Why Your Content Isn't Growing

(It Might Not Be Your Writing)

In today’s email, I wanted to share some insights from a coaching call I had yesterday with Brian, a Noah’s Ark client.

I shared a lot of tips that I found interesting, and I think many of you will recognize yourselves in this situation.

Brian has been running a newsletter on Substack for almost a year while developing his personal brand.

He doesn’t necessarily want to quit his job for his creator business, but he’d like to generate some extra income with digital products and reach people in his industry with his method.

He works in healthcare and developed a framework to help nurses and doctors ask better questions that allow patients to truly open up and express their problems.

This way, healthcare professionals can help patients experience real transformations instead of the patient just nodding along, saying “yes, yes, I understand,” then going home and continuing to live with the same issues.

I found this really cool because he has his own unique method applied to a specific industry.

His framework is actually an application of the Tactical Empathy concept from Chris Voss applied to healthcare, which is a beautiful example of creativity.

Here’s what was interesting.

Brian was creating content on two platforms: Substack and LinkedIn.

On Substack, he had very little traction.

But on LinkedIn, he had posts that performed extremely well, including one that got over 1,200 likes while he only had 300 connections.

That’s massive. It proves there was real traction happening.

So I asked him: “Are there actually people in your niche, in your audience, who are on Substack?”

Since he’s targeting healthcare professionals, I didn’t think that Substack was really the best platform to reach them.

Today, Substack is dominated by journalism, tech, AI, writing, and business niches.

Not necessarily healthcare or other professional industries, where LinkedIn would be much better suited.

So I told him to focus on LinkedIn.

This is a real thing to understand

Analyze the platforms where you’re posting.

Is your audience actually there?

Some platforms are definitely better than others for reaching certain people.

When you’re in a very professional or niche industry, certain platforms just aren’t adapted for your content.

If you keep grinding on the wrong platform, you can improve your writing all you want.

It won’t change anything.

I invite you to reflect on this today:

if you’re not satisfied with your growth despite consistent content creation, try to analyze objectively.

Is it my content itself, or is it simply that my audience isn’t on this platform?

A good way to figure this out is to look at who else in your industry or niche is creating content on that platform.

If there’s nobody, that’s probably a sign you’re on the wrong platform.

It’s a bit like business ideas.

The business idea that nobody has ever had or executed?

It’s probably because it’s a bad idea.

Same thing with platforms.

If nobody in your industry is creating content there, why keep pushing?

Another piece of advice I gave Brian was to play on his connections.

Today, growing purely organically by publishing content when you’re unknown is extremely difficult.

There’s enormous competition, tons of people posting. So we need shortcuts to unlock the situation.

Look at me.

The reason I went from 0 to 1,500 subscribers and a €3,000/month business with Noah’s Ark in one year is that I created content around Kortex, Dan Koe reshared it, and that sent me a ton of traffic from his audience, which happened to match my ideal audience.

It wasn’t necessarily a move I had planned from the start, but it’s something you can absolutely replicate in your industry.

Identify people in your niche who talk about similar topics.

Connect with them. Engage with their content. DM them. Book a quick call.

Take the time to build real relationships.

Then you can develop partnerships:

Joint newsletters, collaborative posts, shared content.

This lets you tap into their audience and shortcut your growth.

What was interesting about Brian’s situation is that his problem wasn’t consistency.

Thanks to one of my courses, the Daily Email System, he had the ability to easily create emails and posts using the workflow I provide.

The AI-guided questions help him structure his thinking and write posts efficiently.

He had no consistency problems despite having a job plus two kids to manage.

His problem was global strategy:

Positioning, which platform to focus on, and the funnel, meaning how he would actually acquire subscribers to his list.

That’s why the last advice I recommended was to double down on the lead magnet approach with LinkedIn posts where people have to comment to receive something.

He had a post with 44 likes there, following this principle, and it actually generated multiple new subscribers.

So doubling down on it and doing these kinds of posts once or twice a week seems like a smart choice for him.

Beyond creating engagement and making posts more viral, that’s how he’ll capture subscribers to his email list, where he’ll be able to then sell his digital products.

Lead magnets are still one of the best ways to acquire new subscribers.

It worked in 2010 and is still working to this day.

So trust the Lindy Effect and build a valuable lead magnet to promote in your content.

Two-thirds of my email list comes from my lead magnet.

That means there’s a 70% chance you’re reading this email because you joined Noah’s Ark Bank after watching one of my YouTube videos or reading one of my articles.

I have over 1,060 people in Noah’s Ark Bank who joined in one year because I created a lead magnet that’s actually valuable and I promote it in every piece of content.

It gives people a reason to subscribe.

Then once they’re subscribed, they receive my emails.

Whether they unsubscribe or not after that isn’t my concern.

What matters is that more people stay subscribed than leave.

And when I create a new digital product, I can directly promote it to my list and make sales from there.

Free Content -> Lead Magnet -> Newsletters -> Product Launch once a month.

That’s how I built this business.

It’s not easy, but it’s not complex either.

If you recognize yourself in Brian’s situation...

I hope these insights help you reconsider your approach and improve your direction for 2026.

The key takeaways are:

• Make sure you’re creating content on a platform where your audience ACTUALLY is. The best way to figure that out is find competitors in your niche that managed to build a following on the platform. If you’re the only one in your niche creating there, that’s probably a bad sign.

• Double down on the platform where you get most of your results once you find it

• Build a Lead Magnet to grow your list and provide value to your audience, then sell to them directly via email, at least once a month if you want consistent revenue.

If you’d like me to analyze your situation and provide you with tailored advice in a dedicated newsletter...

Just reply to this email with your situation, your n°1 goal, and what’s holding you back from achieving it.

I will read it and provide a detailed answer in a dedicated newsletter.

As always, thanks for reading...

And welcome back to the Ark.

Noah.