Episode 660: Unlock the Power of Substack – How to Grow Your Substack Fast with Lauren Less

EBT660 – Lauren Less

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37]  Megan Porta 

Have you heard about Substack? And maybe you’ve heard about other content creators using Substack, but you just don’t know how to incorporate it into your business. Lauren Less from Less with Lore joins me in this interview to talk all about Substack and her experience growing from 0 to 13,000 followers within a very short time.

[00:01:02]  Megan Porta 

She talks about the difference between a typical email service provider and Substack and what some of the benefits are of using Substack as an option versus the other. She talks about some of the features involved in Substack, which are growing all the time. It sounds like they now offer video and podcasts and so many other things.

[00:01:24]  Megan Porta 

There are really so many ways that you can customize your Substack experience to add the most value to your users. This is an all encompassing episode on Substack. If you need to know anything, tune in. It is episode number 660.

[00:01:41]  Sponsor 

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[00:02:25]  Megan Porta 

Combining her passions for food and helping others, Lauren has created a space people can visit for allergy, friend recipes, chronic illness support, non toxic lifestyle suggestions, and health and wellness tips. She discusses everything from fitness with chronic illness to tips for traveling with food allergies and everything in between. Lauren, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:47]  Megan Porta 

How are you today?

[00:02:49]  Lauren Less 

Good. Thanks so much for having me. I’m so excited. How are you doing?

[00:02:51]  Megan Porta 

I am super excited. Thank you. I’m good. I’m just getting over a cold, but can I push through this? We’re going to make it happen and it’s going to be awesome.

[00:03:02]  Lauren Less 

I feel like everyone’s sick right now.

[00:03:04]  Megan Porta 

I know. I swear, like, not just normal like two day cold sick either. It has been such a crazy January for people for sickness. I feel like. Yeah, yeah, not good. But February is going to be different. Hopefully I can feel it. I am so excited to talk about Substack. This is something we do not talk about much on Eat Blog Talk and just because I think a lot of people aren’t really experts in this area, but you know so much about it. I’m super excited to get into it. Before we do that though, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:03:39]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I would say my fun fact is that I have several food allergies and I wasn’t diagnosed with them until I was 25. So I just went my whole life eating whatever I wanted and then all of a sudden I. My immune system kind of had a little breakdown and I all of a sudden had all of these food allergies.

[00:03:59]  Lauren Less 

And that’s kind of how my page came about and my blog and my email list then came about. So that’s kind of my short story. But that’s my fun fact.

[00:04:11]  Megan Porta 

So what were the, what are the main allergies that you discovered?

[00:04:14]  Lauren Less 

Wheat, dairy, egg, sesame, soy, peanut.

[00:04:19]  Megan Porta 

Oh my gosh. That’s like everything.

[00:04:19]  Lauren Less 

Lots of major allergies.

[00:04:22]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:04:23]  Lauren Less 

And that’s, you know, that’s kind of how I started because people would be like, what eat? And then I was like, well, here’s what I eat. You know, there’s a lot of people who are struggling with similar things, whether they have food allergies or they have some type of autoimmune issue that makes them not be able to eat gluten or, you know, they’re changing their diet to feel better or they have sensitivities.

[00:04:42]  Lauren Less 

There’s so many different reasons that people will, you know, eat a certain way. So that was kind of my goal is to try to help people who have to eat a certain way so that they can find things to eat.

[00:04:54]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. I love when blogs start for this reason to like, obviously you’re having an issue. So I don’t love that. But you are extending what you’ve learned to others so that you can add value to their lives and make it easier for them. I love that. And have you had a lot of people reach out and just say, thank you.

[00:05:15]  Megan Porta 

This is the resource I’ve been looking for.

[00:05:18]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I save all the messages in a little folder just like when I get, like, discouraged or, you know, it’s, it’s. It can be isolating sometimes. So I like, look up, look at the messages and I’m like, okay, this is why I have to keep going. Because if you make a difference in one person’s life, it’s worth it.

[00:05:34]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. Okay, so that tells us a little bit about your blog. So when did you start your blog?

[00:05:40]  Lauren Less 

I started my blog at some point last year.

[00:05:45]  Megan Porta 

Oh, so it’s very fresh.

[00:05:47]  Lauren Less 

It’s pretty fresh, actually. It might have been the year before. I finally invested in, like blog coaching last year and started learning because I started the blog. So there was that day that Instagram went out. Remember that?

[00:06:00]  Megan Porta 

I do remember that.

[00:06:01]  Lauren Less 

So everyone was freaking out and it was like, you don’t own your content. Right. You don’t own your Instagram platform, you don’t own your TikTok. Obviously, that’s a whole other thing. And I think that is why people are more interested in Substack now too. But so it was kind of a wake up call for me as someone who had started, you know, making money from Instagram, that, hey, like, you don’t own any of this.

[00:06:22]  Lauren Less 

It could all go away in one day. And people were saying, you know, start a blog, start an email list. And so I started a blog and I finally understood why people had blogs. And then after that, I started an email list. So it was kind of from that moment that I was like, okay, I have to, like, start building this out so that, you know, people can find me if for some reason a social media platform goes away.

[00:06:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. And as we’re seeing right now with TikTok, I mean, you never know when something is going to go away. And blogs are super important and so are email lists. So talk about that. So you realized you needed to have a blog and then you were like, oh, I need to get in on getting an email list together too.

[00:07:06]  Megan Porta 

What made you realize that was super important?

[00:07:09]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I actually started the email list kind of as a way to help with my blog and to bring more people to my blog. Sorry, I was thinking that it was 2024 still. So I did the blog coaching in 2023. And then when I started the blog, I just didn’t touch it for a while because I had no idea what to do.

[00:07:28]  Lauren Less 

So just wanted to fix that timeline. But yeah, yeah, Otherwise. Yeah. So I started the email list because I wanted to just also help people who were saying, like, I don’t know what to eat, I don’t know what to make during the week. So I would just provide, like, recipe ideas. Like, you know, here’s some ideas for what to make this week.

[00:07:49]  Lauren Less 

And I’ve been doing that for a year and a half now, sending out emails with just like, here’s what to make for dinner, lunch, dessert, snack. And I started on, I think, Mailchimp, and then I eventually transitioned to Substack.

[00:08:05]  Megan Porta 

Okay, what made you make that choice to go to Substack?

[00:08:09]  Lauren Less 

I liked the way it was laid out because it’s laid out kind of like a blog or website, and you can see all of the posts, all the previous posts. So I thought that was really cool. And also provides an opportunity for something that I’m going to build out more this year, which is writing more about my health journey, because I think it’s easy to.

[00:08:31]  Lauren Less 

It’s easy to navigate. I like the interface and you can discover people on it, which is also kind of cool. And that way it’s a little bit different than an email list because you can find, like, other people’s email lists, basically on the platform.

[00:08:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s like a. There’s a little community built in, correct?

[00:08:49]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, Yeah, I like that aspect.

[00:08:52]  Megan Porta 

I have not been on Substack, so it’s really hard for me to. Yeah, I’m glad you’re here to explain it because I’m like, how does it work again?

[00:09:01]  Lauren Less 

So you. Yeah, so I’ll get, like, into it. But there’s. And it is like, it was a little bit of a learning curve to learn at first. But there is a feed basically, like. Like any other social media platform where people, like, leave like, notes, basically, which is like, I guess, a little bit similar to Threads, but you can, like, write more and you can kind of.

[00:09:21]  Lauren Less 

You can also take your posts and kind of share them to that feed. But I think it’s a good way to discover other people, have other people discover you. And then there’s your, like, it’s kind of like a. Like a mini blog where all your emails, like, get posted to it and you can section it off into different posts.

[00:09:40]  Lauren Less 

So I have, like, I put my holiday guides on there. I put all my emails on there. And then I. You can also put posts that don’t send out as emails if you want to. And then I kind of have like a health post section. So I think it. It’s kind of like whatever you want to make it.

[00:09:55]  Lauren Less 

Which is cool.

[00:09:56]  Megan Porta 

That is cool. So you can. I didn’t realize you could put posts on there that don’t actually get sent to people’s emails that do you use that feature a lot?

[00:10:05]  Lauren Less 

Sometimes. It definitely doesn’t reach as many people, but sometimes I will, like, use it for a quick roundup of, like, here’s these Valentine’s Day recipes that I post on Instagram and then I send people to the Substack. I think it just depends on what you want to prioritize because obviously you could do that on your blog too.

[00:10:25]  Lauren Less 

So it’s just a different way of doing things.

[00:10:28]  Megan Porta 

Have you been able to accumulate a lot of subscribers on Substack?

[00:10:32]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I mean, I. I’ve been able to. To convert some of the. Some of my community over to Substack. Yeah. And that’s. It’s been, you know, slow, slowly growing.

[00:10:43]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Do people who are on Substack seem to be happy there with what you’re delivering and.

[00:10:49]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think so. And I always. I always ask for feedback too. And I always, you know, take feedback. Like, recently, a couple weeks ago, someone asked if I could put photos of all the meals. Like, so what I do is I send out recipe ideas and I have all the links and then I have all the ingredients listed so they can kind of, like take this, like, grocery list with them to the store.

[00:11:09]  Lauren Less 

And people were asking if I could put photos of the recipes, like, directly on there so they could see it instead of, like, clicking on it just when they open up the email. Cause I would only do, like, one recipe or two recipes with the photos. And then they just wanted to see all of them.

[00:11:26]  Lauren Less 

So I’ve been doing that, like, as soon as I got that request. So I’m definitely, like, open to changing it to make it whatever people want it to be.

[00:11:36]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s good.

[00:11:37]  Lauren Less 

Whatever’s gonna be the most helpful.

[00:11:39]  Megan Porta 

You’re asking and listening, not just asking and ignoring, like I used to do forever. Do you manage both? Do you have an email list on a different platform and Substack or are you solely Substack?

[00:11:52]  Lauren Less 

I’m just using Substack. Yeah, that’s. So I just use that as my email list now. And it’s also nice because it’s free.

[00:11:59]  Megan Porta 

Oh, okay. And then you can offer subscriptions, though, to your subscribers, Correct?

[00:12:06]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:12:06]  Megan Porta 

So how does that work? Because you can do, like, a bunch of different things from what I’ve heard.

[00:12:11]  Lauren Less 

Yeah. So I personally, the reason I started was kind of to get more traction to my blog and also to, like, provide this resource. So I am, I would say, providing more for free than most people do. I do see, like, a lot of people on Substack have, you know, something similar to me, but it’s behind a paywall.

[00:12:34]  Lauren Less 

And the reason I started was just kind of like to get more people to my blog and to give more free content, because I like to do that. So I do have, like, a paid subscriber section that has, like, you know, additional tips, tricks, like exclusive giveaways, snack ideas for the week, and breakfast ideas.

[00:12:54]  Lauren Less 

So that’s kind of like what’s behind a paywall. Like, if you, you know, want to subscribe, you get more. And that’s kind of something I’m always playing with and seeing what. What else people might. Might want for that part. And I do think that’s kind of where I’m gonna put some of my health posts to.

[00:13:10]  Lauren Less 

That will take a lot of time to write. So that’s kind of where I think I’m going with that. But the way that it works with Substack and I’ve seen other creators do this is like they’ll start writing a post and then the rest of it’s behind a paywall. So I think it just depends.

[00:13:25]  Lauren Less 

Everyone does things a little bit differently. Some people provide more free content than others. I kind of started off providing a lot of free content, so that wasn’t something that I wanted to all of a sudden take away. So, yeah, that’s kind of how that worked for me.

[00:13:39]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so those extra goodies you were talking about that you offer behind the paywall, how are those delivered? Do you deliver them all at once? Do you do it consistently or how does that go?

[00:13:52]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, so every Friday, I send out an email list and it has all of the, like, lunch, dinner, snack ideas for the week, and then at the bottom, there’s like a paywall. And then it has like, the dessert. Yeah, the breakfast and the snack idea. Sorry, the dessert is on the free version.

[00:14:08]  Lauren Less 

And then I’ll, you know, give extra tips for the week or, you know, things that are going on. Like, I just went on vacation. Here’s how I navigated vacation with food allergies. Or here are. Here’s a roundup of like, all these super bowl ideas that you can make if you’re gluten free and dairy free, just, like, different.

[00:14:28]  Lauren Less 

Just additional, like, bonus tips and tricks for people who are navigating food allergies or chronic illness or whatever it is.

[00:14:35]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Do you put a ton of time into the paywall. The exclusive content. How much time do you spend weekly on that?

[00:14:44]  Lauren Less 

So I actually have someone helping me with my email list now. So she’s kind of like making the graphics so I’m like choosing the meals and then she’s transferring it all into Canva and like typing it up and making it look pretty. But then I would say, like, the thing that I do spend the most time on every week is like making that subscriber content.

[00:15:02]  Lauren Less 

But it probably takes me like 30 minutes to do.

[00:15:06]  Megan Porta 

Okay, so that’s not bad. And I mean, this seems like something that you’re really focused on growing, so. Yeah, I think that’s a valuable part of your business.

[00:15:16]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, definitely.

[00:15:17]  Megan Porta 

I have no idea as far as like what you would charge for a subscription. Do you have a range from like a dollar a month or something to what? Like, what do people typically charge for subscriptions?

[00:15:29]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, so I, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t let you go under like $5 a month. When I was first starting, I was like, yeah, I’ll just charge everyone a dollar. But it wouldn’t let me do that. So I, I do like, I want to make it affordable. I think mine’s at the lowest it could be, which is like $5 a month.

[00:15:48]  Lauren Less 

Yeah. Or you can do an annual plan for $40. So that’s kind of where mine’s at. And I think everyone just does something a little bit different. I think there’s just like a, a limit to how low you can go and then otherwise you can charge whatever.

[00:16:06]  Megan Porta 

You want and kind of experiment with it too. I assume like $5 people are paying for, so maybe I’ll increase it to 7 or something like that.

[00:16:18]  Megan Porta 

And then you talked about just offering that exclusive content that people are wanting and actually listening to people and delivering. I imagine that is a huge piece of Substack, just figuring out what value they want and actually delivering it. Right. Do you think that is a big piece of being successful on the platform?

[00:16:41]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I think. And I think with any email list, like you want people to read it. So what, what’s going to be helpful for them? What’s going to make them want to read, you know, your email or your Substack?

[00:16:55]  Sponsor 

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[00:17:07]  Megan Porta 

And experimentation again. And just time. I think like, you just need to kind of let that play out a little bit. But do you. How do you ask people what they need? Do you just, like, simply send out an email and say, what do you need?

[00:17:29]  Megan Porta 

Or do you do surveys? Or how do you determine that?

[00:17:32]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I will sometimes do, like, polls on my Instagram story. Or you can do polls, like, within the Substack emails. Sometimes I’ll, like, put a question at the end of my email. And that’s how I got the idea to add the photos, because someone responded and was like, hey, could you add photos?

[00:17:49]  Lauren Less 

So we have a visual of, like, every single recipe every week. So that’s how I get some feedback.

[00:17:55]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. When people reply, listen to what they’re saying, maybe put it in a document. I know I used to get emails all the time back when I first started blogging, where people were basically telling me what they wanted and I would just kind of get annoyed or like, oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about, and I delete them.

[00:18:13]  Megan Porta 

And then later I was like, what was I doing? They were actually telling me exactly what they wanted.

[00:18:18]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, right. I think that is a huge thing. Just with social media in general, it’s important to listen to what people want because that’s, you know, why they’re going to be there if they. If they’re, you know, getting the things that they need from your page.

[00:18:32]  Megan Porta 

Right. And if you’re delivering exactly what people need, more people are probably going to line up to consume your content. So. And then how do you recommend developing a style on Substack? Because it sounds like you can do so many things like you can. The world is your oyster with what you want to do on Substack.

[00:18:55]  Megan Porta 

So do you recommend just experimenting a ton or how do you get to having kind of your style?

[00:19:01]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think. I think I did just experiment. And, I mean, I started by providing meal ideas, and I think people liked that, so I just got lucky that that worked out for me. And I think, you know, that’s something that can definitely work for a lot of food bloggers, but when it comes to, like, making it unique, I think that’s something to kind of brainstorm on is like, what.

[00:19:25]  Lauren Less 

What’s specific about your community that maybe is different from other people’s? Or why should they consume. Why should they use your grocery list instead of someone else’s?

[00:19:34]  Megan Porta 

Right. So thinking through marketing, kind of like, what makes your content stand out above your competition?

[00:19:42]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:19:45]  Megan Porta 

And then speaking of marketing, how do you get the word out there about like, how do you get people on your list?

[00:19:52]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I started off by just like posting it on my stories and then I also was making like reels that helped get people to my email list and I think those have helped. And I also do it on TikTok, basically just sharing like here’s some meal ideas for the week if you want them to be sent to you every Friday, like sign up in my bio.

[00:20:13]  Lauren Less 

So for TikTok I have to get people to go to my bio, but for Instagram I can just use like Manychat and have them comment, email and then they’ll just get the link. So that’s how I’ve been kind of getting people to sign up. And I think those, those types of reels also usually perform pretty well because people like to see all the different recipes.

[00:20:32]  Lauren Less 

And I’ll do like a point of view, like you’re gluten free and dairy free and you don’t know what to eat that like this week. And I think that’s really relatable for people. So it’s something that draws people in or the specific type of person in.

[00:20:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, the relatability. So do you carry that relatability from like that you use an Instagram over to your writing on Substack? Do you feel like.

[00:20:55]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think so. And I think that is also something that I want to expand on a little bit more this year when I start writing some more like health related posts. Like I want it. I want Substack to also be a place where people can easily find answers to all these different questions that I always get in my DMs because I think sometimes it’s hard.

[00:21:15]  Lauren Less 

I have like all these chronic health issues that I’ve been working on healing and I get a lot of questions in my inbox like, how did you do this? Or how did you heal Sibo? Or how did you do that? And like I have some stuff in my highlights and I have like posts but they’re like 4 years old or something like that.

[00:21:32]  Lauren Less 

So I think I’m going to start writing specific posts about all these different questions that I get so that it’s easy to be like, hey, go check out this Substack post. Like a deep details everything about this connective tissue disorder that I have or how I navigated the health system with this or you know, whatever it is.

[00:21:50]  Lauren Less 

So I’m working on like kind of building out those resources to be able to just point people towards like a post.

[00:21:55]  Megan Porta 

I love that. I think that would be so valuable. And then once you have, say, you write a Substack post on one of the topics you just mentioned, you can just link to it. Right. At any time in the future. So it’s not like. Yeah, so like an email, you know, like, oh, I sent an email two years ago.

[00:22:12]  Megan Porta 

Did you get that? But for Substack, you can actually link to it.

[00:22:16]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:22:16]  Megan Porta 

So it’s like an ongoing resource, a database that you can just keep building.

[00:22:20]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, yeah.

[00:22:22]  Megan Porta 

That’s so cool. Especially for your niche and what you cover is topics. That is huge. So if anyone else has something similar where there are allergies or, I don’t know, foods to navigate or something like that, I can see where Substack would be tremendously valuable for your audience.

[00:22:39]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:22:40]  Megan Porta 

Can we talk about the community part of Substack again? So I know it’s set up totally differently than a typical email provider, but is there, like, from what I’ve heard, you can go and connect with other creators and kind of like establish relationships with them on Substack, right?

[00:23:01]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, you can. I’m pretty sure you can do collaborative posts with other creators. That’s not something I’ve tried yet, just because it’s sometimes hard to just align with other people. But that’s something I’ve been talking to other people about doing, but apparently that’s a good way to reach new people. You can also essentially recommend other creators email lists, like their Substack.

[00:23:24]  Lauren Less 

So you’re basically recommending their email list to your email list, which is cool and definitely helpful. And that’s something I’ve done with a couple other creators, and it’s been pretty successful in terms of, like, I’m looking at the numbers now. Like, you know, I’ve generated like a couple thousand subscriptions for people, and they’ve generated a couple thousand for me.

[00:23:48]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that’s great.

[00:23:49]  Lauren Less 

So that’s definitely a good thing.

[00:23:51]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s amazing. Again, especially with your niche where you’re really, really helping people. If another creator aligns with what you’re doing, I can see where they’d be like, oh, my gosh, you have to go subscribe to Lauren because she has all the information about all these allergies and navigating them. That’s really cool.

[00:24:12]  Megan Porta 

Is it easy to do, like, kind of talk me through how the community part is set up? Do you. Is it like a database that you can scroll through? How do you find these people?

[00:24:24]  Lauren Less 

It’s kind of like other social media platforms where you basically can like, type in, you know, if I know, one of my friends is on there. I can type their name in and find their page. Or you can find people just, like, through the feed feeds. But most of the people that I’ve, like, recommended, who have recommended me are people that I met, like, through Instagram.

[00:24:43]  Lauren Less 

And we’ve been like, you know, there’s been like, a conversation like, hey, I saw you’re on Substack. I’m starting a Substack. Could you recommend mine? Or, you know, people that I already had previous relationships with on Instagram, but there are, like, new connections that I’ve made through Substack as well, which has been cool because you can message on there as well.

[00:25:04]  Megan Porta 

Okay, that’s cool. And then are there any sponsorship opportunities through Substack?

[00:25:10]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I would say it’s like just similar to an email list in the way that you can, you know, have paid sponsorships from brands like on, you know, your email list, essentially.

[00:25:22]  Megan Porta 

Have you done any of those? Are they okay? Are they lucrative? Are they easy?

[00:25:28]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I would say. I mean, I think it’s easier than, you know, making a reel for me at least to just, like. I think it depends on what the brand wants. But, you know, usually it’s something that I offer is like, adding their brand into, like, the grocery list for the week or, you know, I do, like, a blurb at the top where I talk about, you know, just whatever’s going on in my life that week or things that I like.

[00:25:54]  Lauren Less 

And sometimes I’ll mention a brand in there. So it just kind of depends.

[00:25:58]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And do you feel like you get more blog traffic from Substack versus if you would have had a kind of typical email list or. I don’t know. I suppose it’s hard to predict that or know that, but, yeah, I do.

[00:26:13]  Lauren Less 

I’m not sure. I think so. I think people do like the layout of it. But I mean, I guess just simply in the way where I have, like, a couple thousand more subscribers from, like, other creators that I probably wouldn’t have had, I think that’s definitely helpful.

[00:26:31]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it’s hard to know, right? Like how hard to measure when you don’t know.

[00:26:34]  Lauren Less 

It’s hard to measure. Yeah.

[00:26:35]  Megan Porta 

The other variable to measure against.

[00:26:37]  Lauren Less 

Well, it also tells me that I’ve gotten 567 subscribers from, let’s see, from the app directly. So, I think, I mean, that’s helpful too. Like, people just finding me.

[00:26:51]  Megan Porta 

Because users go onto the app just to find information. Right? It’s not. It’s like a feed, I think, for just, like, the typical user.

[00:27:02]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:27:02]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And then they’ll find you like, oh, I have a peanut allergy. This is so great. And then they’ll subscribe to you, that sort of thing.

[00:27:10]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:27:11]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And then you said you’ve gotten about 500 or so subscribers from the app. Do you mind sharing how many subscribers you have overall with just since you’ve started.

[00:27:21]  Lauren Less 

About 13,000 subscribers.

[00:27:24]  Megan Porta 

Oh, my gosh. And when did you start?

[00:27:27]  Lauren Less 

Just, I think, like a year and a half ago. I started my email list. Yeah.

[00:27:32]  Megan Porta 

Lauren, that’s amazing. Thirteen. Oh, my goodness.

[00:27:35]  Lauren Less 

I think I transferred onto Substack maybe a year ago.

[00:27:39]  Megan Porta 

Wow, that’s really great.

[00:27:41]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I didn’t know anything about email lists either, so I just, like, didn’t know how many subscribers you want or what you want the open rate to look like or anything. So that’s been, like, a learning curve for me too. So just kind of learning as I go.

[00:27:56]  Megan Porta 

Wow, that’s so impressive. That’s great. What are your future plans for Substack? Do you have big hopes and dreams? Do you have, like, a certain subscriber number you want to hit or goals this year for Substack?

[00:28:08]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think, like I was saying, I definitely want to get more health posts on there, and I think that will be helpful to kind of build it out and then just, like, I guess, probably continuing to be more consistent with promoting it. I’ve been. I’m pretty consistent with promoting it on TikTok, but I could be a little more consistent with promoting it on Instagram.

[00:28:27]  Lauren Less 

And then, I mean, I would say, like, I would love to hit, like, 20,000 subscribers. And I think the main goal is to, like, bring people from my other platforms over to the email list and figure out, like, what I could provide them that will be valuable enough that they’ll want to sign up for it.

[00:28:44]  Lauren Less 

So that’s kind of providing value, right?

[00:28:46]  Megan Porta 

You have something that truly can offer so much help to people. I just recently found out that my body is not liking soy. And I’ve been so sick off and on for the past six months or nine months or something, and have not been able to figure out why. And then literally one day I was like, oh, my gosh, this is something I’m eating.

[00:29:07]  Megan Porta 

I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out. I’ve never had any sort of allergy or sensitivity or anything in my life, so it just didn’t occur to me. But then I figured it out, nailed it down to soy, and I’m kind of struggling. Like, I need I’ve always just eaten whatever I’ve wanted.

[00:29:27]  Megan Porta 

So now going out is really stressful for me because soy is in everything. It’s in, like, salad dressings. It’s in. I mean, restaurants can cook soy or meat or, like, anything in soybean oil. So I, you know, you have to ask. And it’s just a whole new world. So I just haven’t been going out at all.

[00:29:48]  Megan Porta 

But I. I feel like I need you. I need a resource to tell me, like, you can go here. You can’t go here. Here’s what to ask. Here’s kind of the common places to find that you’re going to find soy. And I don’t know, it’s. It’s really overwhelming when you first have something. Like that.

[00:30:05]  Lauren Less 

It is. Yeah. And that’s. Yeah, that’s what I try to, like, provide resources on, too, is like, where do you start? And like.

[00:30:13]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:30:14]  Lauren Less 

Because it is really overwhelming.

[00:30:16]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. Yep. Especially when it happens all of a sudden. So what you’re providing. My whole point in saying that is what you’re providing is so valuable. So thank you for just showing up in that way and serving people. I think this is just so important. And Substack seems to be a really good spot for you.

[00:30:38]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I really like it.

[00:30:41]  Megan Porta 

Good. I’m glad you found it. And is there anything else that we haven’t talked about that you feel like listeners would be like, oh, yeah, I need to know this about Substack before digging in, like, any features that we missed or.

[00:30:55]  Lauren Less 

So they also have a feature where you can make a podcast on Substack, which is something that I’ve been interested in checking out. I’m not really sure exactly how it works, but that’s a cool feature. I think it’s. It’s a way. It makes podcasts really accessible. I feel like in that way, you can just click, get started.

[00:31:15]  Lauren Less 

Like, you just start a podcast. So I’ve been thinking about doing that also. What else? I mean, I like how their, like, stats are laid out. I do, like, I really like the recommendations piece that I was talking about, because when people go to your page, they can see, like, oh, Lauren recommends, like, these other people that, you know, have pages similar to hers, or she, you know, she likes these pages, so maybe I’ll like them.

[00:31:39]  Lauren Less 

And then also, I know that they. They recently added video, so that’s something I haven’t explored yet. But I know you can do video, and I think you can do, like, live video, too. So that’s another. Another aspect of it. It’s. It’s hard. I mean, all these platforms are always changing, and there’s only so much you can do, so.

[00:31:58]  Megan Porta 

Right. Those are good features, though. Podcast and video and. Oh, my goodness. Basically, like, create whatever you want, it sounds like on Substack.

[00:32:08]  Lauren Less 

Yeah. Yeah. So I’m definitely going to dive into some of those other features too.

[00:32:14]  Megan Porta 

Would you say if somebody is struggling to grow their kind of typical email list, that they should try to explore Substack and just see how it goes?

[00:32:24]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think that’s definitely a good idea. I think what I like, too, about the Substack community is there. It’s, like, very supportive. It feels like a little bit different than some of the other social media platforms, and I think a lot of people feel that way because I see that over and over, people will write notes that are like, Substack is like the.

[00:32:45]  Lauren Less 

You know, it feels so cozy here. It feels so welcoming. It feels so different. And people are like, I’m deleting every other social media app besides this one. Like, I don’t know, it’s. It’s funny to like, scroll through and. And look at my feed because a lot of people seem to feel that way.

[00:32:59]  Lauren Less 

That, you know, Substack is just like.

[00:33:01]  Megan Porta 

A supportive little spot.

[00:33:03]  Lauren Less 

Corner of the Internet. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:06]  Megan Porta 

I love platforms that have that feel, because some definitely don’t. Right. Like, some, you know, you’re gonna get slammed in comments and people are just a little bit more harsh. So. Yes, I love hearing that. I feel like I’ve kind of been. Been ignoring my email for a long time, and I feel really inspired right now.

[00:33:25]  Megan Porta 

Like, oh, should I try this? Should I go to Substack? So you’ve definitely sparked a little inspiration in me, Lauren. Thank you.

[00:33:31]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, of course. I think I’m. Yeah, I think that would be great to. To have your stuff on Substack too.

[00:33:38]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:33:39]  Lauren Less 

Because I think people are interested in it too, and would read about it.

[00:33:42]  Megan Porta 

Yep. All right, well, I will consider, and I hope that everyone listening considers too. Thank you for sharing all of this valuable information and for showing up for your community the way you do.

[00:33:54]  Lauren Less 

Yeah.

[00:33:55]  Megan Porta 

It was a pleasure to chat with you today.

[00:33:57]  Lauren Less 

You too. Thanks.

[00:33:58]  Megan Porta 

To end, do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave with my listeners?

[00:34:03]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, I think just starting is, like, a good piece of advice that I usually give to people when they ask me, like, how I built what I’ve built. You just have to start somewhere. And I look back and I’m like, none of my stuff was perfect. You just have to start somewhere. You grow, you know, if you’re trying to make it perfect before you put out, put it out like you’re never gonna start.

[00:34:27]  Lauren Less 

And so I think that’s just my biggest words of advice for any anyone who’s trying to create something, whether it’s a Substack or an Instagram or a TikTok or whatever it is, you just have to start somewhere.

[00:34:40]  Megan Porta 

Or a simple blog post or a simple email. Like literally anything. That is such great advice.

[00:34:45]  Megan Porta 

I love it.

[00:34:46]  Megan Porta 

We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Lauren with everything we’ve talked about today. If you want to go look at Those, head to eatblogtalk.com/lesswithlaur and that’s spelled L A U R. Tell everyone where they can find you, Lauren.

[00:35:00]  Lauren Less 

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, TikTok, Substack Less with Laur. My blog is also lesswithlaur.com

[00:35:09]  Megan Porta 

Thank you again for being here and thank you for listening food bloggers. I’ll see you next time.

[00:35:16]  Outro 

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.