[DAY 7] Convert free readers into paid subscribers without sounding salesy
You can convert subscribers without heavy sales promotions.
Period.
How?
Simple.
With highly valuable content.
That's why crafting your irresistible offer is so important. It's also your content strategy. If you missed this, go to day 4 of this email course.
It's so simple.
You deliver high value and you make sure you deliver it consistently.
In other words:
You sell without selling.
I call this "write to sell".
There’s a reason why I named my flagship column “Write2Sell” ;)
Because we, writers are mostly introverts. We hate selling. We want to write.
Yeah! So why not write to sell?
Exactly!
If you followed my advice from the previous days, you already have a great offer and you gained free subscribers that are convertible to paid.
But how to convert them?
Use my simple system made from just 3 core rules:
Solve painful problems - this is how you deliver value.
Use dynamic paywalling - three ways to do this:
Leave the WHY and the WHAT above the paywall and put the HOW below the paywall. This way you have something like a teaser. Works miracles for me.
Give everything for free, but paywall the tangible assets (templates, challenges, formulas, cheat sheets, courses, books, etc.). That's the most powerful way, brings the highest conversion rates for me.
Paywall the convenience features - add voiceovers and videos that are only for paid members. People will pay to save time and listen or watch instead of read. This is the weakest one, so I use it as a complementary strategy.
Deliver your content consistently - the more emails you write, the more money you make. I paywall the majority of the content, but I use dynamic paywalling.
That's it!
If you do things right, you should be able to start growing with 10-20 paid subscribers per month. And if you do one promotion per month, you can go to 40.
I'm sure you can do the math: your bestseller badge is just 3 months away ;)
Cheers!
What’s Next?
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how to retain paid subscribers — because that's the name of the game of any subscription business.
See you then, Yana
P.S. I designed my monthly Writing Challenge to help you stay consistent on value delivery and conversion. You'll find tons of writing tips, storytelling techniques, and tools. Join here and get a chance to win a Spotlight session with me, where we talk about your Substack so that more people can subscribe to you. I do this to help you grow faster. Join here!
P.S.S. I have a whole chapter in the Substack Quest dedicated on Monetization. In it I deep dive into all of the tactics on how to monetize free or paid newsletter, plus my hybrid model.