By Michael Evans, January 12, 2024.
Edited To Add: The author in question followed my advice and got a new subscriber in 50 minutes 
.
Recently, I was chatting with an author in this community about their subscription. They were a member of the first accelerator and have a subscription that’s doing well, making a couple hundred dollars per month.
Except it’s plateaued and they wanted to keep growing it.
What should they do to try and grow?
After diving in, I learned that they hadn’t actually made a direct call to action about their subscription in over 2 months to the Followers on their subscription (remember if you post ONLY to Followers then only they see it, perfect opportunity to make a call to action for an upgrade).
It was clear that they could grow their subscription simply by marketing it more/at all.
This is easier said than done.
At the bottom of this post, I will share with you the the marketing campaign they shared with me.
They asked me to tear it apart.
So I did.
And I want you to see my 5 takeaways of how this email could be better before diving in.
In short — we need to stop leading with our own emotions of sometimes guilt, insecurity, and fear in our marketing — and lead with the excitement we want our readers to have.
- This email makes the author sound guilty for trying to sell their subscription. You are not a donation center. You are not a non-profit. You are a business. If that rubs you the wrong way, I’m sorry, but I believe you deserve to make money from your stories. And what you are creating is worth it to your readers. If you don’t want your readers to treat you like a charity, you have to stop acting like one. A subscription is not “a way to get fans to donate you money”. Sure– some fans will treat it like that and want to support you. But for most of us, our subscriptions are a way to provide our readers a better experience and consistently get access to our work. It’s better VALUE for our readers. And we should lead with that… not a call for donations. And if you are going to lead with a call for donations, do so shamelessly.
- I don’t have a clear reason to sign up NOW. It’s a busy world. It’s the holidays. What am I getting if I enter in my credit card info now? Why should I do it now and not wait? make that clear… or your fans will do exactly that… wait… and wait… and wait… you get the idea.
- Don’t compare yourself to other authors. Maybe this is just a me thing — but we are all on this journey together. It’s tempting to “compare” ourselves on a quantity level… but that’s a mistake. If your readers wanted MORE VOLUME of content, they can read millions of books online for free. YOUR STORIES are worth something. And can’t be compared to others. Your stories are valuable to YOUR readers… and for those that don’t feel that way… guess what? They probably aren’t your true reader anyways.
- Shorter is better. When we make a direct-sales email (which for the record is what drives MOST of conversions… having a small little box at the bottom saying “subscribe to me” is an after thought… you need to bring something to the front of your readers’ mind if you want them to care about it). Okay that tangent was long… but when we make a direct-sales email… very importantly… shorter is often better. Your readers want to read your stories… not your ad copy. Immerse them into your worlds, get them excited about the benefits inside your subscription, and get them to click to buy as fast as possible.
- You don’t want your readers to pity you, you want them to be excited for what’s to come inside. I get it… times are hard and when we market we often do it when we feel the burn of not making the money we want from our publishing the most. Confide in a small group of author friends and vent. Don’t vent to your readers. If you lost money on a tier… it sucks. But… it’s also in your control to ensure that doesn’t happen. Only spend what you have and use the Subscriptions for Authors Pricing Calculator, a completely free tool on the SFA Website!