Consumer Strategy Analyst at frog (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Substack personally to run a blog. I switched from Medium over a year ago and wanted to explore the ways I could monetize on the platform. The primary business problem it addresses was my inability to publish my Medium articles as part of a freestanding blog/portfolio separate from my account and the scope of my use was fairly simple (personal publishing and subscribing to a few newsletters here and there).

Pros

Content organization/discovery - really easy to search.
Newsletter/email integration - by far better at previewing and delivering content than any other site.

Cons

Visual UI/UX - stories are displayed very clunky, image previews aren't used well.
Promotion in-article - makes it hard to subscribe or donate while reading a piece. You have to finish it to see the option to, which most readers don't.

Most Important Features

Email newsletter integration
UI/UX
Social media integration

Return on Investment

Positive - greatest long-term potential in rev sharing and ownership.
Positive - expanded reach and network effects across multiple platforms.
Negative - another site to learn and content to duplicate w/o immediate payoff (training/staffing/education costs).

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Blogger

Other Software Used

Medium, Blogger

Robb Auspitz

Owner in Marketing at Groovy Hemp Company LLC (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Substack to create promotional and educational content. I use a mini-blog format to write infomercials that explain various topics relating to the Hemp/CBD industry and Groovy Hemp Company. The problems addressed include branding and improving my store's searchability. The scope is very broad. A distinct brand identity sets my store apart from a very crowded field. A successful SEO campaign has been proven to drive a lot more sales than social media that is not 100% focused on video.

Pros

Because it has a very high Domain Authority ranking relevant backlinks in a published article will help make my store more searchable.
Substack is very easy to work in. The toolset they provide may not be as extensive as other platforms but it is certainly enough to create a meaningful, interesting post.
Substack is very focused on creating a community of writers that support each other. They run an ongoing email campaign that reinforces their focus on building a community of writers.

Cons

More clarity on why I would use Substack as a podcasting platform. I understand that it's a new thing for them but I'm not sure about making the switch until I see more hard, technical information. And yes, I am being picky about it.
They could provide a few more formatting tools for the writer even though what they currently provide does a good job.
Support for more extensive video tools. I understand that YouTube and TikTok dominate that arena but there's always room for more competition.

Most Important Features

Real strength in creating relevant written content that tell your company's story in an informal, entertaining and educational manner.
The ability to help your site's SEO without being obvious about it.
It is very easy to use and Substack has excellent support tools.

Return on Investment

I'm definitely seeing improved traffic from improved search engine position and publishing on Substack has helped.
By publishing on Substack I'm able to start to establish a brand identity that helps me separate Groovy Hemp Company from the pack.
There is no negative impact. Your only expenditure is time and energy. Currently, Substack is free. Hopefully, that lasts for a while.

Alternatives Considered

WordPress and Blogger

Other Software Used

Canva, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe PhotoShop

Verified User

Engineer in Professional Services (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's been an awful ordeal in previous years to try and keep up with all the content I want to push out to my followers. Forget trying to monetize anything or accept financial support in an integrated way. It has changed my workflow so much and made it much more efficient to use Substack for content distribution. Also, as a reader who likes to keep up with the latest in my industry, Substack collates my subscriptions for me, all in one place, so I can stay on top of my favorite writers without going down the social media rabbit hole.

Pros

integration of content with operations, like subscriptions & payment
design! clean and simple
curation of subscriptions I read

Cons

editor is on the primitive side - it's wysiwyg, but missing some embed options
integrate with google analytics
percentage cut that Substack takes can become a burden as your revenue grows. Problems scaling.

Most Important Features

Integration with payment/Stripe
custom domain - adds professionality
free to start - I used the free version for 9 months

Return on Investment

Takes much much less time to produce content that you can charge for. This wasn't doable before, or you'd have to build it yourself
Substack has made it much easier for me to stay on top of ex-customer communications. I get repeat business more easily now.
Substack's speed & ease mean I can offload content writing & distribution to others

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Mailchimp

Other Software Used

Zendesk Support Suite, Jira Software, Intercom, Airtable, Asana, ClickUp, Stripe

Verified User

Employee in Research & Development (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our company, we use Substack to write blogs and newletters to our investors / donors / other people interested in AI domain. We talk about how we collect data, principles of making a good codebase for Machine Learning etc.<div>

</div><div>I use Substack to write newsletter on the latest happenings in the world of technology. I'm a researcher who loves to research about new breakthroughs, new technologies, learn them. I run a community of people who want to learn about new techs and things happening in startup space.</div>

Pros

Newsletter
Analytics
Integration with Twitter
Recommendation

Cons

It's really difficult when multiple people are editing the blog at same time. Some things change or get overwritten due to which have to reload the page multiple times. Would like to see an experience just like in Google docs.

Most Important Features

Newsletter
Sharing updates easily
Analytics
Tracking important KPIs

Return on Investment

Easy monetization
Marketing

Alternatives Considered

Medium and Blogger

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visual Studio Code, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Slack

Verified User

Team Lead in Engineering (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Substack is a great platform if you want to write and distribute newsletters with a large community so basically, content sharing things can be done so easily. Since it has a large number of users or readers so there are good chances that your newsletters will reach out to most of the folks. You may distribute either free or paying.

Pros

Quick and easy signup
User friendly UI
You can own your contents
No limit on free subscribers
Fee is nominal

Cons

Customisation
Can add more features
Add custom urls

Most Important Features

Privacy
Creative
Simple and effective

Return on Investment

Full on ROI
No Regret/Negative impact
Business Grew

Other Software Used

Databricks Lakehouse Platform (Unified Analytics Platform), AiTrillion, Airbyte

Substack

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Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Most Important Features

Return on Investment

Other Software Used