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You don’t need to abandon the platforms that are already working to make room for something new. Sue B. Zimmerman shares how she’s pairing Instagram with Substack to expand her audience, create new revenue streams, and give people a different way to experience her expertise.
How to Use Substack to Reach New Audiences
Substack can do a lot more for your business than deliver a newsletter. It’s also a podcast studio, a live video platform, a short-form social feed, and a mini website, all under one login.
Sue B. Zimmerman has spent more than a decade as the Instagram expert, and about a year ago she started building a brand-new audience on Substack. In my recent conversation with her we dig into how to build and attract an audience on Substack.
Think Swiss Army Knife, Not Blog
Substack began as a long-form publishing tool, and Sue still thinks a long post is worth writing every now and then. But it has added Substack Notes for short posts, a podcast studio, live video, and a website that pulls everything together.
Sue calls it “an all-in-one CRM social platform.” Your posts, audio, and lives sit on one profile, so a new visitor can scroll through and see whether you walk the talk. Her reasoning: “anybody can write anything these days.” Hearing your voice or watching you answer questions live is harder to fake.
Will it replace your CRM? Probably not. But if your team is small, having this many formats in one place is a nice perk.
Treat Your Substack Website Like a Pop-Up Shop
Sue isn’t ditching her main website. It’s packed with SEO, and people find her through searches that lead straight to it.
Her Substack website plays a different role. Think of it as a pop-up shop in a busy mall. Your flagship store still matters, but shoppers already in the mall are more likely to wander into the pop-up. Sue adds custom tabs linking to her coaching, her masterminds, and the paid subscription, so people who want more don’t have to go hunting for her.
Decide What’s Free Before You Hit Publish
This took Sue a while to figure out, and so it’s worth spending some strategic time here as well. Her paid offer is a podcast, something she’d never done before, so her audience wasn’t used to hearing her for free. The first two episodes are free and the rest are for paid subscribers. Recordings of her master classes sit in the perks tab.
She also offers a founding member tier: one-to-one coaching for $697, which she says would normally run $1,000. That’s four levels in all, from free follower to founding member.
Here’s the takeaway for any platform. If you want people to pay, the paid content must feel different from what they already get. If your podcast or newsletter is already free, build something new for the paid tier instead of moving the old stuff behind a wall. (Substack takes a cut of paid subscriptions, so check the current fees before you do your math.)
A Substack Podcast in 20 Minutes
Sue records audio only, but you can create video podcasts on Substack as well. Her process is simple: pick one lesson, record it in Substack’s studio, and upload the banner and thumbnail she keeps in a desktop folder. Then she feeds the transcript to an AI assistant to draft a title, subtitle, and summary, and asks for it to be SEO heavy.
“Start to finish, 20 minutes for me,” Sue says. I have a team behind my own podcast, so I’ll admit that made me a little jealous.
Her episodes run under 10 minutes, which keeps the workload down and gives listeners something they can act on the same day.
Go Live, but Vet Your Hosts
Other creators are inviting Sue onto their Substack lives, and she says yes to the ones that fit. She credits them with more visibility, more subscribers, and some paid sign-ups, because listeners hear her and want more.
Her advice: get on a 15-minute call first, so you both know it’s a match. She’s even considering her own live show, The Substack Sip, where she’d share one tip per session.
Don’t Copy and Paste Your Instagram Feed
If you already have an audience elsewhere, resist the urge to repost everything. Sue keeps her Substack focused on selling and doesn’t teach Instagram there. As she puts it, “there’s gotta be a reason that someone would wanna follow you on one or the other.”
She compares starting fresh to going to overnight camp, where nobody knows your high school reputation and you can reinvent yourself if you wish. You can still cross-promote by linking your Instagram and LinkedIn on your Substack profile, and your Substack in your Instagram bio or stories. Sue also chose not to upload her Instagram followers’ email list, for ethical reasons, though she notes some people do.
Expect a Slow Build
Sue doesn’t sugarcoat it: “It is a slow, steady build.” She spent months settling on a vision, watched which posts brought in subscribers, and put in about a year learning the platform. She skipped paying a Substack guru and leaned on her marketing background and YouTube tutorials.
Partnerships helped. After connecting with Tracy Friedlander on Substack, the two launched the Take Action Collective, a small group of 15 people who signed up after a soft launch on a live.
Sue also says she converts free readers to paid at 13.3%, compared with an industry average of 3 to 5%. I’d treat that as one creator’s data point, not a benchmark, especially for someone starting from zero. Still, she’s considering a newsletter because her CRM email overages run over $300 a month.
Your Next Steps
- Set up your profile and website. Add tabs that point to your services, and link your other social accounts.
- Choose your free and paid split. Pick one thing you’ve never offered and reserve it for paid subscribers.
- Record one short audio lesson. Keep it under 10 minutes and see how long publishing takes you.
- Schedule a 15-minute call before saying yes to your next live invitation.
Tell your other followers why to follow you on Substack. Give them something they won’t find on your other platforms.
Transcript From Sue B. Zimmerman’s Episode
Rich: My next guest is an insightful, energetic online marketing educator, globally recognized speaker, and a no BS business and sales coach. In 2026, she’s focusing mostly on Instagram and Substack, in-person masterminds on Cape Cod and La Jolla, and one-to-one coaching clients.
And today, we’re going to be focusing directly on leveraging Instagram and Substack to help you grow your business with the incomparable Sue B. Zimmerman. Sue B., welcome to the podcast.
Sue: That was a great intro. Thanks for that, Rich. Loved it.
Rich: I always like to get energized. You bring a certain amount of energy to the conversation regardless.
Sue: Yes. Always. Always, always.
Rich: So I was doing some research before we got on the call today, and I’m just curious, how many times do you think you’ve been on this podcast?
Sue: Four or five?
Rich: This will be number six. So five times in the past, plus I think three or more times on stage at the Agents of Change Conference. Jay Baer asked for a jacket after his fifth appearance, so I think we’re going to have to invest in some gold or green jackets. So I’ll look into that and let you know.
Sue: Oh, Jay Baer. He’s a good one. Jay Baer’s a good one.
Rich: Yeah, I’ll reach out to you offline and I’ll get your measurements. It’s all good. All right.
Sue: Okay.
Rich: You’ve been an early adopter to a lot of social platforms over the years. What made you take Substack seriously, and did you see something at Substack that felt different than some of the other platforms you’ve spent time on in the past?
Sue: Yes. I decided to embrace Substack about a year ago, so we’re here in end of September 2026, so a year ago, because it was another opportunity to be visible in front of different people.
And like you, I’m always looking for new communities and opportunities to just get greater reach and meet new people. Because at the end of the day, I mean, that’s my favorite thing, is to do these in-person masterminds, as you mentioned, and events. And so I have been on the ‘Gram for over 15 years, and I’ve been on every other social platform that you can think of, and Substack was really interesting to me. But interesting to me mainly, Rich, because of how many creative ways that you can show up and share.
So do you want me to tell you what I mean by that?
Rich: Yeah, I’d love you to. Because I know that a lot of us think of Substack as primarily a place for writers and newsletters, and I think of you as a very visual marketer, so let me have it.
Sue: Yes, you are correct in saying that Substack originally was created as a long-form publication tool, and in time they had added other ways to show up and share. So you have your long-form publication, which is really important to do every now and again, at least in my opinion. And then there’s short-form notes that you can do as many a day as you want, and with those notes comes the visual piece, attaching a photo if you want to support those written words.
And more importantly the two others that I’m most excited about, Rich, one is I have my own podcast. Creating a podcast in their studio for free with ease is seamless and amazing. I’ve always wanted a podcast, but I didn’t want the hassle of a podcast. And then the live. You can go live with other content creators, other thought leaders, other people who are in alignment with what you do, and those lives stay on your feed.
So one of the beautiful things about Substack is that when you go to someone’s profile, you can scroll their feed and really get a sense of all these different modalities of sharing, and get a sense of are they walking the talk? Can I hear them say what they’re writing? Because anybody can write anything these days.
And in addition to that, what I really am fond of is the website integration. So you can build out your own website, and your subscribers are people that you can stay in touch with. So it is like an all-in-one CRM social platform, creative opportunity to most importantly connect with a new audience, and I’m always interested in that.
Rich: So let’s take those piece by piece. So you mentioned, and I may work backwards, you mentioned the website. So this is a website I assume that’s built on the substack.com domain. So it’s not necessarily like your own website, but it’s a smaller website that you’ve created and becomes kind of the home of all your IP on Substack. Would you say that that’s fairly accurate?
Sue: Yes, and I’m sharing my screen so you can see that if you would like to, where you have the opportunity to share your published articles and then pin certain publications that you’ve written or certain lives or certain notes, and then it can organize it in a theme and share your most popular content in a branded look and feel. And so you can easily tap into that website and connect with a content creator.
What I love about the website piece is that you can add your own tabs to the website. You can link, for example, I linked my coaching and my masterminds and the opportunity to upgrade to be a paid subscriber if people aren’t already paying to subscribe.
Rich: All right, and I definitely want to get into the subscriber part, but one of the things that I think is interesting about your approach is you already had a lot of established things going on, including a website. What is the role, in your opinion, between your Substack website and your existing website?
Sue: That is a great question, and I’m still processing what opportunities I have on Substack. And also, my website has so much SEO in it and people find me from doing searches on chat that lead back to my website. So right now I’m not thinking, “Oh, I don’t need a website because I have a Substack website.” I’m thinking, “Oh, there’s new people here, and if they want to go deeper, let’s make it super easy so they don’t have to go search and find my website. It’s built into the platform.”
Rich: So you’ve built this outpost right there on Substack, and a lot of times people are more comfortable staying on the platform than they would be leaving to a website that they don’t yet know about, so that makes a lot of sense.
You also talked about the podcast, and so I know from personal experience, yes, a podcast takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, and I actually have an entire team behind me and some outsourced people as well. Talk me through what your process is for creating audio content on that platform, for creating a podcast.
Sue: Yeah, so there’s a studio right within podcast where you can either do audio only or a podcast with video. I always choose audio only because I don’t want anyone getting distracted with the way my hair looks or what I’m wearing or my jewelry. I just want them to listen to me in their ears. And my process goes like this;
I have a lesson I want to teach about selling because my Substack is all about the Soulful Selling Sisterhood, how to sell with soul. And these are lessons I’ve learned along the way being an entrepreneur my whole life and having 18 businesses. So a lot of the strategies, tips, tactics that I teach have been proven to work from what I do. And because I have such a great conversion rate on Substack, which is 13.3%, and the industry average is 3% to 5%, it’s working.
So my podcast, Rich, is what I gate. What do I mean by that? It is what you get access to when you become a paid subscriber, and right now I think I have 19 published episodes. The first two are free, so people can hear my voice and get a sense of what I’m talking about. And then everyone that pays to subscribe gets to learn from me, and it’s the least expensive way to get my brain in your ears and on your terms. They’re all under 10 minutes because I’m really into these shorter, educational podcast. And people can walk away with, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to implement those three things today.”
So I do not need a team. As soon as it’s published, I upload my graphics that I have in a folder on my desktop. So I have a podcast banner graphic and a podcast thumbnail graphic, and then I write a title, a subtitle, and a short summary of what that podcast was about with the help of chat. Because I can put the transcription into chat and get all this very easily, and give the commands, make sure it’s SEO heavy. And start to finish, 20 minutes for me.
Rich: All right, I’m jealous. You also mentioned that you’re doing some live, or at least that live is available, going live is available. So talk to me a little bit about what that’s like and how that fits into your overall strategy for Substack.
Sue: Yeah, so right now I’m being asked to be interviewed by other content creators, and I’m saying ‘yes’ to the ones that I feel are in alignment for me.
Just a little pro tip to everybody. If anyone’s asking you to be on their Live, I strongly recommend getting on a 15-minute call to make sure that you are in alignment before saying ‘yes’. Because a couple of times I’m like, “This is not going to serve my audience or my business, and I don’t want to waste time.” So I do that every time.
And what I’ve experienced are some wonderful things from the Lives that I’ve been interviewed on in terms of growing my Substack visibility, subscribers, and some paid, from just people hearing me. It reminds me of Clubhouse, to be honest. They’re like, “Wait, I love what you say, but I want more of that.” And I’m like, “Well, I’ve got a way that you can get more of that.”
So the Lives have been great. I’m seriously thinking about starting a live show called, The Substack Sip. I used to have The Social Sip on Facebook, and I love alliterations, and it’s like, just come and bring whatever you’re sipping on to the party, and I’ll give you one tip on this Live.
So that’s something I’m working on putting together. And I’m not sure if I’ll have guests on it or if I’ll just go live, but I definitely see the power of live on Substack.
Rich: A sip for a tip, I love it. And if people do show up, can you put them on screen with you? I’m thinking about some of the older platforms out there. Or is this more like you’re talking, but you can just see them posing questions or something like that?
Sue: So you can bring people onto your Live. I haven’t yet done that. And you can see all the comments live, obviously, and respond in real time. Which as you and I know, is where a lot of the magic is when you’re doing a training is just to have access live.
So a lot of benefits, and I really believe that connection is really what people are craving more than anything, and I know how powerful video is and always has been. So for me to incorporate the live piece is something I’m excited about, but I want it to be strategic and like a show, so it’s not random.
Rich: Now, I want to circle back around, because you are the Instagram expert and you had spent a lot of time building up your presence there, your expertise there. If somebody listening has an audience on Instagram or LinkedIn or whatever the platform may be, how can they use the audience that they’ve already got somewhere else to start building momentum on Substack without just posting the same content on Substack that they’re posting on their other platforms? How did you do it?
Sue: Full transparency, I did not link any CVS file to Substack email file, which some people have and do, because ethically it’s just not what I think is the right thing to do. But some people have, and immediately have all their followers over on Substack.
I love that I’m starting from ground zero here. As someone who’s been teaching for 15 years, these are people that don’t necessarily know who I am or what my journey has been. And so when I come on this, it reminds me of going to camp. When you’re in high school or middle school you’re known as one persona, and then you can go to overnight camp and start, nobody even knows who you are or what you do, and you can just have your own new reputation.
And so I like that a lot because my focus on Substack is more about selling than Instagram, and because I wasn’t going to teach Instagram on Substack. That is not good. But I also know that there’s this beautiful dance between Substack and Instagram that organically can happen.
And to your point of mentioning LinkedIn, what’s organic on Substack isn’t necessarily going to work on LinkedIn or on Instagram. So there’s got to be a reason that someone would want to follow you on one or the other, and what would they get that’s different if they do? And at the top tier of who I am, is a stellar salesperson, always have been, and so I decided that was worth sharing and talking about.
Because even the way that I use Instagram and the Instagram direct messages, that I’ve generated over $200,000 on Instagram doing the things I teach. It’s just you need to have kind of the trust being built somewhere with a reputation of what people know. And so I’m slowly gaining that reputation on Substack as being someone who ethically sells in a no BS way and teaches things that work that aren’t manipulative or salesy or spammy. And people are liking that and enjoying that.
And because on Substack, Rich, you can link your Instagram account or your LinkedIn to Substack, and on Instagram you can link your Substack in the bio because you have five links there. Or in your stories, there’s a good way to cross market, because not everybody sees everything that you do all the time, as you know.
So for me, it’s the amplification opportunity. And I’m not really posting on LinkedIn, and I’m not really posting strategically on Facebook. So these are the two platforms that I’m spending the most time on.
Rich: Makes sense. Now, Sue B., one of the things that, not just on Substack but really everywhere, is always a challenge is what do I give away for free and what do I pay for?
And on Substack, you do have different tiers of subscribers or memberships, and there are paid tiers that are automatically built into the system. How did you decide what you were going to give away for free versus what you thought should go behind a paywall?
Sue: I love this question because it took me a while to figure this out. This was not like, “I’m going to join Substack and this is what I’m going to do.” I really sat with how can I strategically be on Substack in a way that isn’t Sue B. the Instagram educator? And then when I came up with the alliteration, the Soulful Selling Sisterhood, then I also realized, “OMG, I could have a podcast.” That’s what I’m going to gate. Because I never had a podcast before, so people were not used to listening to my voice for free, hearing everything I know for free. And so it was a natural, creative, exciting opportunity for me.
In addition to the podcast, they have access to my master classes that I do, and that’s for my paid tier. And the master classes can be either gated, like you could have them in your perks. There’s a tab on Substack where you can have perks, and you can have those perks be for either your free subscribers or your paid subscribers. And so instead of going live and doing live master classes, I have recordings of those master classes that I can put in the perks for people who have become a paid subscriber.
So for those that are new here about Substack, you can follow somebody or you can subscribe. And by the way, there is a setting on Substack where you don’t have to get emails when you subscribe. You can just get them in app, which is a beautiful thing. Because if you subscribe to a lot of people, it can really fill up your inbox fast. So I love that this is a tab that you can turn off.
And so you just have the following. And I recommend if you’re going to just subscribe to someone, following is the lowest thing to do. You want to subscribe to someone, even if it’s for free. And then you have a paid subscription, and then you have a founding member subscription. I don’t know if you know about this, Rich. And this is the one where I offer a coaching one-to-one for $697, and because that’s usually $1,000, it is a discounted way to get access to me.
So there’s four things to know about. I hope that answered your question.
Rich: Yeah. It sounds like there’s four tiers, and you did kind of break down, for you especially, how you determined what should be free and then what should be a value-add paid service. And I think the idea that you had never done podcasting before, made it a nice clear line between what would be free and what would be paid.
I remember years ago when Apple Podcasts started introducing paid podcasts, and the first one they tried it on was Ricky Gervais. And basically, his paid podcast was the same as his free podcast has always been, and nobody bought it. Or if they bought it, they basically asked for a refund minutes later because it was the same exact thing. If you’re going to ask people to pony up some money, then you have to be delivering something that is significantly different than what they were getting for free before. So I think it’s a really important thing to think.
Sue: 100%. Yeah. And if you train someone to get all your things for free all the time, and then you go to charge for it, they’re not going to do that.
Rich: You talked about the fact that it’s so easy for you to get a podcast up and running, and you’ve really cut down on having a team behind you as you may have had in years past.
For people who don’t have a big team, is Substack easy enough to use? Like, what does a realistic workflow look like for somebody who wants to build an audience on Substack?
Sue: Yeah, I’m not going to sugarcoat this. It is a slow, steady build. There’s nothing fast here happening. It took me several months to get a vision of what I thought could work, many, many posts to see what was being received, and seeing which ones I was getting subscribers from. And then a good year of studying it.
There’s a lot of nuances on the desktop versus the phone, that they’re just very different interfaces unless you go to a browser and log in on a browser. You can get pretty much all the same features on your phone. And because I work from my phone more than my desktop, I just needed to figure things out. And to do that, I needed to spend time here.
I didn’t want to pay a Substack guru to figure anything out for me. I had enough marketing knowledge and understanding of what it could be, and there’s a lot of YouTube videos out there if people need support. But for me, it’s how can I have a cohesive brand that looks and feels like Sue B, just like anywhere else on the internet, so that you feel at home when you land there? Like you’ve felt my vibe before, or maybe not, and it feels inviting and interesting and intriguing because you want to be making more money.
Rich: All right. Now, one of the things that it seems to me that is not necessarily unique to Substack, but definitely one of its core tenets, seems to be a community. And I had on a few weeks ago our mutual friend, longer term to you than to me, but Tracy Friedlander coming on the podcast. And I know that you’ve done some things in cahoots with Tracy on Substack. What role does building partnerships play for you when it comes to growing your presence and ultimately your bottom line on Substack?
Sue: This is such a great question, and this is really one of the many reasons I love it. Because of Substack, Tracy and I are now partners in a collective that we created called, The Take Action Collective, where we are teaching the dance between Instagram and Substack.
She has been on Substack much longer than me and knows a lot more than I do, specifically how to strategically write notes that convert. And so I love her energy, I love the way that she shows up. And we did a live together, and I immediately felt attracted to her for just how smart and savvy and directive she is, to the point where I just booked a holiday trip to Mexico to spend time with her and her husband so that we could go deeper in this partnership and this collaboration. And that is the beauty of online connections and being on a platform where you have the opportunity to connect with someone.
So it started like this. She wrote some posts. She dropped the F-bomb. She’s really snarky. I’m like, “She’s my person.” I jumped into the DM, and I’m like, “Okay, I love the way that you show up and do this. I’m going to become a paid subscriber,” and I paid for her one-to-one coaching, which was so affordable. So I got an hour of her time, and she answered all my questions that I had, and I really like the way that she teaches. She’s a musician, so the way her mind processes information is kind of like my husband’s, very data-driven, strategic, and just makes a lot of sense.
So, if it wasn’t for Substack, Tracy and I wouldn’t be in partnership. And it’s fun because we’re not business partners. This is one project that we’re doing together in community with 15 other people that raised their hands and said, “I need this. I want this,” and it was a soft, easy launch that we did on Substack on a live, and it converted, and it was great. That was proof of the platform being everything I hoped it would be and opportunistic for new relationships.
Rich: Sounds like a great collab. I asked Tracy this question, so I’ll ask you as well.
Sue: Okay.
Rich: I think one of the things that people think about Substack when they haven’t spent a lot of time on the platform is it is a place for content creators specifically, and not necessarily a place where businesses can expand.
Tracy had some very creative ideas how businesses could leverage Substack, and I’m just curious if you have any ideas or if you’ve worked or partnered with anybody who basically has a business and are just using Substack as a channel in the same way you might use LinkedIn or YouTube as a channel?
Sue: Yeah, I definitely think it is an opportunity that it can be very expansive for your business. For example, you can send out a daily email or a newsletter very easily from Substack. Now, I have one person, an executive assistant, who I write an email and I give it to her in Slack with a link to my Google Doc, and she uploads it on my website.
I have no idea how to do that. I never have done it. I’ve always had my team do it. I am the owner and founder of my business, for the first time ever, I am doing everything on my own with confidence, and my brain is front-facing creative, not back-end software.
So for me to be able to do all these things very easily and add the links and add the photos and add the footer and add the header. I know what needs to happen, but I can confidently do it. And because you can send out an email every day, and you can schedule it, you can really get ahead of yourself on a launch or your content that you want to be sharing and writing. I love that there’s a scheduling opportunity for notes and for published and for emails.
So I don’t yet have a newsletter, but I’m seriously thinking about doing that. Because my CRM that I currently have, which is Ontraport, I have to pay extra money every time I send out over my allotment of how many emails I can send, and it’s expensive. It’s over $300 a month.
Rich: It does seem like Substack could be a lot of tools that businesses are either already using or haven’t used because they’re too expensive, all bundled into this one package. Plus, as you’ve shown, it’s also a way to generate new streams of revenue.
Sue, if people want to learn more about your Substack experience, more about the courses you’re teaching, and more about your subscriptions, where can they find you online?
Sue: Yeah, so definitely head over to Substack and search my name, Sue B. Zimmerman. I’m Sue B. Zimmerman everywhere, and my community is called, The Soulful Selling Sisterhood, which is another way that you could search and find me.
And if you do make your way there, connect with me and tell me that you came over from this amazing interview, because I love knowing how people connect with me. And that to me, Rich, is like, whoa, the podcasts are working.
Rich: Excellent. And Sue B., we’ll have all those links in the show notes to make it easy for people to find you. Always great seeing you. Thank you so much for your time today.
Sue: Same.
Show Notes:
Sue B. Zimmerman is an online marketing educator, globally recognized speaker, and business and sales coach who helps entrepreneurs build visibility, connection, and sales through social media. A longtime Instagram expert and lifelong entrepreneur, Sue is now bringing her no-BS approach to selling and business growth to Substack. Connect with Sue on Instagram or follow her on Substack.
Rich Brooks is the President of flyte new media, digital agency offering branding, web design, and digital marketing located in Portland, Maine. He is also the founder of the Agents of Change. He’s passionate about helping small businesses grow online and has put his nearly 30 years of experience into the book, The Lead Machine: The Small Business Guide to Digital Marketing.