Help me reach 1,000 subscribers

As snow.news embarks on Season 3, I'm asking for your help in building this free snow journalism endeavor and making it thrive.

Rabbit Ears Pass, near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, in February 2016.

I’m stoked to be entering my third season here at snow.news! I’m now making a concerted push to expand its readership. And I need your help.

I don’t charge money for this 100% free newsletter, but I do aim to reach the four-figure mark in subscribers, which will earn me more visibility on Substack and help this journalistic enterprise grow organically.

To cut to the chase: I currently have 689 subscribers and I want to break the 1,000 milestone this season.

I know I can’t achieve this goal without the help of my current readers, so in this post I’m respectfully asking for your assistance in promoting snow.news while also providing opportunities for you to shape the project going forward.

How you can help

I’m an introvert, so self-promotion doesn’t come naturally to me. But if you enjoy reading snow.news and would like to help expand its reach, please consider taking one or more of the steps below:

1️⃣ Fill out the survey

Please take a few moments to fill out a quick, anonymous survey to help shape how snow.news evolves. I’m looking for any feedback or advice you’d like to offer. More details on the survey are below.

2️⃣ Share snow.news with others

Thanks to all of you who’ve already forwarded this newsletter to others and helped build a solid subscriber base. If there’s anyone else in your orbit who might be interested in snow.news, please spread the word.

3️⃣ Register your reactions

Simply liking a post on Substack can give the content a big boost in the platform’s algorithm. I’d also love to read and respond to more reactions from readers, so please don’t be shy about using the comments.

4️⃣ Follow snow.news on social media

You can find snow.news on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and X. Although I’m not a huge fan of social media, I’ve resolved to be more active on these platforms this season, so please engage with me through those channels.

5️⃣ Email me with feedback

Do you have an idea for a story? Suggestions for improving snow.news? Would you like to share a heartfelt testimonial or simply introduce yourself? Please feel free to email me at mitchtobin@gmail.com.

The Colorado River near its headwaters in January 2017.

snow.news so far . . .

My introductory post went live on October 17, 2023. It graced the inboxes of 14 people, many of them sharing DNA with me.

I’ve since published 52 other posts that have focused on the state of the West’s snowpack and the latest in snow science research. I’m practicing what I call “snow journalism,” a fact-based reporting enterprise dedicated to covering all things snow. I’ve also mixed in some personal narratives and my own photography while keeping it fun with content related to snow culture and skiing/snowboarding.

snow.news has a few regular features:

• Snowpack and snow drought updates: The latest data and visualizations tracking the health of the West’s snowpack during the current season.

• snow.news roundup: A periodic collection of briefs on the latest snow-related news, research, and oddities, with links to relevant coverage and content online.

• SnowSlang: An A-to-Z look at snow-related terminology. My most recent post was L is for “lake effect snow,” and you can access a roundup of some prior content through this post or my snowslang.com website.

• SnowVis: Data visualizations that explain snow-related topics, including a variety of charts, maps, diagrams, and animations that tell the story visually.

• Water Desk stories: I partly use this newsletter as an outlet for my snow-related work at The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative at the University of Colorado Boulder that I co-direct.

Complete the snow.news survey!

I’d love to hear from subscribers and other readers so I can improve the newsletter.

In an earlier life, I was a social science researcher who analyzed survey data, and I’ve always been a fan of polling, so it was fun for me to design a quick, anonymous survey for subscribers that I’d urge you to complete.

Here’s the complete set of questions (all optional):

• How satisfied are you with snow.news?

• What topics should I cover?

• What do you like most/least?

• How often would you like to receive snow.news?

• Are the emails too long, too short, or OK in length?

• What’s your preference for geographic scope?

• Other feedback or advice?

The Sierra Nevada in October 2007.

Marketing strategies I’ve pursued

To grow the subscriber base, I first reached out to family, friends, colleagues, and anyone else I could think of who might be interested. That got me my first couple of hundred subscribers—an affirming boost out of the starting gate.

I then started to do limited advertising on Facebook and Instagram to promote the newsletter. It’s been a fascinating look under the hood of social media and the potential/perils of digital marketing.

After conducting numerous experiments, dealing with a ton of spam comments, and spending around $1,000, I acquired nearly 400 new subscribers. Yes, I’m paying out of my own pocket to attract people to a free newsletter—this passion project is that important to me!

I’ll continue experimenting with ads, but I’m also heartened that I’m increasingly gaining subscribers who arrive organically via the Substack app, social media shares, search engines, even artificial intelligence chatbots.

I now believe that the more high-quality content I produce, the more readers and subscribers I’ll attract. That’s encouraging for a journalist who has struggled to find an audience ever since leaving the daily newspaper business nearly 20 years ago.

I’m incredibly grateful that so many people have decided to sign up and remain loyal readers—it’s extremely rewarding even though I’m offering something for free.

Last but not least on the marketing front, I adopted a three-mile stretch of U.S. 550 around Silverton, Colorado. I get to advertise snow.news on two road signs in exchange for “sprucing up” the roadside on one of the most beautiful stretches of highway in the state. It’s hard to say how many subscribers I’ve gained from this strategy, but I’m (strangely) excited to do the volunteer work for both altruistic and anthropological reasons.

I’m proud to have adopted miles 69-72 of U.S. Highway 550 around Silverton, Colorado.

Thanks so much for reading snow.news and for your continued support!