Did You Know You Can Email Your Subscribers Without Publishing A Newsletter?

And reasons why this might be important for you down the road.

There are tons of little tidbits about Substack that you don’t know you don’t know until someone tells you you don’t know it. (That gave me a headache just typing it out)

One question I’ve seen floating around on Notes is, “Can I publish a post without emailing my subscribers?”

But rarely have I seen anyone ask, “Can I email my subscribers without publishing a post?”

The answer is yes, and you probably don’t know that this would come in handy until you see a real-life example of WHY it can be important.

How do you send an email to a select group of subscribers on Substack?

This answer comes directly from Substack’s help center:

You can use the subscriber dashboard to send emails to a subset of your subscribers. For example, you may want to send a thank you email to your earliest subscribers, or a special offer to the free subscribers who open emails most frequently. 

When you send out a targeted email with the subscriber dashboard, we won’t create a post on your Substack publication or archives– these are direct emails.

Why it’s important to know this:

I covered the WHY in a previous post when many of you were not subscribers yet so let me reiterate it here.

A while back, a fellow Substacker sent out an unsolicited email to a select group of her readers. It wasn’t one of her regular newsletters, it was a targeted and private email sent to all non-paying subscribers. This is what it said:

And guess what? Her ask was so bold that I immediately upgraded to a paid subscription. Because she had the forethought to reach out to those who were enjoying her free ride, she converted at least one of us (me) into a paid subscriber.

Reasons you might wish to email targeted groups of your subscribers:

• Maybe you want to offer a special upgrade discount to free subs.

• Maybe you have a bonus gift you’d like to give to your PAID subscribers.

• Maybe you’ve created a special area for your paid subs.

Options are endless. I just wanted you to know you CAN email your people without having to publish a post for the world to see.

If you prefer working smarter rather than harder on your writing game, take a load off and send me your Substack to-do list.