Content Strategy & Marketing Automation

Content Strategy & Marketing Automation for a Physician-Led Substack

Client: A physician-authored health publication Role: Content Strategist & Marketing Automation Builder

Overview

Foundational Health is a physician-led Substack publication. I was brought on to turn a strong body of medical writing into a repeatable growth engine, building the content system, the automation behind it, and the analytics loop that tells us what actually converts paid subscribers.

I own the publication's content pipeline end to end: Substack strategy, Instagram content and DM automation in GoHighLevel, and the email marketing sequences, all produced in the author's voice.

What I Built

Data-driven content strategy

Ran a full analysis of 241 published Substack posts against email and conversion stats to find what drives paid subscriptions.

Identified that named-condition posts (e.g. specific conditions and protocols) and first-person transformation stories convert paid subscribers most efficiently and rebuilt the content calendar around that insight.

Documented findings in a Notion conversion-analysis page that now guides every content decision.

Content production system

Produce full content batches from each article: Instagram carousels, image posts, Substack notes, and link posts.

Run an ongoing reel format (short b-roll clip + on-screen hook + comment/DM call-to-action) designed to feed the automation rather than rely on link-in-bio.

Produce podcast clip reels from guest episodes.

Coverage to date spans articles on blood pressure, PPI side effects, home birth, sunscreen, and a shift worker's guide.

Marketing automation (GoHighLevel)

Built Instagram DM automation triggered by comment keywords that delivers the right article to the right reader automatically.

Designed sequenced follow-ups, e.g. deliver the article first, then the paired podcast episode a couple of hours later, to warm readers before the ask.

Email marketing

Wrote onboarding and nurture sequences in the author's voice.

Executed a full email migration from GoHighLevel to native Substack, consolidating the stack and cutting tool overhead.

Built the launch email sequence for the publication's first live monthly paid-subscriber Q&A session.

Central operations hub (Notion)

Built and populated a complete Notion workspace as the single source of truth:

Content calendar and Substack content board

Reader testimonials database (500+ entries)

Content strategy and conversion-analysis pages

Email marketing sequence library

Skills & Tools

Content strategy · Marketing automation · Email marketing · Copywriting (ghostwriting in client voice) · Social media management · Data analysis · GoHighLevel · Substack · Instagram · Notion

Results

Growth (May 1 → Aug 25, 2026):

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR: +21.8% Substack followers: +6.3% Total subscribers: +5.2% Paid subscribers: +4.7%

System & foundations:

241 posts analyzed to build the conversion-focused content strategy from evidence, not guesswork.

500+ reader testimonials organized into a reusable social-proof database.

Full content-to-automation pipeline built from scratch — every article now spins out into a coordinated set of posts, reels, DM flows, and emails.

Email infrastructure consolidated onto a single native platform.