Email Marketing For Artists: How to successfully start and run a paid newsletter subscription

Yes, you read that headline correctly. People are willing to pay for your newsletter. But if you want your paid newsletter to be successful, there are a few steps you need to take... Paid newsletters generate recurring revenue—meaning once a subscriber signs up, you get paid every month until they cancel! But like any successful business, it takes hard work to develop your newsletter idea and entice readers to subscribe to your service as you grow your customer base. In this article, you’ll learn all the steps to starting your own paid newsletter subscription service.

The Basics

What are paid newsletters?

Paid newsletters are email campaigns that people pay to receive, usually on a yearly or monthly fee subscription basis. They’re a great way to supplement your business and a good tool for individuals who want to make money building their personal brand.

When you use a paid newsletter subscription business model, you’ll enjoy recurring income and won’t need to worry about adding sponsorships or advertising within your email. This benefits not only you but also your readers. You’ll love running a paid newsletter service because you get to decide 100% of the content!

It’s just you and your audience—no advertisers involved.

What’s the difference between free and paid newsletters?

The price tag, of course! But also the perceived value of the newsletter. Now, if you’ve been reading our Industry Insights, you know we’re huge advocates of offering value in every single email campaign. But with paid newsletters, you have to go above and beyond, over-deliver on your promise, and offer truly premium newsletters.

The difference between free and paid newsletters is that paid newsletters offer expertly curated content or unique value that can’t be found for free on the web or in other free newsletters.

Examples of paid newsletter content:

• Interviews or podcasts

• Case studies

• Learning materials

• Personalized advice/coaching

• Live updates (exclusive)

• Access to video streams

• Ask me anything

• Early Access

• Member-only events

• Longform essays

You’ll find some of these examples in free newsletters as well. What makes your newsletter valuable enough to get subscribers to pay? Let’s work on building your strategy together!

Setting up a paid newsletter subscription in 9 steps

Every project starts with an idea. We’ll leave the brainstorming and creative process up to you, but we’ll share guidelines below on how to choose your purpose and audience before starting a paid newsletter business.

For the technical part, you’ll see that the payment processing setup is actually pretty easy–even if it’s your first time! We’ll talk about the tools you’ll need in Step 5.

Step 1. Decide on your purpose

What’s the goal of your paid newsletter subscription service? What value can you add to people’s lives that they will be willing to pay for? You might be an expert on a certain topic, have insider knowledge through connections, or master a skill. Your newsletter topics depend on your specific niche and can be as broad or narrow as you’d like.

Step 2. Define your target audience

As a second step, think about what kind of readers would be interested in buying your newsletter service. Defining your target audience helps you to better market your product and build a successful business. A target audience also gives direction on what newsletter content to create, where to find new subscribers, and how to attract them with the right copy.

Step 3. Create a schedule

Just like any paid service, people want to know beforehand what they’re signing up for. When monetizing your newsletter, decide on a schedule for your emails. Is it your full-time gig or a side project? This influences whether you’ll send a monthly, weekly, or daily newsletter (or somewhere in between). Having a schedule with the frequency, days, and time makes it easier for your email audience to know what to expect and keeps you accountable.

Step 4. Decide on your pricing model

Your pricing depends on what you offer, to whom, and how often. Most paid subscription services cost somewhere between $2—$15 a month, often with discounts for annual plans. To decide on your price, google competitors and compare your idea to existing paid newsletters in your niche. And, of course, pick a price you feel comfortable with. Higher-end pricing means you need to make your offer very enticing and reliably deliver valuable content. Lower-priced email newsletter subscriptions equal a larger audience but potentially more customer engagement to keep up with.

For high-tiered subscribers, you can offer a limited edition print. But remember to keep it manageable, you don’t want all your revenue to go to printing and shipping.

We recommend adding an annual revenue subscription plan because it creates a recurring revenue stream and reduces month-to-month unsubscribes. However, this requires you to commit to your paid newsletter service for at least 12 months after each new subscriber signs up. It’s good to set the newsletter subscription to the most favorable subscription by default, or prominently feature this preference. In most cases, that’s the annual subscription. 

As a final tip, we’d advise you to start with a free newsletter or have a free and paid newsletter version available. This makes it easier for people to get to know your brand and upgrade to the paid email newsletter version. In your free newsletter, you can easily advertise your premium content. Add snippets of your paid content or outline the exclusive benefits that are available for paying subscribers.

Step 5. Set up email marketing system and how to get paid

Now, we get to the practical part! Let’s first create the two needed accounts.

1. Sign up for an email marketing platform (we recommend either Flodesk or Substack). Get 50% off your first year with Flodesk at our link, here!

2. If you sign up for Flodesk, you must create a way for subscribers to pay you. This can be done through your current website if it allows payment processing or stripe. Substack can process payments for you on their platform.

Step 6. Build a landing page

We recommend creating a new landing page to promote your paid newsletter.

On your premium newsletter landing page, you can introduce your digital product, convince people of its value, and introduce yourself or your brand. Keep in mind customer reviews can help to strengthen your pitch.

Display your subscription levels, giving the customer the option to pay yearly, or monthly. Each new paid subscriber should automatically receive a summary email that confirms their newsletter subscription. You can edit these emails to fit your brand style and tone of voice.

In your billing section, you can edit the Billing and Payment settings—such as your branding or whether newsletter cancellations are effective immediately or at the end of the current billing period.

Step 7. Now grow your email list!

Now, it’s time to start growing your email list. There are many ways to go about attracting new subscribers—actually, way too many to cover in this article. We suggest you read this article - on how to build a high-quality email list.

Step 8. Use automation to turn free subscribers into paying customers

When it comes to converting free email subscribers into paid ones, email automation is your secret weapon. With a stratetic lead nurturing sequence, you can leverage automation to nurture relationships and guide your audience seamlessly toward becoming paying customers. Start by personalizing your content and tailoring it to their interests, preferences, and behaviors. Segment your subscribers to deliver targeted messages that address their specific pain points and offer compelling solutions.

Utilize automated workflows to provide educational content, exclusive offers, and social proof that build trust and highlight the value of a paid subscription. With automation, you can effortlessly forge meaningful connections, drive conversions, and take complete control of the full revenue potential of your email list.

Step 9. Promote using your newsletter archive

After you’ve sent a couple of paid newsletters, a good way to promote your premium newsletter content is by showing readers examples. 

Building and running a paid newsletter subscription takes time - don’t try to do this in one day. Email is the most effective marketing channel on the planet because you get to talk directly to the people who want to hear from you. This opens up amazing opportunities to build relationships and sell your products and services. You want to do it right, so take some time to outline your content, jot down your goals, and set up a system that works for you. Contemporary Creatives is here to help when you need it!

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