How to Monetize with an Ad-free Option
Love Love LOVE This Newsletter Idea... which I shamelessly stole
Hi there, how’s your week been?
If you’re looking for monetization strategy ideas for your Substack publication you are going to love this idea. I stole it from the fabulous
. Zulie is a prolific Medium writer, YouTuber and creator coach with hundreds of thousands of followers, and the woman who introduced me to Medium way back in 2019.Monetizing a newsletter
Traditional monetization strategies look like this:
Get lots of free subscribers > keep subscriptions free > sell ad slots (‘sponsorship’);
OR
Get lots of free subscribers > keep subscriptions free > sell your own stuff;
OR
Turn on paid subscriptions > offer extra value or features to paying subscribers.
Zulie just shared another approach, in a recent Medium post and it’s genius.
Too much selling upsets subscribers
Zulie uses her email newsletter to sell her own products and services. She sends up to 8 sales emails per product launch, because people don’t always take action unless they have been asked a few times. An email campaign with 8 emails sells twice as many products as one with 4 emails, so it’s worth the extra effort.
Problem is, some of Zulie’s subscribers don’t like getting a lot of marketing emails. She says “The last time I ran a campaign, I got a few emails that said, “Hey, I love your newsletter, but I don’t want to be sold stuff.””
If Zulie’s ordinary emails were not incredibly helpful and well-written, people who didn’t want to get sales pitches from her would simply unsubscribe. Instead, they took the time to actually write to her, essentially saying I love your emails can you please send them without any sales content?
That’s proof of how much subscribers love Zulie’s work. ❤
A genius solution
Zulie understands that people don’t want to be sold to all the time. But she also has to make a living. So she did something ultra smart!
She created a paid subscription newsletter called “Ad-Free Zulie” for people who want all her high-value, helpful free content but without any ads. It costs $5 per month.
Not everyone will pay, but that’s okay. This is about offering her readers a choice: Get my valuable content for free and put up with being marketed to OR pay me for my valuable content.
Or unsubscribe. Simple.
Zulie is cool with the unsubscribers “I work hard on all my free content — blog posts, YouTube videos, and newsletters” she says “I’m not sad to see them go.”
A new strategy for you?
With this idea, you’ve now got another monetization option for your Substack publication: ad-free content.
You can use the strategy overtly: for example “If you don’t want to hear these messages from me or my sponsor, sign up for ad-free emails ($5)”
Or you can use it covertly. For example, in my paid newsletter I often use the phrase “Ad-free” in my subscription prompts, and frequently remind free readers that they should pay to support “Independent, ad-free reporting on food safety news for our global community”
What about you? Are you willing to pay for ad-free content like with YouTube premium? Will you use this strategy in your Substack?
I can’t wait to hear your thoughts about this.
Karen
P.S. I’ve had a bunch of people approach me on Medium lately, asking for one-on-one help with Substack. I’m thinking of launching a low-cost “get help quickly” offer. Should I do it?
$20 for a private consult seems incredibly low!
I restacked this post