DEEP DIVE

If you have a paid newsletter or you’re thinking about launching one — this is going to save you time and money:

Don’t do it.

Most consumer subscription businesses (aka paid newsletters) are a trap.

Putting your best content behind a paywall is almost always a bad idea.

• It’s extremely difficult to scale customers at the $50-$199 per year price point.

• Most people don’t pay for content. Think about how many newsletters or websites you pay for. Probably not many.

• It’s hard to grow an audience when you can’t share your best content with everyone.

You’re better off making your content free and monetizing it with ads. Then, sell a smaller percentage of your audience higher price products like:

• Live event

• Info product

• Online course

• Agency service

• Coaching program

• Physical products (e-commerce)

• Private community or mastermind

• Etc, etc

BUT! There are exceptions

Did you notice I said “most consumer subscription businesses”?

By “consumer” I mean: A person who buys something for personal use. They have a general interest or need that is NOT professional, financial, business, or career related.

The most successful paid newsletters serve people with professional and financial needs:

• Self-directed investors

• Institutional investors

• Business leaders and operators

• Founders and entrepreneurs

And there are some BIG paid newsletter businesses out there:

• Agora - ~$1B+ annual revenue

• MarketWise - ~$500M+ annual revenue

• Motley Fool - ~$100M+ annual revenue

• Porter & Co - ~$50M+ annual revenue

• And many more with 8-figures of ARR

Of course, successful paid newsletters still serve other types of audiences. But it depends on your definition of success.

Most paid newsletters with 7, 8, or 9 figures of ARR (annual recurring revenue) serve the above audiences.

Then almost everyone else who’s successful falls into 4 categories:

1. Wealth - Help me make or save money

2. Health - Help me lose weight, gain muscle, look better, live longer, etc

3. Relationships - Help me find a date, spouse, improve my marriage, etc

4. Politics - Make me sound smart, morally superior, confirm my pre-existing beliefs, support a cause, change the system, etc

If your paid newsletter doesn't fall into one of these four categories, people won’t pay for it. That said, the category alone won't make you successful.

You must follow best practices…

Paid newsletter best practices 

There are 4 types of paid newsletters that work:

Front-end newsletters - $49-$199 per year.

Front-ends are used to:

• Liquidate or reduce customer acquisition cost

• Find and identify customers who could buy a back-end

• Collect more information like credit card, phone number, and address for more successful future marketing and upsells

• Provide a great product experience at a low cost to increase the odds customers to will take an upsell (this doesn't always happen, but it can)

In the financial newsletter world, these types of newsletters usually provide more basic, beginner, or low risk investing information with 1-4 newsletters per month.

Subscribers get safe and simple investing advice and research.

For example, Motley Fool’s front-end product “Stock Advisor” has:

• Monthly rankings

• 2 stock picks per month

• Focuses on long term buy and hold investing

• Is recommended for people with portfolio sizes of $25k+

…all for $99 per year.

Back-end newsletters - $1999-$5000 per year

This is the real money maker. Back-ends are where publishers generate 80%+ of their profits.

Back-end newsletters provide:

• More content, more often (higher frequency)

• More complex and deeply researched strategies

• More high risk, high reward investing strategies

• More access to the guru, founder, writer, or creator

For example, Motley Fool’s back-end product’s provide more content for investors with bigger portfolios looking for more risk and more potential reward:

• 5-10+ stock picks a month

• Options trading information

• More data, rankings, and research

• Recommended portfolio sizes of $50k-$500k+

• Access Motley Fool’s co-founder (Tom Gardner’s) real money portfolios

• And more

…The back-end prices for the Motley Fool’s range from $499 to $14,000 per year.

Overview of their products here.

Bundled newsletters - $5000-$30,000 per year (or for lifetime access)

Bundled newsletters provide access to ALL paid content for one discounted price. This could be 5 back-end newsletters (that cost $1999 each) for $5,000 per year (50% off).

Bundles are used as upsells for back-end customers.

No man’s land pricing

A common mistake founders make is pricing their newsletters in “no man’s land”

No man’s land is a price range of ~$300-$900 per year.

Don’t do this. You could easily price the same product at $999-$1999 per year and get almost as many customers and more revenue.

Or the content could be split into 2 newsletters:

• ~$99 per year front-end

  And,

• ~$1999 per year back-end

There aren’t many people in the market for newsletters in no man’s land. Customers want a low cost <$199/year newsletter or they’re willing to pay $999/year or more.

Annual Vs monthly

Offer an annual plan only OR make the monthly plan much more expensive.

You want annual subscriptions so you can reinvest in growth and reduce churn.

For example, Motley Fool’s “Stock Advisor” is $99 per year or $39 per month.

That’s means you save $369 per year if you pay annually.

Your newsletter must be actionable

The user of a paid newsletter should be taking action after reading.

This could be:

• Using the information to grow their business

• Making a more informed investment or trade

• Making a better business decision

• Getting a date, losing weight, etc

Your content must provide a clear ROI. Subscribers need to think “If I invest $X into this newsletter, I could make or save 10X to 100X more.”

OR there needs to be a clear non-financial ROI:

• “I could find a spouse”

• “I could save X amount of time”

• “I could lose X amount of weight”

The math has to work out for the subscriber.

Hold their hand

The more you hold someone’s hand to help get them the results they want — the bigger your potential audience and the more money you can charge.

Make your paid newsletter should feel as “done for you” as possible.

People don’t want to learn or work. They don’t want a newsletter, course, book, or a coaching program — they want results.

To use an analogy: People want answers to the test. Not the textbook. Not the study guide. You’re selling a turn-key system that delivers results — not a newsletter!

Deliver the most valuable and immediately actionable information in the fastest and most efficient way possible. Walk them step-by-step to the result they want. Reduce the risk and increase the perceived likelihood of achievement.

This means your paid “newsletter” will likely include more than newsletter content (especially if it's a back-end). It may have tutorials, a course, coaching calls, AMAs, resources, tools, community, accountability, etc.

Use direct response marketing

Most people don’t do enough marketing.

If you have a paid newsletter you STILL need a great free newsletter that’s sent weekly or daily. You need to grow that list. Then sell to that list.

I've talked to so many people that mention their paid newsletter 1-2 times a month to their email list. That's not enough!

You should:

• Have a welcome sequence of 10-20 emails that nurtures new subscribers and sells them the paid newsletter

• Collect testimonials monthly to add to your sales page and mention in marketing emails

• Send dedicated marketing emails to your list 5-15 times per month

• Use a sales page with long copy to sell the paid newsletter

• Create a VSL or webinar to quickly build trust and sell

• And more!

Odds are you should market your paid newsletter 10X than you do now. It takes an average of 20 emails to convert someone to a free to paid subscriber.

But you might say “what if people unsubscribe or complain about my marketing emails?”

They were never going to buy anyway!

Your content and products are not for everyone. People should unsubscribe.

More emails = more money. There’s almost no point of diminishing returns on the number of marketing emails you send.

Now, if you have an advertising business, unsubscribes could hurt you in the short term. But my guess is you started a paid newsletter because you wanted to get out of the advertising model — or diversify your revenue.

To do that you need to market more, market better, and send more email.

Upsells

If you only have a front-end ($49-$199 per year) newsletter, you need an upsell to maximize revenue and scale to 7-figures and beyond.

A front-end alone is not sustainable. Add a back-end asap.

• After a front-end purchase, immediately offer the back-end as a 1-click upsell.

• Create an email sequence that converts customers to the back-end.

• Market to your existing customers just as much as non-customers.

• Buyers are buyers. Sell to your customers!

Later, you may have multiple back ends and sell them as a bundle.

Down sells

If customers don’t take the upsell, down sell a lifetime subscription to your front-end for the cost of 2-3 years.

For example, a $99 annual subscription can be sold as a $249 lifetime subscription down sell.

Get as much revenue as possible upfront. Increase your AOV (average order value) so you can invest that money intro growth.

Mostly likely your paid subscriber retention will be 6-18 months (or less). Always take the lifetime revenue when you can.

Copywriting 

Most people fail to sell paid newsletters for 3 reasons:

1. The content has no clear ROI

2. The pricing is wrong

3. They suck at copywriting

We already covered #1 and #2.

Copywriting is the #1 skill you must develop to sell paid newsletters (or any type of information product).

Read these books in this order. Then re-read them.

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

• Scientific Advertising

• The Boron Letters

• Ogilvy on Advertising

• The One Sentence Persuasion Course

• Breakthrough Advertising

• The 16 Word Sales Letter

• Expert Secrets

• Great Leads

After that, you'll know more about how to write words that sell than 99.9% of people.

Also, study what copy is working now. Join every relevant email list. Read sales pages, VSLs, and marketing emails. Save them in a swipe file.

This is a requirement! If you can’t bother to read 9-10 books, take a few courses, study copy weekly, and implement your learnings — you won't be successful in the newsletter business.

Everyone I've met who has sold 8 figures worth of newsletters or information products is obsessed with copywriting and persuasion.

That’s it

If you already have a paid newsletter, this will help you sell more.

If you don't have a paid newsletter yet and you’re considering one, I recommend you start by selling a one-off information product first.