for many creators because it looks so sexy and you feel like it's easy to activate, but it's not the case. Your whole experience with Substack Chat, how did you manage to crack the code? What is your posting routine currently? And how do you boost engagement? Also, like, what worked best and what didn't based on what you have tried so far? Can you share a bit more? Imagine that I'm listening to this session, I'd like to activate chat, it was in my mind for a while, but I don't know what to do. How should I approach it?

Absolutely. So let's talk about mistakes because I've made many, and so maybe that's a good place to—

yeah, of course, I love mistakes.

Trying to be successful from— you're going to launch a chat and people are not familiar, even if they like what you're talking about. And so being okay with opening a chat and not having answers, the same way that sometimes we post notes. I sometimes post notes and I don't have any engagement and I still show up the next day. So I think the mindset is very important because otherwise you might feel very disappointed if you open one chat, you open 2 chats, and no one participates. So I think the mindset is very, very important. And then second thing that many people don't realize is that very often when we ask a question and we give too many choices, people are not going to answer. For example, one mistake that I made, many people make as well when they open the chat, is to ask for generic feedback. What would you like me to talk about in the next live? Your gift to your community. A lot of homework. You have to do the homework first. So for example, and I haven't done this, but let's say that I'm thinking about my next live chat. And the topic, as I mentioned, for me at the Lemon Tree Mindset for this month is public speaking. So I could open a chat asking my community, are you more interested in hosting live sessions or are you more interested in podcasts? For example, you make it very specific. It's easier for people to reply. Let me give you an example, a chat that had a lot of engagement and it was super simple. I was really debating whether I should keep having my webinars with slides or without slides. I didn't know. I thought they were pros and cons for both. And so I opened the question in the chat and I said, hey, would you prefer to have webinars with slides, PowerPoint or whatever that might be, or just— and it was great to see the input. Everyone had an opinion because When I've asked you, Salyu, you probably have an opinion already. I'm not just asking a generic question. What would you like to see in the next webinar? It was much more specific and targeted. And so make it easy to participate. I think that's a great one.

I'm also wondering how you make them engage with each other. Did you manage to create such an environment? Do they also interact with each other? Or is it like you are asking a question about your work and they're replying? You know, what are the main themes in general that you talk about in chat and how do you boost engagement?

Sure. So that's one example, like getting people to give you very specific feedback. What is their preference? Another one that got a lot of debate and it even got a little bit heated because that's the whole idea too, is have a bit of debates. I asked people if they wanted to have video content and it wasn't just about my content. It was about in general, because as you know, there's a boost of video, audio, all platforms including Substack are trying to push. And so I asked my community and honestly it was like 50%, I hate it, I don't wanna see it. And then the other 50% was like, well, we have to embrace it. This is the new direction. So talking about trends, talking about AI, what is a good way for writers to use AI without losing the authenticity? People have an opinion because that's something that we are thinking about. Every day. So discussions that are relevant for your community, I think that's another one that works very, very well. One of the things that I do in my chat, to have my paid chat where I offer personalized feedback to my members. And let me give you a few examples. One area that many creators struggle with is their pitch for whatever that is, their value proposition. If we're talking about Substack, is in sentence, how do you describe your publication?

Yeah, I also did this and it received the highest number of answers just asking this question.

So you can do it open. Hey, would you like to share ideas, feedback, and so on? Or you can actually have this exclusively for your paid subscribers. And I said, if you'd like to have personalized feedback, share it here and I'll be happy to give you some specific customized tips. Now we're talking about value because we're talking about customization, we're talking about personalization. So another way that you can use the chat to add value, very customized, it can be one-to-one. So that works, works extremely well.

What is your frequency of sending messages on chats? Do you have a routine?

Yeah, so I try to keep it a little bit organic because I don't want to be too strict. But in terms of my strategy, I do 2 to 3 chats every week. One that works very well, and I would say is my favorite, is the collaboration chat. I call it the open deck, and I said, hey, if you would like to pitch your idea for a collaboration, whether it's a guest post, whether you're doing a live session with someone, perhaps you want to feature authors in your publication or whatever that might be, I invite people to pitch. And what I noticed is that a lot of members, they would just be very generic and say, oh, I would love to partner with writers and creators. I'm open to this type of collaboration, and this didn't really work for them because it's too generic. And so I started to make it very specific, and I share a little template. For example, like, what my publication is about, I have many subscribers, I would like to invite other writers for a guest post or a podcast, and then you put the link. But really trying to help people and teach them how they can be successful in those collaborations. This is usually a free Chat that I do that tends to get a lot of engagement because people love collaborating and they really want to see how they can find a match. This is what I love doing. What I don't love doing, and I'm going to be very honest, is the let's follow for follow or just do a notes boost. To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense. That's not my understanding of community. It's much more about how can we really add value and make sure that people follow you because they're interested in your content or they actually want to collaborate with you. That's what I understand by value add through a community.

Yes, that I was, I was planning to ask this question, you know, what you think about these notes boost messages, because this is something that I'm also skeptical. And, you know, it, it's, it kind of creates this dopamine rush for the creator because it receives so many reactions because people think that it is something useful for them, but it's only, you know, that minute. It doesn't bring any new subscribers, any Relevant audience to them. It's not a strategy which is sustainable or something like that. So I also don't prefer, but collaboration one I'm also planning to do. So maybe I can steal your approach on this, right? So you talked about that you are providing some community benefits for your paid members, right? Maybe can you clarify how you differentiate community-related benefits for free readers and paid members? And do you think that how impactful are these community-related benefits to upgrade free subscribers to paid ones?

Okay, so let's start with the free subscribers because I always say that paid subscribers, they're already there. They're your free subscribers who haven't converted yet. So for me, I think of the, the same group of people. Your free subscribers, it's really important that you give them a great experience, even if they're free. Like, put the bar really, really high so that people really trust you and they buy into you. And I think this mindset is so, so critical. When I'm sending posts, for example, to my free subscribers, I don't think of a lower budget because it's free. One strategy that works really well to make your free subscribers feel really, really welcome Is your welcome email. And I don't know when was the last time you, and I mean you generically, had a look at your welcome email. It's the first impression. It's the first thing that your subscribers are going to see. And so for me, it's very personalized. I even have a video that I haven't seen many people have, and I have received a lot of positive feedback on how nice it is to have an actual welcome from a real person and not Claude, some AI bot. So that's one thing, the personalization. In terms of what I offer my free subscribers, I have at least one post every week. And sometimes I have live sessions, for example, or recordings like the one that we're going to do today. So this is what I offer the free subscribers. And then what I offer my paid subscribers, and one important thing is that this has evolved because now I have a much bigger number. So when I started, I was able to personalize much more. I used to do things like a free LinkedIn audit. For my paid subscribers because I'm also very active on LinkedIn. A message for the audience today, when you're small and you're starting, this is a great opportunity for you to offer something customized. Maybe it's a 30-minute coffee chat, could be an auditing service, whatever that might be. Today, because of scalability reasons, this has evolved and I focus on not only content, and that was a key trigger for me. Not only content, but services, experience, personalization. Now let's talk about those. When I'm talking about services, I have webinars, I have live sessions. I've actually evolved from webinars to live sessions because I see that they have more engagement. And so I have live sessions like the one that I do today. Like last month, one of the most popular ones that I had was with Anne Fournier, a creator who is very active on Gumroad. So we talked about how to build your business on Gumroad, for example. So it was very actionable. We gave lots of strategies that really, really helped to steps for the audience. And I usually keep them very specific and actionable so that they can really be valuable. So this is where I talk about services. Live for me is a service. The chat is another service because I provide personalized service. Like 2 months ago, for example, I had a challenge for notes, and it wasn't about let's boost each other with notes. It was actually, I'm going to give you prompt ideas, and this was specifically for paid subscribers that can help you write different types of notes. But today, after 2 and a half years, I have quite a bit of digital products, especially on Gumroad. I just launched a course on public speaking. I have a course on Substack. I have a self-publishing guide. I have all these resources that are very complementary to the work that I do on Substack. And so what I do is I offer a very juicy discount to my paid subscribers, which tends to be 40%, so that they can get my courses at a very economic price. It goes back to community as well. I make my paid subscribers eligible to become affiliates. So if you're a paid subscriber, you go through one of my courses, you can then become an affiliate and make 40% commission on the sales that you generate. I talked about personalization. For me, it's really with founding members. I have over 70 founding members, very popular offer in my subscription because a lot of people want to have a one-to-one personalized strategy session. And so that's really for people who want to have a very focused one-to-one discussion on how can I really package my offer? How can I go from a newsletter to a community? How can I have a monetization strategy? And so this is what I mean by the personalization. Thinking about your offer is not just content, especially with AI. The future is think about services, to think about proximity, to think about community. And these are the levels that I use to be able to grow and monetize my work.

And for your monthly paid members, you charge $29, and for annual members, this is $79. So this means your annual offer is 77% cheaper compared to subscribing monthly. So there is an obvious strategy here. I can feel that you are trying to encourage annual subscriptions. And what was your founding member price?

Because that's another thing also, don't be afraid to increase charges because You're going to be adding new value. You're going to be adding new services. And so I think it's important to be very transparent. I started with my founding membership only last year in June or July. It was $99 at a time and it included everything and the one-to-one strategy session of 1 hour. Then after that, when I realized that actually I'm adding a lot of value to my community in these sessions, like I'm really able to help them get paid subscribers or write books Because my strategy sessions are not only about Substack, they're pretty much 360 in terms of creators who want to build a digital ecosystem. So it increased to $159 and now it's at $238 and it includes everything that the paid subscription does, plus the one-to-one session, plus quarterly mastermind sessions that are exclusive for that group.

Still, it sounds more logical to become an annual or founding member for someone who loves your work and probably this long-term Commitment also helps building a community, right? Because people invest in something for a longer time, so they will not leave after a month, this is for sure. So you have the chance to nurture all these relationships throughout this time period. So I just want to hear a few words from you about how you link this building community with this Pricing strategy?

Yes, to be super honest, I keep going back and forth a bit with should I give a monthly fee that is more accessible. So I've been changing my strategy and this is more recent. I think I changed it a couple of months ago when I decided, look, if I'm talking about community, it's really about people who are here on the long term. It probably means that you get less monetization in a way because there would be people who might be willing to join if you have a $5 membership perhaps, but also the type of community that I want, really people who are here on the long term. I'm willing to take the hit. I really want people to say, you know what, I like your content, I like the community. It's not just about being one month and joining one webinar or getting resources, but really being here on the long term. So this is my strategy, and what I do hope is that when people join as free subscribers and they start see the value, they are like, oh, this is a worthy investment. Like $179 when you break it down per month is actually not that much. Another thing that's important is many of my clients, I've talked to over 70 founding members, many are a bit obsessed with this whole idea of how do I get paid subscribers? I just want to remind everyone that paid subscription is only one channel to monetize your work. For me, Substack is really the top of the funnel. It's really where I build my community. And once you build that community, it's wonderful because you can really take them to other places. You can have external webinars. You can have, like in my case, I have, I don't know, 7 or 8 products on Gumroad and I want to create the next one. You can have coaching sessions that go outside. You can sell books that are much, much cheaper. And so Always think about the call to action because it doesn't necessarily have to be paid subscription. Let me be very honest here. Most creators, including myself, we're around 3%, currently even less, on conversion. And so you really have to think bigger. And that's why I use the term digital ecosystem so often because there's much more potential than just paid subscriptions.

There should be a funnel approach and Substack is just a small part of it. What we are doing is also kind of putting quality, high-quality subscribers over quantity, right? It's possible lowering the price and maybe attracting more people, but they will come and go. You are betting for people who will stay with you for a longer period of time, and they have more potential for you to upsell and sell other products that you have been creating. It means in terms of the monetization part, it has more opportunities for you. So I just want to finish, maybe just to sum up, if you could start over your community building efforts from scratch today, what would you do different?

That's a really great question, right? Like you wish you could just go back in time. And when I started, I wished that I had focused less On just doing my work and set all this content, all of that, and really try to find more collaborators. Exactly what we're doing now. It took me over a year to start reaching out to people. Like literally, I think it took me a year and a half to write my first guest post for someone else. And now I think it's crazy. Like we're all solopreneurs. Doesn't mean that we have to be solo. It just means that we have to find partners in different ways. And so if I were to start, and if anyone is starting or struggling to grow, find collaborators, find a styler, find whoever it is that can really join forces with you. I'm a triathlete, and in sports we say that together we run further. And I find the same to be true in the world of creativity.

This is what you would do differently overall when it comes to your newsletter, putting more effort in collaborations and not only focusing on content, but it also takes this time, right? Before being really clear about your offer and your target audience and the key benefits that you provide, maybe it's normal to feel this doubt for reaching out other people. Because once your pitch is clear, then it's easier to find people to collaborate with and also to talk about your work. So I think it's normal, it's a normal process.

Strategy and collaboration really helps. Once you have clarity for yourself, it's much easier to know your message. Who are you trying to help? Who are some of the people who have a similar vision? So yes, I love that partnership, strategy and collaboration.

And final question, what is your biggest advice to creators who really would like to build a community around their newsletters? Imagine that I have A few thousand subscribers, but as you said, it's kind of a one-way communication, one media type of communication for the moment. And I'd like to turn this audience into a community. What would be your biggest advice for someone who'd like to start this journey?

Very often we are trying to create all these programs and please join my webinar and do that, but most people in your community Also want to be seen and they also want to be heard. So try to first engage with the people who are already supporting you the most. So one thing that you can do is, for example, share in the stats who are your most engaged subscribers. You can actually see based on their activity. Is there something that you can do for them? You can just send them a personalized message. I've done this in the past. Thank you so much for being one of my most engaged readers. I really appreciate it. If there's anything that we can do together or collaborate, Let me know. Engage with the people who are already engaged with your content. You can really start creating this community in a very organic way. The community is already there, right? So what can you do that you're bringing people in?

Thank you so much, Veronica. I mean, there are lots of things to take notes and work on from what you have shared today. You know, you didn't only share your learnings, but also you shared some super actionable insights. It was a great pleasure to finally meet you. Thank you so much. Do you have anything that you want to add?

No, thank you so much. I love how you've evolved as well from just the written content to the live sessions. I think it's wonderful to see that. So congratulations on all the great content.

Yeah, thank you so much. I can relate to most of the things that you have shared because I totally agree that these live sessions, we are the ones who talk, but this is kind of a nice start to build a community because first people need to know you. They need to see you. They need to feel your energy. This is totally different than writing an article and sharing it. So I think people in the end join a community for the person who built it, right? They first trust this person and what this person can bring to this community. And then it evolves in time. So yeah, it's important, I think, show our face from time to time. Then it's also nice for us, right, to keep ourselves motivated. It's so nice to interact with other creators because there is also this psychological part of this business, you know, when you try to build something alone. When it's a solo business, it's difficult to keep going and you need some real interactions. So thank you so much. I have a better day today since it started with such great conversation. Thank you so much again.

Thank you. Thank you everyone.

Bye. See you. Bye-bye.