Why Newsletters Fail: A Weak ‘Offer’

This is the Biggest Mistake I’m Seeing Substack Creators Make Right Now

Karen Cherry
5 min readApr 26, 2024

The biggest mistake I’m seeing newsletter writers make right now is huge but sort of invisible. At least it’s invisible to the creators who are making it.

If you make this mistake, it will deeply impact your ability to achieve success with your newsletter. It’s quite a common mistake and it’s difficult to identify in your own publication.

If you make this mistake it will hinder your ability to get and retain subscribers and if you have paying subscribers it will limit your revenue too. That’s why this mistake is a biggie.

The big mistake is not having a clear offer.

A clear offer is a promise to readers about what they will get when they subscribe to your publication… and clear communication about who the publication is for.

Do you have a clear idea of what you are offering your readers and who it is you are writing for? And are you letting your readers know what you can do for them in multiple places, in clear language?

How a clear offer helps newsletter growth

When you are clear on your offer your marketing and promotional efforts get a million times easier…

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Karen Cherry

Substack writer. Secret tree hugger. Aussie business owner with >$19K revenue on Substack. Refusing to dumb it down.