E-newsletter
marketing: how it can work for you ; Peter
Drucker: the primary purpose of any publishing business; E-newsletter
marketing: could a free newsletter work in your market? Yes – and we show you
how; Capturing
email addresses: sign up more visitors with this great home page graphic; Maximising
your sales letter’s IMPACT: the first Internet banknote letter; A tip-top
pop-up: does a pop-up still work? What should it look like? How Agora
built £38 million in six years: Early to Rise; The Daily Reckoning; Free to
paid: how to decide to convert
Dear
Colleague,
If it’s
free, is it really worth anything? Not in subscriptions marketing.
That rule
applies to almost all kinds of advice. People rarely use free advice because
they put no value on it. The more
you pay, the more you are likely to use it. Very expensive advice is followed
very carefully indeed.
A
subscription is normally paid for and that’s what Subscriptions Strategy
reports on. But can you make money from a free subscription?
Some free
newsletters are very popular because they contain useful and entertaining
editorial. However, the question many publishers would ask is:
‘What’s
the point of giving a free subscription when there are people ready to pay for
it?’
The
answer is revealed in this issue. People love free stuff. They will sign up to
receive it in their thousands because they believe they will use it. That’s
just human nature.
As
publishers, no matter what market you operate in, you can take advantage of the
‘freebie hunter’ to build new and impressive revenue streams.
Building loyal readers
A great
deal of money can be made from building a large and loyal group of readers of
your free newsletter. Once you have them aboard you can sell them a continual
stream of one-off reports, books, newsletters and events.
If you
don’t believe giving away a free publication will work in your market, then
read on. We will demonstrate how the idea corresponds with the essence of good
business management. First, here are some figures:
If your
company has 10,000 paid subscribers at £60, you make £600,000.
If you
have 1 million free subscribers and you receive on average £38 from each of
them, you have a £38 million business.
The
company we examine in this issue is international, although based in America.
It circulates its free newsletters worldwide and in 2004 it made £38 million
($65 million) through the Internet.
It took
around six years to build that revenue, so it wasn’t instant. The Internet has
taken that time to begin to fulfil its initial promise, but now we know how
it’s done and there is plenty of room for other players.
Peter
Hobday
Editor
Members-only section Subscriptions Strategy issue 59 >>>
