Sell Newsletter Subscriptions on Your Website

Sharing information via e-newsletter content for a fee (paid subscriptions) could add up to big dollars - even for the new online entrepreneur.

Earn Money Online with Regular, Targeted Newsletters

Being paid for supplying news (your news and information to a hungry target market) can add a very steady income to your bank account. Steady because your paid subscribers will be consistently renewing their subscription - therefore a residual and/or recurring income is money you can bank on. And it gets better - today, many online credit card processors will handle the entire process for you - that part is all 'hands off' after the initial sale!

Selling e-news is generally harder than selling subscriptions to a membership web site as you always need to be creating fresh content on a regular and disciplined schedule. Running a membership site on the other hand affords you the luxury of only adding content and resources on your schedule, not on a promised publishing date.

Selling A Newsletter Subscription

Paid newsletter subscriptions are often on a password protected website or directory of a website. When the author or website owner comes out with a new issue or even a mini-release, he or she will email all of subscribers to alert them to the new content. They, in turn, login to the website with their userid and password to read the content.

These types of newsletter subscriptions are very similar to a membership site, but there are other ways to deliver newsletter content for a fee, such as through email.

How Subscribers Pay for Your Newsletter

You'll likely want to use a payment processor such as PayPal when you sign up your subscribers. PayPal handles the recurring billing for you with a nominal fee. And, when someone signs up they can cancel at any time through PayPal which aids your subscribers comfort and trust factor about signing up for a paid newsletter subscription.

Publishing Your Paid Newsletter

Paid newsletters can be distributed in any fashion and on any schedule you choose ahead of time. Most are once per month. But you can publish once per week, or day, or whatever suits your fancy and your market's needs.

The prices for these newsletters vary and are dependant on the market you are targeting (i.e. how much they are willing to pay). You can set up your automated billing to collect from your subscribers monthly or with one lump sum yearly payment.

A friend of mine (years ago) thought it would be great to come out with a monthly newsletter in which you charge $1 per month. A few thousand paid up subscribers, would net you that dollar figure each month reliably - deposited directly into your PayPal account or sent via check every month from other payment processors. Not a bad idea, but building that list of subscribers and selling them on the idea is easier said than done.

The Real Icing on the Cake for Newsletter Subscription Strategies

Paid newsletter publishers can charge more for advertisements than free newsletter publishers. Why? The readership is higher - people are paying for the content which means they will take the time to read the newsletter and they are a better brand of clientelle than the freebie seekers, so the ads usually pull your newsletter advertisers a higher response.

That's just two of the ways to make money from a paid newsletter...

Another method is to promote your own products or recommend affiliate programs in the newsletter issues.

How Selling e-Newsletter Subscriptions is Easy Income

One bonus to this type of automated income stream is that this marketing model gives you time to create content. There's no 'rush' to the next big money making project as so many marketers are bound to do.

In essence, you are basically creating a "mini" product each month. You don't even have to be an expert in your field. Just pick a topic that is popular, research it each month and put together a report based on your research.

You could also publish a daily tips newsletter. How hard would that be?

1. Pick a subject in a lucrative market.

2. Find 30 tips about it at the beginning of each month.

3. Set up an automatic mail program (an auto-responder) to mail the tips out on a daily basis.

That’s pretty easy. You spend 1 day researching to find 30 tips, and the other 29 days you could spend getting new subscribers. Hmmmm, use your imagination on this one, there are tons of different ways you can create a profitable newsletter!!

You see, you don't have to actually know your topic as deeply and passionately as a top notch expert. Basically you just want to test your ideas using the "What they want" technique, then put together a newsletter (or tips, 2 page report, whatever) for a predetermined niche market that people are willing to buy information on.

Related: Membership Website Income