5 offers you can use to grow paid subscriptions

Simple ways you can increase your paid growth with paid newsletter marketing strategies.

If you want to grow paid subscriptions, you can’t just cross your fingers and hope that your readers wake up feeling generous.

Over the last year, I’ve played around with various offers, and worked with other writers while they’ve used their own. These approaches do work to increase paid subscriptions, but they can also lower what you receive from each subscriber and dilute the effectiveness of an offer if you use them too often.

Do I need offers to attract paid subs?

Good writing can absolutely sell itself. If people liked the free stuff, they’ll cough up for the paid version, right? Well, sometimes yes. And sometimes no.

The truth is, sometimes people need a prompt or a reason to upgrade - something that reminds them what you’re doing. That’s not an insult to your work, it’s just how people buy things on the internet.

In practice, readers need reasons. They need nudges. They need to feel like now is the best possible time to upgrade. Offers don’t have to cheapen your work, they can just provide an easier route for readers to access your writing.

If you want more paid subs, you don’t have to wait for them to have a change of heart. Give them a reason to upgrade!

Some work better than others, but these five form a great starting spot.

Free trials

Everyone likes to try stuff out for free. I offer free trials because people are (rightly) cautious with money, and want to be sure that a subscription is right for them. A one or two week window lets them poke around, see if the content is any good, and decide if my content is worth the cost of a fancy coffee each month.

A trial is a little like a test drive of your work. If your content does what it says on the tin, a good chunk of these trial readers will stick around. I find people often need to see the value, not just read about why they should upgrade. After the trial, it’s their call. No guilt, no hard sell.

Just be prepared that a number of people will cancel before paying anything.