$$ What’s a New Subscriber Worth? $$

Do you know?

If you’re thinking of doing paid advertising or paid promotions for your newsletter you need to know if it’s going to be a waste of money or not. To understand that you first need to know what a new subscriber is worth to you, in actual dollar terms.

Marketers call this the “lifetime value” for a single subscriber and the “audience valuation” for your whole subscriber list.

Figuring out the value of a new subscriber is a bit of a fuzzy art, especially if you don’t currently operate your publication with a direct pay-to-read model.

Before you can calculate what a subscriber is worth, you need to have a clear understanding of how you earn money (or will earn money) from your newsletter… you need to know how your newsletter is monetised.

There are three main ways you can get a financial reward from your newsletter:

• A pay-to-read newsletter is one where some or all subscribers pay money directly to the publication in the form of subscription fees.
• A promotional newsletter is free for readers, it is monetised indirectly. Instead of getting money directly from subscribers, a promotional newsletter can earn money by promoting the owner’s work or by promoting other products or services to readers.