🎂300 Issues In: Starting The Next Chapter Of Context Collapse

Celebrating Milestones By Breaking Things: Context Collapse #300

Photo by Mehdi MeSSrro on Unsplash

Milestone time—welcome to the 300th issue of Context Collapse.

This newsletter started in 2017 when I began working as a consultant. Before that, I was a senior copywriter at R/GA and a reporter for Fast Company magazine for more than six years.

While I initially wrote the newsletter on Mailchimp, we moved to Substack in 2020. This more-or-less coincided with me pivoting the newsletter from general interest news/links/self-promotion into an industry-specific marketing, PR, journalism, and advertising publication.

In this post, I will first share insights on running a B2B industry news Substack newsletter with long-term readership and both free and paid revenue streams. I will then share what’s coming next.

Changing Situations

I started the newsletter in 2017 when I was just starting to consult. The initial purpose was to keep in touch with a readership and client/vendor/coworker/freelancer base I built up through my previous advertising and reporting work. It also helped me keep in touch with friends and family (a significant plus when you’ve lived in far-flung cities).

My life has changed a lot since 2017. I now run a thriving consulting business through Ungerleider Works. I am married and raising a five-year-old. I own a home. I’m helping an elderly parent dealing with serious health problems.

This means that I have a lot less time than I used to. At 43, I want to be more intentional with my time instead of working myself into an early grave.

If I’m saying “Oh, f@#k, not this again!” when I’m sitting down to write this newsletter, it’s time to stand back and change things up.

Next up: What I did right and wrong with the newsletter.

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Context Collapse: The Good

We’ve had consistent year-on-year audience growth. Here’s the scoop:

• 572 free and paid subscribers and 40 followers in June 2024.

• 305 free subscribers in February 2020 when we switched to Substack.

• Only major subscriber decline was in late 2023 after purging inactive and fake email addresses.

• Consistent 40%+ open rate for newsletter issues sent via email.

• Steady social traffic primarily driven by LinkedIn, Twitter, Substack’s native pp and Facebook.

  

• Long-tail web traffic driven by Google and Bing.

• Paid subscribers at three tiers bringing in approximately $30 per month and $360 per year. Subscribership grew organically. Very little churn (aka old subscribers unsubscribing and being replaced by new subscribers) for paid subscribers, lots of churn for free subscribers.

• Subscriptions also driven substantially by recommendations from other Substack newsletters (Thank you to [SIC] Weekly, Resident Contrarian, Unorthodox Blend, The Accidental Adventurer, The Rebooting, The Corsair and everyone else who recommended us)

• We have an especially engaged readership here at Context Collapse. I regularly receive emails or texts about things I publish, although I have more difficulty getting readers to like or comment on articles in Substack.

• Our readership likes the topics I was writing about and offers positive feedback.

• This newsletter generated approximately $25,000 per year in consulting leads for my business pre-paywalling and $10,000 per year post-paywall.

Which brings us to the bad about Context Collapse…

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Context Collapse: The Bad

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

• Putting a paywall on this newsletter was a strategic mistake. It lead to lost income from lead generation and referrals that 99%+ would have exceeded subscription income.

• I was writing with the aim of getting people to pay for subscriptions to this newsletter first and foremost, when I should have focused on growing free subscriptions.

• I started paywalling articles and old web content in 2023 during an industry downturn, hoping to create a new revenue stream.

• My bet on paid Substack subscriptions didn’t work out. I spent substantial energy on a sluggish paid subscription business instead of growing my consulting business.

• I made a strategic mistake trying to make $25,000 a year from Substack subscriptions when I could have made $50,000 a year in additional consulting revenue from new and existing clients with significantly less work.

• Shifting focus exclusively to PR, marketing, advertising, and journalism didn’t differentiate us enough in a crowded field of industry newsletters.

• I’m a bit burned out personally on industry coverage and, frankly, am more concerned about client projects these days. Our most popular issues were our weekly link roundups, and it showed.

Substack’s shift to “Followers” instead of “Subscribers” changed the dynamic of Substack as a newsletter CMS for me and makes it less appealing for me to use it as a primary platform. We’ll see if I stay on Substack or not…

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What’s Next.

Ever wonder what my notepad looks like? Wonder no more!

I currently write three newsletters: Context Collapse, Ungerleider Works Insider Club (signup link at bottom of page) and the Small Agency Journal on LinkedIn. I want to simplify things.

From a personal perspective, I want to write about topics I’m passionate about again. That’s important! I like writing and I like writing in public.

From a business perspective, I want to generate more consulting work. Having a newsletter that generates $75,000 a year in new consulting revenue (and if your business/clients need help with anything marketing or PR related, let me know!) is a very good thing.

So… I’m keeping this newsletter but will write about a broader range of topics. I want to write less frequently but with higher quality.

I’m also going to create an entirely new subscription tier that is all about extras. I want this newsletter to be 100% free but I also want to offer paying subscribers a product that is unique and useful.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

If you’re not a subscriber, subscribe here:

And there we go! I can’t wait to make it to Issue #400.

See you there.

- Neal U., June 5, 2024