I need to take more of my own advice.
I was talking to my therapist about my own paid subscription growth, and the plateau that I’ve hit a few months into it, which is very common post-launch, when I said to her “I should really do what I’m telling journalists to do.”
To which she replied “what’s that?”
The Why Pay + Why Stay sequences.
(Yes, I do think I’ll have her launching a paid newsletter by end of the year. It’s absurd how much I talk about subscriptions in therapy.)
You may recall the automation map I sent you last month—everything I need to set up and automate to keep these paid subscriptions growing and running. All of which are optional levers for you too.
I turned that into the Foundation Map for your use ←download it here.
Now, if you said, Lex I asked you to cut back my marketing workload, not add to it, know that I heard you and that’s why we are going to work our way through the Foundation Map TOGETHER starting next month.
Up first: The Why Pay sequence because it will make you money.
(I can almost guarantee this, and if it doesn’t make you money, you and I are going to troubleshoot it because it should at least win you a couple of new paying subscribers and it will keep working in the background year round).
The Why Pay sequence is an automation that runs on a delay post-subscribe. For example, I joined your newsletter in January. It’s now March and I should be getting a little upsell campaign to contribute/tip/subscribe. 3-5 emails that tell me why I should pay up!
I ran a 4 email Why Pay sequence with Hell Gate and it got them 33-93 new paying subscribers on the first run (why is that data so fuzzy? It’s a long story about marketing attribution, but at a minimum, it was 33 and maximum it was 93). Their list size was around 12k at the time.
On top of this, I’m talking with Liz Kelly Nelson of Project C about co-offering some resources, namely her Slack channel and her trainings. We see a gap where solo/duo journalist entrepreneurs aren’t well served with places to hang out and talk to peers so stay tuned for more shortly.
While you wait for the Why Pay sprint to start, I am continuing to add new plays to the Paid Sub Playbook. Find what’s new and/or how to get started below!
P.S. Coming up tomorrow: Do you run paid ads to grow your newsletter? Should you start? Come chat about it at our live session on Tuesday.
P.P.S. Two of you have mentioned list cleaning to me and you’ll notice it’s in the Foundation Map. My plan is Why Pay, then Cancellation Automation and then we can look at List Clean (also called a Win Back sequence!)
🎯 Your starting place
Grab your Foundation Map and take note of what you’ve got and what you’re missing. Know that these are just options and you can get away with less than this too. This is what we’re working through starting in April!
📈 Your growth plan
Running experiments to move beyond basics? Use the 3×3×3 Growth System.
You’re always going to have a million ideas. The 3×3×3 is meant to focus you in on what you’re running and testing RIGHT NOW. You can slot something in for a couple months, see if it works and trade it for something else next season.
Keep me posted on what you try, what works and what doesn’t. Would love to feature you and/or improve this resource.
💌 Grow your newsletter
Want to do it for free? Make your own writer recommendation network
Thinking about paid ads? Cruise my three ad experiments and use this spreadsheet to calculate your return on ad spend.
💰️ Make more money this year
My partnerships strategy has piqued a lot of interest from bigger creators. I stole it from Ted Williams.
Grab the revenue projection sheet I used to set my pricing.
🔮 One fun hack
Every time someone gets the Paid Sub Playbook, I send a post out via Bluesky automatically. It works like wonders to GET MORE SUBSCRIBERS because it makes more people aware I have subscriptions and it offers social proof (shows that people buy them!)
I wrote you the recipe for this automation and it will take you 30 minutes to set up!
Want stickers?
I’m about to start traveling full time and I’m discontinuing my stickers for referrals program. If you’d like a couple Journalists Pay Themselves stickers, send me your address BY THIS THURSDAY 3/13. I can mail international too!
