What Is Substack and Why You Should Include It in Your Marketing Strategy

Substack is an online platform that allows writers, journalists, and content creators to publish and monetize newsletters directly to their audience, combining email marketing and blogging functionality. A key aspect is the direct-to-consumer model, which facilitates paid subscriptions, giving creators financial independence. Since January 2025, Substack has seen exponential growth in popularity, quickly becoming a key tool for both individual creators and corporate content marketers.

Under the definition of “A new economic engine for culture,” Substack primarily targets creators of the written word. As a marketer, you’re probably wondering (and rightly so), “Why should I invest resources in a new platform now?” We’ll explore what Substack brings to the table compared to other online written content platforms, its benefits for marketers, and what options are available for those who want to transition from another type of content to Substack.

Substack vs. Other Online Content Platforms vs. Your Own Blog

The Substack concept is not new to the market, although the mix of features it offers could be said to make it unique: a social content publishing platform (like Medium or Threads), with newsletter subscription functionality (like MailChimp) and sponsorship of favorite creators (like Patreon). A successful all-in-one solution that is starting to go viral in both the business and creative-independent spheres. Substack recently introduced a distinction between profiles and publications—the former belonging to individual creators, while the latter can be managed by a team.

Substack vs. Medium and Threads

Other content platforms that have made history impose limitations that Substack does not. Medium, for example, is not free to sign up for; it functions more like an extended digital publication where content is discovered through algorithms and internal recommendations. Unlike Medium, Substack is more “democratic” in the sense that it focuses on building a direct relationship between the creator and their audience through email newsletters. Here, the creator has control over the subscriber list and can easily implement a paid subscription model, something that on Medium is managed through their partnership program, conditional on engagement. 

The Substack blog empowers Substack writers to grow their audience, monetize directly, and maintain ownership of their Substack subscribers list.

Compared to Threads, a platform geared towards microblogging and quick conversations, similar to Twitter/X, Substack is optimized for long-form content, in-depth analysis, and essays, focusing not on ephemeral social interactions, but on delivering consistent value directly to the reader’s inbox.

Substack vs. Self-Hosted Blog

Compared to an individually hosted company blog (e.g., on WordPress with its own domain), Substack offers remarkable simplicity: it eliminates the need for technical setup, maintenance, choosing a hosting service, or separately integrating payment and email marketing systems. It is a turnkey solution for quick publishing and monetization. 

A self-hosted blog, on the other hand, guarantees you complete control over design, functionality (through themes and plugins), advanced SEO optimization, and (very importantly) total ownership of the platform and data (“owned media”). The choice depends on your priorities: Substack is ideal for those who want to focus exclusively on writing and connecting with their audience without technical complications, while your own blog is the solution for maximum control, customization, and building a long-term digital asset.

For Substack creators who want to focus exclusively on writing and connecting with their audience, the Substack platform is ideal, while a self-hosted blog is better for maximum control and customization.

The Benefits of Substack for Marketers

The Unique Advantages of the Platform

Substack is currently a rapidly growing and developing environment, especially for the business sector. Therefore, one of the main advantages of establishing your presence now is that of primacy: you will surpass your competition in the race for more online exposure. Substack is also free, financially speaking, as long as you can invest the time needed to create quality content in the form of posts and newsletters on Substack.

For marketers, Substack offers a number of unique advantages that are difficult to replicate on other platforms:

• Community management: Substack gives you the ability to build a direct and personal relationship with your audience. 
• Building your subscriber list: perhaps the biggest asset for marketers is managing your subscriber email list, providing a stable communication channel unmediated by algorithms, which ensures predictable delivery of content directly to the inbox. 
• Good open and click-through rates: Getting closer to your audience through Substack leads to significantly higher open and engagement rates compared to traditional email marketing, making the newsletter an excellent vehicle for lead nurturing.
• Cultivating customer loyalty: the platform facilitates the distribution of valuable content that can position your brand as a thought leader in the industry, all in a simple, content-focused format.

With the right Substack features, marketers can create engaging newsletters that strengthen brand authority and boost loyalty.

SEO Through Substack

In addition to the advantages related to reach and community management, you may also wonder if Substack can bring you value in terms of SEO. The answer is: yes and no. 

Substack is not a platform fundamentally built for advanced SEO optimization, as is your own website, and external links from a publication here to your site are nofollow. 

On the other hand, every post published on Substack generates a public web page that can be indexed by search engines. This means that, with a strategic approach, you can improve your organic visibility and attract new readers directly from searches. Even though the technical options for on-page SEO are more limited, the main value comes from constantly creating high-quality, niche-specific content that can naturally attract external links and signal relevance for certain topics.

Recommendations for SEO on Substack:

• Use a custom domain. This is the most important step. Connecting your own domain (e.g., newsletter.your-company.com instead of your-company.substack.com) allows you to build SEO authority for your brand in the long term, not for the Substack domain.
• Conduct keyword research. Identify the terms and questions your target audience is searching for and integrate them naturally into your content.
• Optimize post titles. The title (which becomes the H1 and often the page title) is crucial. Include relevant keywords while also being appealing to readers.
• Customize the URL (slug). Edit the URL slug of each post to be short and descriptive, and include the main keywords.
• Structure your content with headings. Use subheadings (H2, H3, etc.) to organize your text logically. It’s a good idea to include variations of keywords in the H tags.
• Create valuable and in-depth content. Search engines favor content that fully answers users’ questions. Detailed, well-researched articles are more likely to rank well and attract links.
• Add internal links. Connect relevant posts to each other to help readers and search engines discover more content within your publication and to distribute authority.
• Use alt text for images. Describe images using relevant alt text; it’s a small SEO factor and important for accessibility.
• Promote your Substack. Share posts on social media, add a link to Substack on your main website, in your email signature, etc., to generate initial traffic and signal the importance of your publication.
• Get external links (backlinks). Encourage or naturally obtain links from other relevant sites to your valuable Substack posts. The quality of the links is essential.

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If we have convinced you that Substack is worth the time investment, below are some strategic recommendations that will simplify your marketing plan for this platform.

BONUS: Best Practices for Content Marketing on Substack

Content Planning – Offer Value and Uniqueness

The essence of your content marketing strategy for Substack should be to offer content that resonates with a specific audience and aligns with your brand’s goals. This content must be high quality, well-written, and personalized enough to build a following directly on Substack. It can include:

• Exclusive analysis or commentary. Even if you also publish on your company blog, on Substack you need to offer more in-depth analysis, behind-the-scenes insights, or opinion pieces related to topics covered more generally in your content strategy.
• Useful content. Create checklists, templates, extensive examples, or case studies that can position you as a thought leader.
• Industry news and trends with commentary. Write about selected industry news, supplementing it with your company’s expert analysis.
• Q&A or AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions with experts. A very interesting feature on Substack is AMA. Host Q&A sessions based on topics related to your brand, stimulating interaction and offering unique content.
• Serialized content. Break down complex brand-related topics (tutorials, analyses, reports) into a series of emails or posts on Substack.

An important tip: focus on niche topics. Substack creators and Substack writers thrive in niche communities, making it easier to attract dedicated Substack subscribers who are genuinely engaged.

Publishing Frequency – Be Consistent and Manage Audience Expectations

Sticking to a consistent publishing schedule is more important than posting frequently. Whether it’s weekly, biweekly, or monthly, get your Substack subscribers used to expecting content from you on a regular basis – and then deliver on those expectations.

Of course, you need to consider the content creation resources you have available. Be realistic about the time and effort you can devote to creating unique, high-quality content for Substack, in addition to your other marketing efforts. It’s better to publish less frequently but consistently with valuable content than to start strong and then burn out.

Also, measure audience engagement. Pay attention to open rates and engagement metrics on Substack. These can give you insight into how often your audience is willing to consume your content. Adjust your strategy based on these insights.

As a starting point, a biweekly or monthly publishing schedule on Substack could be beneficial and sustainable. As you understand your audience and refine your content creation process, you can adjust the frequency.

Post Formatting – Aim for Readability and Engagement

The Substack interface is “clean” and designed for readability, especially for email content consumption. Optimize the length and formatting of your posts to suit this medium and encourage interaction:

• Use clear headings and subheadings, short paragraphs, bullet points, and lists to break up the text and make it easy to scan.
• Vary the length of your posts. While some sources suggest that longer content (1200-2500 words) may perform well for SEO, on Substack the ideal length often depends on the topic and your audience’s reading habits for newsletter-type content. Experiment with different lengths, from shorter, punchy updates to longer, more in-depth analyses.
• Focus on the value delivered, not the length of the post!
• Incorporate multimedia content. Use relevant images, infographics, and even embedded videos or podcasts to make your content more visually appealing. Make sure images have alt text for accessibility and SEO.
• Use strategic and subtle CTAs. While the primary goal of a Substack post is not direct sales or immediate traffic, you can include subtle calls to action in your content where relevant. This could be a link to a related resource on your website, an invitation to comment and discuss on Substack, or a prompt to share the newsletter. Avoid overly aggressive or strictly promotional language.
• Optimize titles and descriptions. Create compelling, keyword-optimized titles and descriptions for your Substack posts to improve discoverability within the Substack ecosystem and even in SERPs.

When you treat your Substack blog as a valuable channel in its own right, offering unique insights and engaging Substack subscribers, you can organically drive Substack growth, strengthen your authority, and unlock new Substack monetization opportunities.