Go for Paid Subscribers

Paid subscriptions sound like a dream model for content entrepreneurs. Just like a traditional media company, your audience pays monthly or annually to engage with your content products.

But subscription models aren’t a dream to operate. You can’t just launch the program, deliver the content products, and forget about it. You must actively work the model to avoid subscription fatigue and churn. 

At CEX, Simon Owens, a newsletter creator who has a successful subscription model and interviewed hundreds of media entrepreneurs who do, too, shared five things to do when launching a subscription-based revenue stream.

1. Get people through the door: Initially, you must drive awareness of yourself and your content business. Free content is the best way to advertise your paid subscription product. This free content is not promotional. It’s designed to provide value to the consumer.

Simon advises prioritizing mediums where you can deliver long-form content so the consumer can develop a deeper affinity with you and your brand. Start an ongoing relationship by offering email signups, encouraging podcast subscriptions, or sending them to your website.

Simon also advocates optimizing for “stickiness.” Send the audience on a click journey. Always publish a content piece with links to your archives so the audience can take a deeper dive. 

The goal of your free content is to reinforce brand recall. If the person can’t remember your or your product, they’re unlikely to pay for a subscription.

2. Don’t sell the same: Don’t just offer extra content for paid subscribers. Adding another newsletter with similar content in the same format in a week won’t motivate people to become subscribers. They likely already have enough of that content.

Instead, cater to your super users and provide them with sustained ongoing value. Think about the actual utility of your subscription offering. To help do that, complete this sentence, “By subscribing, this person will get better at ______.”

3. Act like NPR: Plan how to encourage the free audience to become paid subscribers. Integrate paid subscriber promotion and previews into your free content. Optimize the landing page – the URL where you send prospective subscribers. Adjust the wording to see what is most likely to motivate visitors to subscribe.

Throughout the year, give the audience gentle nudges promoting your paid subscriptions. But act like NPR or PBS twice a year and give them a “shove.” Dedicate an email or podcast episode to talk about your subscription offering and give a deeper discount than usual.

Don’t underestimate the value of “guilt” messaging. Let your audience know they’re helping you – a small business owner or solo entrepreneur – run a business and provide for your family.

4. Get to the paid: Don’t launch your free and paid offerings on the same day. Simon says trying to grow an audience while simultaneously trying to grow a customer base is like tying one arm behind your back. Give yourself an adequate runway between the free and paid launch.

Don’t create a subscription offering too detailed, so it doesn’t allow for flexibility. As you speak to your customers and learn what they want, you will likely adjust what you sell. “The things you offer on day one won’t be the same on day 500,” Simon says.

5. Lower churn: Too many entrepreneurs think of their subscriber model this way: If I get 1K subscribers to pay $100 a month, the revenue will be $1.2M a year. But that’s not true. The very day you start selling subscriptions is the same day you start losing customers – that’s called churn.

Reducing the churn is often more important than growing paid subscribers because these buyers already have handed over their money.

Simon offers an introductory phone call for new subscribers and finds those who opt for the half-hour with him have an extremely low churn rate.

Identify and engage inactive subscribers. While this can be difficult for YouTube and podcast creators, newsletter entrepreneurs can see who has opened the email and who hasn’t. Then, spend an hour each week sending 10 emails to 10 inactive subscribers and offer to get on the phone with them or do something to reengage them.

Among the other low-churn tactics: Allow buyers to “pause” their subscriptions and offer pre- and post-cancellation discounts.

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