The Reason Why Business Lair Moved to Substack
Insights into MailerLite, Shopify, Patreon, WordPress and Substack
If you have ever been to my personal website and subscribed, you know AetherCandace.com is on Substack. As a digital entrepreneur, I always try to make sure I am using the best tools and being real about their pros and cons for the sake of my current and potential clients. There are a few reasons why I decided to come to Substack. Let’s explore.
Partially Leaving MailerLite
Months ago, I set Inbound Concepts up on MailerLite. It was great as a way to have a static website and to build a nice mailing list. There are great features. It’s very easy to build a quick website from scratch on the platform, and the landing page options are far better than other platforms I explored before settling on MailerLite for Inbound Concepts.
For various reasons, creating a blog on Inbound Concepts was not a good option then, and it isn’t now, so I decided to not only have Business Lair as a podcast and community but to also be the media hub of Inbound Concepts. To do this, it was necessary to add the blog feature to MailerLite. It set up the static website easily and included the blog feature. The best part of blog distribution is the RSS feed, and the MailerLite RSS feed was not working. I’ve been working with support for weeks, and I have a list of unanswered emails and a promise to get back to me when the tech team sorts it out. So what was the problem with the RSS Feed and blog?
Missing Social Media Details
When you work with content platforms, most of them will ask for your text excerpt as well as your featured image on the backend. WordPress, SubStack, Mailerlite, and every other content management platform will ask for this information - this is a very normal part of content management in the 2020s. The purpose of this is to be able to easily give the social media user a glimpse into the content to interest them in the article.
At the very least, the social network should be able to share the featured image and the title of the article. It will show the featured image, article title, and excerpt if they allow it.
If all is well when you share your link to social media, the article title and the featured image will show.
LinkedIn
Facebook
When the link from the MailerLite built blog was shared directly to LinkedIn or Facebook, it did not show the blog article featured image, the title of the article, or provide a bit on an excerpt.
LinkedIn
The RSS Feeds Did Not Work
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. The purpose of using them is for efficiency in getting your content out into the world without having to physically update every outlet manually. I use dlvr.it to distribute my blog content as well as e-commerce products. There are many other great options, but I love how dlvr.it helps me share content on social media platforms and how it echoes the content days later. Imagine how embarrassing it is to happily add your RSS feed to dlvr.it, and when your content goes out, you get notifications from your friends that say, “hey, the link you shared does not work.”
The article's title and featured image were missing on this Business Lair link to LinkedIn. I placed the information in the form above, but it didn’t show. When my LinkedIn connections clicked this, they received a 404 error because the RSS feed was doubling the domain. I didn’t understand why this was happening, so I contacted support. I’ve never had this issue with dlvr.it and Shopify or Substack. When I reached out to support they told me to check with the provider of the RSS feed. I informed them that it was their feed, and that is when the delays in communication started.
https://businesslair.com/businesslair.com/blog/business-lair-and-the-energy-of-money?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=linkedin
The 404 Error
MailerLite has so many great things going for them, but the blog and RSS features are not working inside or outside their platform. The RSS email campaign feature did not provide the reader with an expert as indicated or the featured image. The blog content page listing all the blog articles posted did not show the expert as indicated either.
Exclusive Content and Avoiding Patreon
I was considering Patreon because I subscribe to a few great creators, and I’ve always loved the model. I wanted to maintain my MailerLite website, Coven Cloud Community, and offer exclusive content to paid subscribers on Patreon. Patreon allows for subscription tiers, private podcasts, private blogs, and even merchandising. I was seriously about to get it together, and then I started to see information about Patreon’s lack of security and protection for children who are being exploited sexually on film. Apparently, there are people selling child pornography on Patreon, and they are letting it happen without the proper protections that websites like Only Fans use to make sure everyone. Read more about it here.
Although Substack does not have many membership tiers, it has options, allowing me to provide the followers with more information and content that won’t be and shouldn’t be public.
I still support my favorite accounts and Patreon and will continue to do so, but until Patreon becomes more strict about how children are shared on their platform, I won’t be asking anyone to support me on that platform.
Our Current Substack Tiers:
FREE
Public posts
Commenting
An open invitation to the Business Lair Community
Paid
All of the above
Subscriber-only posts and full archive
Access to the private Discord
An exclusive private podcast about money, business, and corporate climber strategies, tactics, and rituals
Weekly in-depth readings for Money Lovers, Entrepreneurs, and Corporate Climbers
Founding Member Benefits
All of the above
A personalized email reading
One Business Lair merchandise item
I enjoy what I do and really get into sharing knowledge with people, and I want this to be a great and useful experience for everyone.
Mailer Lite Services I Will Keep
MailerLite is great for simple and quick static websites. As someone who has built countless websites for almost 15 years, I don’t care to build them for myself. They require a lot of maintenance and integrations that I don’t have time for. However, I have time to build WordPress websites and maintain them for my clients.
Security
Security is also an issue. WordPress’s security plugin, Jetpack has lovely levels of security for WordPress websites, but as a person who has had a WordPress website hacked multiple times within the 15 years of working with the platform, I am not interested in the drama. This is why I personally choose to use websites like Shopify, MailerLite, and Substack - the built-in security is great and does not give me anxiety.
Email Marketing Integration
MailerLite is an email marketing tool first, and they just happen to have tools to build landing pages and websites. Because of efficiency, I have been drawn to digital tools that combine the needs of businesses. If you have a website, you NEED email marketing. For years, I integrated WordPress websites with Mailchimp. Today I use tools like MailerLite, Shopify, and Substack because they combine web presence and email for one set price.
Landing Pages
Landing pages are essential for promoting your products and services. MailerLite has landing pages that allow for collecting customer contact information and receiving payment. You can use this tool for specific products, services, and events. I have some great packages for my Inbound Concepts audience, and I will also create landing pages for my e-books and published books.
So yes, I am still going to continue to pay my monthly fee for MailerLite, even though I am disappointed in their service related to the blog. I find that they are the easiest and most efficient tool for email marketing and landing pages without having to be worried about maintenance and security for InboundConcepts.com. BusinessLair.com will move to Substack, and I feel like this is a much better fit for the community, podcast, and media hub of Inbound Concepts, a company that helps people weave webs of gold and capture the clients of their desires.
