1. They\u2019re usually much harder to sell than one-off offers<\/p>\n
2. So if you don\u2019t have super airtight email and\/or lead gen game and a strong relationship with your list you are better off selling subscriptions on the back end vs the front end<\/p>\n
3. They tend to attract the best, the smartest, and the most ambitious customers on your list – the ones you can take absolute pleasure in working your arse off to serve and support<\/p>\n
4. And you\u2019ll need those particular customers for your sanity if you’re sales copy\/bullets and\/or premiums are good, because your subscription offer will also attract a lot of the flakiest and sometimes semi-illiterate people on your list with zero self control over their dopamine addictions<\/p>\n
5. I suggest trying hard to REPEL the above in your marketing from subscribing and blocking at first slight so they become some other business\u2019 problem instead of yours<\/p>\n
6. Unless, of course, you just want to take their money knowing you cannot help them, I guess<\/p>\n
7. Subscription offers work more smoothly if you put what I call an \u201cintermediate\u201d sales page between the sales page and the order form that re-lists the most important things you want people to know to further curate<\/p>\n
8. I not only have such a page for Email Players, but we have one for Low Stress Trading, too, and they work exactly as intended<\/p>\n
9. Yes, they might \u201ccost\u201d you some sales<\/p>\n
10. No, that\u2019s not a bad thing, as it can save you a lot of time & frustration<\/p>\n
11. If anything, it creates a smaller, but more engaged and eager-to-refer customer\/client base in my experience<\/p>\n
12. It\u2019s not about squeezing every last nickel out of your market – if it is, you won\u2019t last long or will find yourself hating your own business as many subscription-based marketers I know and\/or know of do<\/p>\n
13. You\u2019ll still get customers that ignore the intermediate page, then turn around and ask questions that were answered on the sales page, the intermediate page, and the order form (again, see #4 above)<\/p>\n
14. This is because a lot of people are functionally illiterate these days due to so-called AI, TikTok, and the social media dopamine-adrenaline engagement machine<\/p>\n
15. But you will still get far fewer of the customers you don’t want if you use the intermediate page in my experience<\/p>\n
16. The subscription bubble (everyone thinks they have a \u201cNetflix model\u201d these days) that started forming in 2021\u2019ish has been hissing air, but it\u2019s still got a ways to go, probably<\/p>\n
17. Until then you might be better off focusing on selling bulk vs subscriptions<\/p>\n
18. Will not explain what that means, you either know or you don\u2019t<\/p>\n
19. Subscription offers are not first about \u201ccontent\u201d but about Experience<\/p>\n
20. That means fapGPT & other so-called AI tools that churn out content (if a content-based subscription offer, of course) will not be nearly as useful as the terminally online Sam Altman fan club thinks<\/p>\n
21. Hardly anyone really cancels subscriptions (unless super expensive) because of money<\/p>\n
22. They are lying to themselves and you when they say that, which is a good reason to ban them forever (why do business with liars?)<\/p>\n
23. If it really is because of money (it\u2019s not) they\u2019d cancel ALL their entertainment (they don\u2019t) subscriptions and daily sugar coffees (they don\u2019t), and apply for public assistance (they don\u2019t)<\/p>\n
24. The real reason likely (not always) has more to do with lack of stimulation (i.e., you bored them, or didn’t enrage them, entertain them, excite them, adequately educate them, etc)…<\/p>\n
25. The above is not \u201cbad\u201d, btw, it\u2019s simply life, not everyone is going to be your ideal customer and you are not going to be everyone’s ideal business\/person\/service – which is why you must always build your list and mail it<\/p>\n
26. \u201cBuyers are liars\u201d ain’t just a trope, so just keep building and mailing and serving whether times are good, bad, or stagnant<\/p>\n
27. Dan Kennedy’s “Loyalty fatigue” phenomenon is another reason people don’t stick around<\/p>\n
28. You may think it makes zero sense if you are solving someone’s problems, and they just sent you a ten page testimonial… but it goes back to Hitchcock\u2019s commentary about logic vs effect<\/p>\n
29. It\u2019s ultimately YOUR fault for losing their interest or not curating them out earlier in the first place<\/p>\n
30. If you focus first on service & Experience, you will inevitably replace those who leave your subscription with someone better, smarter, more eager to use your product<\/p>\n
31. Take Gary Halbert\u2019s advice about selling the foxes and ignoring the dogs – it\u2019s one of the single most important things you can do if you sell subscription offers<\/p>\n
32. Yes, there are still plenty of foxes left in most niches, as not everyone is a drooling-on-the-carpet TikTok brain\u2019d, fapGPT-prompting zombie<\/p>\n
33. However, the dogs are gaining in population, though, and probably 10 years from now any non-entertainment or necessity-related subscription offer will probably not be worth your time unless there\u2019s a radical shift in the culture and\/or social media is outright banned<\/p>\n
34. One reason business is changing fast is because people are changing (not for the better) fast – which MIGHT reverse itself – out of self preservation – during a major economic collapse though, which I believe is not only inevitable but imminent<\/p>\n
35. Either way, I suggest learning how to trade options using Low Stress Trading today, so you won\u2019t give a shyt tomorrow no matter what happens – and maybe even profit from it all<\/p>\n
36. That is what not only me, but many Email Players using Low Stress Trading are doing, who see the same writing on the wall I do<\/p>\n
37. This is why I am in the trading business, not the subscription business (i.e.., not a book & newsletter publisher who trades, but a trader who publishes books & newsletters)<\/p>\n
38. This includes our own software and Low Stress Trading companies that each have trading accounts of their own – and the profits from that trading will, if things continue on pace, dwarf the sales of the actual product sales in the not-too-distant future<\/p>\n
39. There is no going back to 1999, 2009, or even 2019 in info marketing – that game is long over, and the people who will suffer most are probably the younger people (under 30)<\/p>\n
40. None of this means you shouldn\u2019t sell a subscription offer – you should if it\u2019s the best way to serve your customers & clients, but if it\u2019s not then why bother? Selling subscriptions just because your favorite goo-roo told you to is stupid on a stick anyway<\/p>\n
41. Take all this as an \u201coption\u201d for thinking differently, and not as marketing gospel as there are always exceptions, and there is always nuance to these things<\/p>\n
Finally, just to be clear about something:<\/p>\n
Ain\u2019t none of the above 41 parts are theory.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s straight from 16+ years of publishing various subscription offers (since 2009) – including my first one (the Crackerjack Selling Club, lasted one month before I realized I hated it), my old Crypto Marketing Secrets newsletter which lasted 30 issues before I switched to my Email Players print newsletter (going strong for over 14 years now), plus owning multiple subscription-based SaaS offers – including BerserkerMail, Learnistic, and most recently our Low Stress Trading subscription coaching\/software hybrid business that itself has multiple subscription offers stacked on top of it.<\/p>\n
So yes, I have a wee bit of real world experience with this.<\/p>\n
The times they are a\u2019changing.<\/p>\n
Thus, my paid Email Players newsletter.<\/p>\n
It can help you keep sales, and customers, and engagement no matter what kind of offer you sell assuming you have (1) an\u00a0 email list and (2) an offer people want.<\/p>\n
More here:<\/p>\n