Write2Sell: Which Notes Convert to Paid Subscribers?
Does virality matter for converting subscribers? And what types of Notes bring most subscribers?
Virality on Substack is subjective.
Summer last year when I started, I’d be happy to get 100 likes.
100 likes!
That was viral to me.
Then I saw Notes with thousands of likes so I started analyzing and testing.
In December one of my Notes got 10 200 likes.
Was that viral?
With the help of
, I found out that the highest number of likes is around 30 000.So yes, I consider that’s viral. For now. Until we start seeing hundreds of thousands and (why not) millions of likes. I believe this is yet to come.
Why does this matter?
Notes bring subscribers.
Period.
Now we have the option to check stats, where you can see exactly how many subscribers a Note brought you. (This function works only on the web and on each Note individually - just go to your Note and click the three dots on the upper right)
My viral Note got me 164 new subscribers:
164…
And no paid subscribers. Compared to the 10k likes that’s rather low.
Why?
Let me show you:
This Note didn’t get anything close to 10k likes, but I got 69 new free subscribers and 1 paid subscriber!
To put it clearer:
→ Note 1: 10 200 likes, 164 subscribers = 1,6% likes vs subscription ratio
→ Note 2: 158 likes, 69 subscribers, 1 paid = 44% likes vs subscription ratio
44%!
Almost half of the likes convert to subscribers! That’s huge!
And you get paid subscribers too!
Plus, it’s not viral!
So what’s the secret?
All of the answers are in the data.
I’ve looked into thousands of viral Notes so far.
I’ve also deep dived into the data of my Notes with ChatGPT.
My analysis revealed the following types of Notes that are likely to get more subscribers: