This is why having Above Avalon readers, listeners, and members (and there may be overlap among those three groups) share articles, podcasts, and daily update links is highly appreciated. Those two products remain my primary funnels for member acquisition. I depend primarily on word of mouth for new Above Avalon weekly article readers and podcast listeners. At times this can be challenging, especially given my niche focus. While those who work at massive media outlets with teams numbering in the hundreds or even thousands have built-in amplification apparatuses for sites like Twitter (where everyone retweets each other’s articles), Above Avalon has to fight for exposure. When you’re a one-man shop, the labor can get pretty intense. If you don’t produce enough paid content, then your already-existing subscribers will wonder why they’re paying you at all.Ī large media organization can service both of these constituencies easily. If you don’t produce enough good free content, then you can’t get new readers into your sales funnel so that you can convert them into paid subscribers at a later date. The end result is membership that offers more value than its cost with these two variables not being anywhere close to each other.Īs someone who’s trying to build his own paid subscription offering, I struggle each week to produce enough high-quality content to deliver to both paying and non-paying subscribers. This has resulted not only in reduced churn (a good thing), but also continued subscriber growth as my priorities have allowed me to remain focused on adding value to membership (versus trying to boost subscriber numbers). With Above Avalon, I made the decision to focus on long-term, high-quality membership relationships. Cybart argued that this just increases churn and dilutes the value of the membership: Studying paid membership models closely, I’ve noticed that many try to lure users in with massive discounts for some period of time. This is the opposite of what is typically done as many start with an industry focus and then analyze specific companies. This ends up being my secret sauce for covering Apple - start with a company focus and then move outward to cover an entire industry while keeping Apple at the central point. In addition, industries that Apple competes in receive my attention. Since Apple doesn’t operate in a vacuum, an “Apple focus” includes analysis of other companies including, but not limited to Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify, Netflix, Disney, Fitbit, and Sonos. Cybart discussed how he threads the needle of speaking to both narrow and broad audiences: By covering Apple exclusively, Cybart doesn’t need to compete with the mainstream tech blogs and can cover more arcane topics that they can’t touch on.īut the downside to going super niche is you limit the potential audience that can be converted into paying subscribers. The upside of focusing on a narrow niche is that you face less competition. His article is packed with great insights for anyone who wants to create their own niche newsletter and monetize it through paid subscriptions. In 2015, he launched the program for Above Avalon, a niche publication that covers Apple, and for $200 a year members get 2,000-word newsletters four days a week. Neil Cybart published a fantastic rundown of lessons he’s learned after five years of running a successful paid membership program.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |