I'm seeing a big shift with content subscription products: creators and brands with podcasts, YouTube channels, and Substack newsletters are adding community experiences to make their memberships more sticky. Because content isn't enough anymore, and ad free content isn't enough either. In this episode I break down what my team found when we dug into how paid Substack subscriptions are growing retention beyond bonus content. I walk through real examples (all the Substacks linked below), and I share the trends showing up across all of them: programming, community forums, in person events, resources, and access. I also get honest about the 10% platform fee question, why we're seeing creators move away from Patreon, and how to decide whether Substack is the right home for your paid membership. If you're a creator who wants to grow revenue from your content subscription, this one's for you.

Interested in working with my team? Book a discovery call here

Substacks Mentioned:

• Design Better
• Lenny's Newsletter
• Your Brain on Money
• Behind The Craft
• Laid Off
• Group Life, Priya Parker
• Family Troubles
• Diabolical Lies
• The Audacity by Roxane Gay

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• Connect with Becky on Instagram or LinkedIn
• Read the newsletter at beckypierson.com
• Learn more about Affinity Collective

I'm seeing a shift with content subscription products that are adding in community experiences to make their memberships or subscriptions more sticky.

Mainly I'm talking about creators or brands that have built the media side up like they have a podcast or YouTube channel or newsletters, especially on Substack.

We know and have established through many, many conversations here that content is not enough anymore.

When we're only offering content in our communities and our memberships or, or bonus content, we're often creating an overwhelm problem.

We need to think about member journey structures, other benefits that really draw people in.

Because when everyone has so much to consume all around them constantly and lots of additional noise, paying for additional, paying a premium to get additional content just adds to the overwhelm factor of their lives.

Right?

So, so content isn't enough anymore.

Ad free content isn't enough anymore.

And people in general have this overwhelmed problem.

It's also less common now to subscribe to just to support a creator that they admire.

Right.

Like this used to be more common than it is today because creators have risen to the top of the consumed media.

Which means we can't all pay like $8 a month for our favorite 10 creators just to, you know, know, put the change in the bucket of like, I'm supporting an artist that only goes so far.

I think this was more popular years ago and there's definitely people that still do this.

And I don't know about you, but like I only have a couple of organizations or creators that fall into this bucket, one of which is a local radio station here in Baltimore, wtmd, which they put on all of these amazing community events, especially their first Thursday concert series every summer.

Happy to donate to them because I'm also participating in their community experience.

So actually they're just a proof point for the case that I'm trying to make here today.

People are more likely to pay you especially a low nominal like fee per month if there's some kind of like community element, community support in addition to shore content.

Okay, so my team has been digging into this.

How can formerly content subscriptions grow and have great retention by adding in additional features beyond bonus or ad free content.

So this kind of started, we started like going down this rabbit hole because we worked with Design Better Podcast, which is on Substack.

They have a premium membership on Substack and they're leveraging community and programming strategy to make their subscription more sticky.

So we just did a strategy with them on this and looked at like how they can start to add things and Build in member journeys because they're already doing some really incredible programming.

Like for example, they do this thing called Portfolio Club, which is an ongoing series that they're doing this summer where any can come to these events and get portfolio feedback.

And I'm kind of glossing over how amazing it is, but it's, it's such a great programming strategy and it's very community driven.

And then on top of that, they've just added their Slack community for paid members, which is really interesting.

So we started looking at like, well, what are other people on Substack doing?

And so my team member Danielle put together a whole list.

So I'm gonna share them with you.

I'll also link them in the show notes if you wanna like click into these stickers.

Substack specifically.

Maybe let me know you guys, if you like this episode.

And maybe I'll do one specific for Patreon and YouTube as well.

Because right now I'm just focusing on Substack for this list.

Okay, so first up we have Lenny's newsletter, which is like the OG of substack subscriptions.

And he's making millions of dollars from his business, which has been really successful as like a paid newsletter.

So strategy.

But it's not just a paid newsletter.

He's got a lot of other things going on.

So if you don't pay, which he has 1.2 million subscribers for his regular free newsletter.

It includes occasional free newsletter posts on product growth and career.

Like that's all you get.

Right.

If you join his subscription, then you get the full archive of over 500 posts.

So yes, very much content overwhelm.

Right.

Um, his podcast episodes are also here.

That was something he launched later.

The newsletter came first.

He has a private Slack.

So it says the slack actually has 30,000PMs founders and leaders inside of it, which means that they're all paying.

So we can do some, some math there to, to see, which is crazy.

And then he also.

So the private Slack is a community forum and for you know, as somebody that was in the product community, I know a ton of people that are part of his community.

Very, very popular.

He does local meetups as well as Ask Me Anything sessions.

So he's doing programming both virtual and in person.

And then he has a bunch of product tools which is really interesting.

He calls it Product Pass Access, which has 20 over 25 free premium AI and product tools.

Um, he says it's $30,000 worth in value.

So you're gonna get access to all of these tools.

I think it like, it includes tools like granola and cursor, which is pretty interesting.

Um, and yeah, so there's.

And then he has like different tiers and different ways that you can pay, which is great.

And you can also gift people subscription, which is really nice if you have product nerds in your community or in your.

In your life.

Anyway, I think Lenny's is like kind of a gold standard that we all sort of look to.

And you can see he's doing in person virtual programming.

He has the community forum and then he's also giving people access to tools and access to people.

Like there's definitely an access that is part of it.

And I would say there's also a status.

Like if you're serious about your product career, you're probably paying for Lenny's membership.

Okay, I'm going to quickly go through some others.

So your brain on money.

In addition to their substack newsletter, paid subscribers get playbooks and guides and quarterly live workshops and ask me anything type sessions.

The craft is similar to Lenny, so discounted free tool subscriptions.

Also has a slack community, a course for product managers.

So this one's an actual course and also a library of AI prompts.

So resources, coursework.

You know, you're starting to see the trends here laid off.

She has a discord community.

She also has this curated experience called Pen Pals where she connects two members of her community and then gives them a prompt each week and they write each other letters either via email or if they want to write physical letters.

Super fun, super interesting.

Group life by Priya Parker.

Our our queen of event programming.

She wrote the book Art of Gathering.

Incredible book.

So hers has programming so live sessions that teach on specific things for hosting and she also posts weekly prompts and reflections in the substack group chat.

Danielle and I were talking about how substack group chats we can really like go back and forth on whether or not it's valuable.

Like for example in the Diabolical Lies substack paid substack like that one is quite active.

Could be pretty useful.

Those, those group chats are sort of hit or miss.

I think a lot of times taking off platform for more of a structured forum experience is a better way to go.

But you know, kind of depends and we can help you decide that if that is a decision you are making, you can book a call with us.

But yeah, this feels a little bit hit or miss as far as like a valuable enough inclusion to count as this is something valuable that we're adding on top of the content.

Okay, a couple more family troubles.

They have monthly programming, live Q&As and webinars with experts.

So again, programming is a big, heavy piece here.

And then Roxane Gay does a book club for subscribers.

So every month they do a Q and A with the book club author.

Okay.

So you can start to understand what these trends are.

Like, people are adding in programming, they're adding in community, community forum, they're doing in person stuff, virtual stuff, resources, all of these things.

But it all comes back to.

And I think this will.

Will become more commonplace.

Right?

So it all comes back to, how do you promise a transformation?

How do you provide a true member journey, how do you start to build that retention layer?

Which really comes back to, like, all of the topics we talk about on this podcast.

So, you know, dig in.

But I think this is all, like, really interesting, especially for content creators that want to make more money from their content and really want to, like, grow their content, but they also want to start thinking about, like, how to make it less one to many and start to like, build community and connect with their subscribers because content just isn't enough anymore.

Um, but there's like, something really interesting about this model, which is all of these people are in substack, which means they're paying substack 10%.

So substack charges 10%.

Is it worth it for the discoverability?

I'm not really sure.

Like, only the data can tell us, like, how many subscribers are actually coming from substack discovery.

And is it worth it to use that as a platform or should you consider a different platform to build out your actual paid membership on?

We actually had a discovery call just today with somebody who has a paid membership on Patreon and wants to move away from that.

And we worked with a membership, or, sorry, a content subscription for a very large podcast, 80,000 paying members for their.

Higher for their tier subscriber level that gets them access to more content.

And they're looking at, like, how do we increase retention?

Through doing community strategy, community programming.

And they're moving away from Patreon as well.

And so it's just, it's really interesting because Patreon's the same.

They charge 10% fee, which is very high.

And so we're seeing this pattern of creators moving away from these platforms that take a large cut and also so that they can have more control over the experience, add more features beyond just like, additional content.

I don't know if the, like, the tons of people moving away from Patreon I don't know if the same thing is going to happen with Substack or if they're going to start to have more features and functionality that allow more community and programming elements to really thrive on their platform.

Time will tell, but it's definitely an interesting problem for us to solve today with our clients.

Okay, I'm gonna put all these in the show notes, so if you wanna dig into them, if you have a substack or this is something you're considering, if you're building from scratch right now, I'm not sure sub stack's the way to go, honestly.

But if you already have a huge audience on these platforms, like, then it can, it can be really meaningful to like add that tier there and meet your members and community where they're at.

So we really are platform agnostic and like to look at each decision like, yes, of course we have favorite platforms we work with, we work with Circle, we work with Tight Knit, you know, which, which pairs with Slack communities.

And so yes, we have recommendations, but there's also a time and a place.

I had coffee with somebody yesterday where I said, hey, like, she had a paid substack.

And I was like, yeah, you should stay on substack.

And then we can do X, Y and Z.

There gets to be a certain point on the returns with the 10% charge.

Like we have to do the math to figure out is it worth it.

And that's something we can dig into in a strategic conversation.

Um, so if you're interested in working with my team on your strategy for how you start to build community to drive your retention extension, drive your growth of your content subscription layer, we would love to have a conversation with you.

Book a free discovery call.

The link is in the show notes.

And if any of these sounded interesting and you want to dig into them more or you want to take a look at all of them, I will drop those in the show notes as well.

And until next time, keep building.