Hello all. I’m kinda coming to you hat-in-hand for some honest feedback, or well, any suggestions you think would help with PlusHeart.
I’ve always kind of struggled with both finding a niche and purposefully limiting myself in order to find an audience. I know this is kind of the “harder way” of doing things, mostly because focusing on a niche allows you to focus on providing value based on a subject, rather than saying “Hey, this is me, find me saying things valuable.”
I struggle with “taking myself out of things” because there’s a small part of me that wonders if I’d end up burning myself out on a specific subject. PlusHeart’s original focus was supposed to be a test of this, but it kind of flared out as I went from talking about esports marketing/design to “esports, creating on the Internet, Twitch culture, social media, and the psychology of all of the above.”
Anyways.
I’d appreciate if you had any feedback of what you like about PlusHeart, what you think I should focus on, or if you have any thoughts on the above. This has been an ongoing brain goblin for me as I figure out how to reach more people, encourage out-of-network sharing, and other stuff.
It's not you, it's the demand for Esports and Gaming related content on Substack. I know quite a few big publishers in this niche who are struggling in a major way (even with support from Substack). So it's clearly not Twitter where you will find your audience here.
You should be focusing in your lead gen more on Reddit and LinkedIn. You need to go where the Twitch folk hang out, like specialized Discords. It's not at all your content that is at fault here, but your lack of a lead gen funnel.
Esports and Twitch is still somewhat niche in the West. I'd be interested in doing a recorded zoom call (or not recorded if you prefer) if you would be open to that? I'm trying to get a sense of where early creators are at and especially more challenging categories where Substack Network does not have the right audience yet.
In terms of branding also for a newbie not sure what they would know what your Newsletter is about from the name "PlusHeart"? You may want to consider rebranding that if you think it's not sticky enough.
Telegram, Discord, Reddit - where the young male audience tends to hang out more. LinkedIn, for the higher click rate and steady stream of new free subscribers. What is your LinkedIn?
It's not you, it's the demand for Esports and Gaming related content on Substack. I know quite a few big publishers in this niche who are struggling in a major way (even with support from Substack). So it's clearly not Twitter where you will find your audience here.
You should be focusing in your lead gen more on Reddit and LinkedIn. You need to go where the Twitch folk hang out, like specialized Discords. It's not at all your content that is at fault here, but your lack of a lead gen funnel.
Esports and Twitch is still somewhat niche in the West. I'd be interested in doing a recorded zoom call (or not recorded if you prefer) if you would be open to that? I'm trying to get a sense of where early creators are at and especially more challenging categories where Substack Network does not have the right audience yet.
In terms of branding also for a newbie not sure what they would know what your Newsletter is about from the name "PlusHeart"? You may want to consider rebranding that if you think it's not sticky enough.
Telegram, Discord, Reddit - where the young male audience tends to hang out more. LinkedIn, for the higher click rate and steady stream of new free subscribers. What is your LinkedIn?