How and when to charge for a newsletter? Road to 100k+/month...

12 replies
Hi guys,

I'm confused at a moment, and your help is more than welcomed!

I'm working on my sales page for a newsletter in a big niche.
Very big one.

In the beginning my idea was to create completely free newsletter where I will write every week about interesting topics and provide solutions for a lot of problems those people have/may have in the future.

My goal is to earn as much as possible from that list, so I was planing to start selling affiliate products right away.
I mean, as soon as they subscribe.
One product for their biggest problem.
Btw. one day I will create my products and promote only those instead of affiliate ones.

Older idea was to up-sell them 'premium' part of the newsletter with some extras comparing to free newsletter.
It's much more work for me, but I believe that I could charge that $4.99-9.99.

Of course, I would offer them that premium subscription only one month after they are already on my free list.

And now, here is the problem...

I need to start earning from those subscribers as soon as possible.

So, yesterday came different idea on my mind.
Could I charge a small amount for every new subscriber?
For an example, $1 or max $2, and sell them that as a commitment. I could say "I want that everyone starts following these steps I'm writing about, but because of people nature, most of you will do nothing. That's why I will make you do this commitment. You will act differently, thanks to your unconscious."?

Another, important thing - I want to start making deals with affiliates as soon as possible.
That's one of the reasons why pushing affiliate offers in my newsletter is not such a great option, at least 2 or 3 months in.

I have wrote a lot now, and it's maybe confusing.
I'm confused as well, like I said before.

So, does anyone have an experience in this field?
Even if you don't have, what's your opinion on what I should do?

I can reach 500,000 visitors to my sales page until the end of this year.
Traffic is not such a big problem for me.
My goal is to make lower six figures every month from this list.


What to do?
#charge #newsletter
  • Profile picture of the author discrat
    Originally Posted by .:mAestro:. View Post


    I need to start earning from those subscribers as soon as possible.

    So, yesterday came different idea on my mind.
    Could I charge a small amount for every new subscriber?
    For an example, $1 or max $2, and sell them that as a commitment. I could say "I want that everyone starts following these steps I'm writing about, but because of people nature, most of you will do nothing. That's why I will make you do this commitment. You will act differently, thanks to your unconscious."?
    Honestly imo I would not do this. Unless you have a specific product for sale at that price.
    And also you seem really desperate to make sales so quickly. This is not really a good mentality.

    Give it some time and build up some authority before you feel like you just have to sale, sale, sale.

    Of course you could offer god content and have a P.S. link to a product. This is a non-intrusive way to do it from the beginning


    - Robert Andrew
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  • Profile picture of the author Kay King
    I can reach 500,000 visitors to my sales page until the end of this year.

    Traffic is not such a big problem for me.

    My goal is to make lower six figures every month from this list.
    I need to start earning from those subscribers as soon as possible.
    As I read your post, you don't have any subscribers as yet so counting your earnings isn't a good idea. You have fallen into the mentality of listing what you need and what you want - rather than what you offer that people might pay for.

    If you want to start a paid newsletter - and think you can get your traffic to pay $5-10 per month - test it for the next 3-4 months. Use the traffic you say you have - pitch them after they sign up for free....

    You will need 10,000 members at $10 each - or 20,000 member at $5 each to earn low six figures. To do it by the end of the year you need to sign 1400-2800 PAYING customers every month till the end of the year.

    Does that sound doable to you?
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    • Profile picture of the author .:mAestro:.
      Originally Posted by discrat View Post

      Honestly imo I would not do this. Unless you have a specific product for sale at that price.
      And also you seem really desperate to make sales so quickly. This is not really a good mentality.

      - Robert Andrew
      Originally Posted by Kay King View Post

      As I read your post, you don't have any subscribers as yet so counting your earnings isn't a good idea. You have fallen into the mentality of listing what you need and what you want - rather than what you offer that people might pay for.

      If you want to start a paid newsletter - and think you can get your traffic to pay $5-10 per month - test it for the next 3-4 months. Use the traffic you say you have - pitch them after they sign up for free....

      You will need 10,000 members at $10 each - or 20,000 member at $5 each to earn low six figures. To do it by the end of the year you need to sign 1400-2800 PAYING customers every month till the end of the year.

      Does that sound doable to you?
      Guys,
      thank you very much for your prompt answers!
      I'm really glad someone can direct me at this moment. I really appreciate that!


      Robert, you are right. I'm desperate to get affiliates on my team as fast as possible.
      Another thing why I'm desperate is because I don't want to promote affiliate offers any more. I'm sick of it. At least not after this year ends.

      When I started to think about this project everything I had on my mind was to provide great value to my subscribers and then after month or two offer them premium subscription.
      But now, I've started thinking to cover my costs for traffic and auto responder.
      If I can start making money in less than one month with my services/products, then I can pitch some JV's to affiliates I have on my mind.


      Robert, could you please let me know what kind of funnel would you personally set up?
      Free signup -> providing value -> affiliate offers after some time?
      Or?


      Kay,
      thank you for mind opening post.

      I have already a lot of quality content I'm going to give to my subscribers.That was never an issue.
      But, now I'm here to discover all possible options in the terms of revenue

      After reading your post I decided that I will test two or three different landing pages and funnels at the same time.
      In 2-4 months I will know what LP/funnel I will start optimizing for maximum return.

      Yes, it sounds doable.
      Especially with the help of mentioned affiliates.


      Once again, thank you very much!

      Anyone else has their opinion on this?
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      • Profile picture of the author Oziboomer
        Originally Posted by .:mAestro:. View Post

        Anyone else has their opinion on this?
        Have you got and people on a list right now?

        If you have you can test launching the newsletter as a paid subscription right away.

        You might need to offer a free trial period that rolls over into a paid subscription after 14 day or 30 days or whatever you are comfortable with.

        If you haven't got a list right now then you should start building one and if your content is valued by your visitors then it shouldn't be too hard to gate some of the content and offer it as a lead magnet.

        Once you have people used to getting your gated content then you could approach them to subscribe to a paid newsletter.

        You've only got to look at the issues all the major media companies in particular those related to journalism have had to go through to get people to subscribe to them online when they've had paying subscribers for offline newspapers for years.

        Your content will have to be something they can't get anywhere else or you will have to have a celebrity or authority type persona that people will want to follow.

        Have you already got that type of following?

        Best regards,

        Ozi
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    The biggest problem with this strategy is you're doing it because your one, core, main driver is to make money with the newsletter. This dehumanizes your subscribers, which is a bad thing. My main goal is to help people. Because if you help people through your email, you actually make money more easily because money responds well to service and responds not well at all to someone trying to squeeze money from inanimate objects

    Take a big step back. Build your list to help people. Make it 95% about service. Then make it 5% about making money, with affiliate offers, products, eBooks and services.

    Charging on the front end would be a huge mistake. Not because it's a terrible idea, but because of the energy (fear of losing money or, not making enough money) behind your intent.
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  • Profile picture of the author Karl Karrlander
    Like people have already written here, I wouldn't charge for the newsletter, even if it's a measly $2 that anyone can afford.

    Only huge magazines have the luxury of doing this.

    Your email newsletter should be 100 % free and never cost anyone a dime. What if Facebook cost you $2 each month? Would you still be a member?

    Probably not.

    There's a reason why the freemium model works so well. Have people sign up for free, deliver awesome content on a regular basis, build a trust with your followers.

    Then somewhere along the line you offer them a product of your own or one you're an affiliate for.

    That's the basic model that has worked for many years now. I'm sure that many more will jump on this and give you great advice.

    Keep on listening!

    Regards,

    Karl
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    • I fully agree Karl here.

      Charging for newsletter is not the best strategy
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  • Profile picture of the author boblyle
    When people opt in for your original offer, they are interested in the item you are offering at the time, not every affiliate product in clickbank or
    W+, Your newsletter should be geared at providing information regarding the product or service that they initially wanted. IMO, if you are going to use the newsletter to promote other affiliate products, then have them opt into a list intended for that additional product or service.
    How many times have you gave your information for a certain item and your inbox starts getting flooded with every $7 offer under the sun? It's annoying as F...,
    If your intention is to do this, I would reconsider. Unless your six figure outlook includes the two zeros past the decimal point.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Originally Posted by boblyle View Post

    When people opt in for your original offer, they are interested in the item you are offering at the time, not every affiliate product in clickbank or
    W+, Your newsletter should be geared at providing information regarding the product or service that they initially wanted. IMO, if you are going to use the newsletter to promote other affiliate products, then have them opt into a list intended for that additional product or service.
    How many times have you gave your information for a certain item and your inbox starts getting flooded with every $7 offer under the sun? It's annoying as F...,
    If your intention is to do this, I would reconsider. Unless your six figure outlook includes the two zeros past the decimal point.
    This is the golden ticket for using newsletters, unless you have something to offer on a regular basis that people can't get elsewhere. And the relatively small number of people making money from paid newsletters are not charging $1-$2.

    Let's take a familiar example - how to start an online business. Typical affiliate offers are for hosting, themes, plugins, autoresponders, etc.

    One common approach is to cram all of those affiliate offers into one lead magnet and then keep hammering away, in between pitching every other new product on the market.

    A better approach is to use your newsletter to talk about actual problems, events, etc. Somewhere in the newsletter about hosting accounts, you offer a cheat sheet with a checklist for choosing a host along with your recommendation (which, coincidentally, will be the best fit according to your checklist ). To get the checklist, newsletter subscribers re-enter their email, which puts them on a sublist with a series of emails about hosting. After the initial series, you send this sublist offers, coupon codes, news items, etc related to hosting. Repeat for themes, plugins, etc. You may end up with a portion of your subscribers on all the sublists.

    This is called "segmentation", and it's very powerful.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kes Writes
    I would advise you engage in A/B testing of your model. Test the different models you have and see the best one in the long run and you stick to it.

    Don't go all out to make money without providing appreciable value to the prospect or else you loose your audience over time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jeff Rodburg
    Have you gotten any sales from those affiliate products lately? If the conversion rate is fairly low, chances are majority of your traffic are not in a "buying" mode... much harder to have subscribers pay for your "premium" content then.

    The benefit of your free newsletter is that you gain different types of leads. What I'd do is study my current traffic and optimize the content from there. Work on different marketing funnels and test them out. Make necessary changes then do it again until you get the results you want.
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  • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
    Do you have experience and an authority on what you are going to write about or what you are going to write about is just going to be based on research?

    If it's the later, I wouldn't even think about charging.

    Those that can get away with charging are going to be authorities in their field and likely providing actionable intel. Rather than just info that you can find using google and throw together what is really nothing more than an article.

    I don't think I would waste my time unless you could charge like $97 per month and the user, in the end, would be happy to pay it because your info is actually worth it.

    My 2 cents.
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