3 Reasons Your Subscribers Won’t Pay
Not enough paying subscribers? I have solutions!
So you’ve got a newsletter publication, and are offering paid subscriptions, but (oh no), hardly anyone wants to pay. What to do?!
Don’t worry, I’m here to help.
I’ve spent more than 500 hundred hours analysing Substack publications and more than two years publishing free and paid newsletters on Substack. My paid newsletter (which is NOT about writing on Substack), just cracked $17K annual revenue and has a 92% subscriber retention rate. Yay.
There are three big mistakes Substack and Beehiv writers make when it comes to paid subscriptions. The first one is obvious, but still shockingly common. The other two reasons might surprise you. Here they are…
1. A weak “offer”
Your “offer” is what you give readers in return for their hard-earned subscription fees. For example, some writers hold workshops or AMAs (“Ask Me Anything”s) for their paying subscribers. Some offer extra posts, longer essays, unlocked archives or downloadable resources.
Other writers offer nothing extra at all to paying subscribers. I call this the appreciation model.
Some writers make mega-bucks with the appreciation model. But unfortunately for…
