I ran a 42-day audience growth experiment on Notes. Here's what I did, and everything I learned.
The results will definitely shape my future approach to Notes.
Want some help getting set up properly on Substack while you grow over the next 30 days? Grab my FREE 7-day email course, Substack Launchpad - you’ll get one email a day for 7 days to help build your confidence, consistency, and traction on Substack. Get it here. 🚀
I may have missed my calling as a scientist.
In Year 11 at school, I once finished top of the class in Physics, completely by accident.
I pretty much guessed my way through the exam.
And when the teacher, beaming from ear to ear, asked why I thought I’d done so well, I made the mistake of telling him just that.
He was not amused.
AD | Find out why Vellum is the most loved software for formatting your books.
Gorgeous print covers. Beautiful ebooks.
All at once. All on your schedule.
Want to advertise on How to Write for a Living? Just email hello@davidmcilroy.com.
Ok, so science was never my forte, especially physics (I suck at maths). But I do love experiments. And what could be better than an experiment involving writing?
If you’ve paid any attention to my ramblings over the last few months, you’ll know how much I love Notes on Substack.
It completely changed the game for me at the end of 2023, skyrocketing my previously-stagnant growth on the platform.
And throughout this year, I’ve often wondered if a system could be applied to my Notes-posting process, just like I did on Twitter back in 2022, when my audience there jumped from just 2 people to 16,000+ followers over 12 months.
So, like the good little newsletter growth nerd I am, I decided to run an experiment right here on my current platform of choice, Substack.
Let’s start with the why.
I wanted to see if certain aspects of Notes had any significant impact on audience growth and conversion (from free to paid). These aspects included:
Note types
Note lengths
Text vs image
Posting time
Posting frequency
It wasn’t an exhaustive list, but it’d give me a fairly good idea of what was working and what wasn’t.
And if I was able to determine what the ideal system for posting Notes looked like, I could replicate it and turn it into a growth lever for my Substack audience.
In short, and as with most of my ventures, I just wanted to see if I could do it.
Next, the how.
This post is part of my ‘Behind The Scenes’ series for paid subscribers. Upgrade now to read every new and previous instalment. 👇