Benefits and Tips for Recurring Blog Subscriptions

As a blogger one of your revenue stream options is recurring revenue. You can set your blog up so that readers pay a subscription fee in order to access the content of your site. The benefit of this is that you receive incoming and positive cash flow on a regular basis. Another benefit is the supplemental or replacement income recurring subscriptions can bring in, minimizing your reliance on advertising placed on your site.

Recurring subscriptions can be set up monthly, quarterly or yearly, to name a few options. It seems old school to mimic magazine or newspaper subscription methods as print media seems to be a dying industry. But if you provide quality content to your readers, they will be willing to pay for it. Oftentimes a reader will prefer to pay a subscription to a blog instead of for a magazine or newspaper, because of the convenience factor.

Blogs are typically published in real time, whereas magazines and newspapers have a longer editorial process and must be printed then shipped to your door. The tangibility of print media is irreplaceable, but the mobility of blog content makes blogs an attractive alternative. Whether your readers are on their laptops at the home, office or local cafe, they can read your content. If your readers have a smart phone they can also access your blog content while on the go. This adds value to your blog by its very nature, giving readers a few perks to consider when deciding to pay for a printed media subscription or your blog.

There are a couple ways in which you can set up your blog to have recurring revenue. All of your blog content can be protected and reserved for your paying customers, or a portion of your content can be set aside for those that have purchased a subscription. Each option has its pros and cons, and there are a number of ways in which you can play around with each option.

If you are a blogger that wishes to make all of your content subscription only, you will need to offer content that is of very high quality. You may not need to make your content available on a daily basis, as the research that goes into forming quality content will likely extend your own editorial process. Match the subscription price and frequency with your posting schedule so readers don’t feel gypped.

To attract a higher number of subscribers, it will help if you already have a significant following. Having established credibility will let users know that they will be receiving quality content before they actually pay for it. One way in which you can build and maintain credibility, even while offering a subscription-only blog, is to have a separate blog made free for all users. Update the free blog frequently and build a buzz around both blogs, leveraging them to cross-promote each other.

The safe route to go is to offer a single blog with both free and subscription content. With this option you can aggregate the site traffic and activity, as well as offer a centralized publication to simplify your own accounting and tracking purposes. Subscription-only content can be password protected from an administrative end, and will require readers to sign in for viewable access.

For pricing this subscription method, you will need to remember that you’re mixing your paid and free content. Set a price that is considerate of this fact in order to gain new subscribers and retain your entire reader base. Options for playing around with this would include trying out different deals and bundles to reel in new subscribers . Throw out a sale price every now and then and determine where the balance is for your price point, posting frequency and ratio of free and paid content.

Lastly, you will need to manage track your activity for subscriptions. using a service such as Recurly could help you address your issues when determining prices and posting frequency. You can also get some basic demographic data on the readers that are willing to pay for your content. Knowing this information can help you modify your approach and appeal to the quality readers you have obtained.

Written by Kristen Nicole from Kristen Nicole
Posted on November 18th, 2009 and filed under Blogging
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