Making a profit from a free subscription website

Not all financially successful membership websites require a paid admission or subscription fee. If you have the right content, you could start a complimentary members-only website that throws off a generous profit. You don’t even have to be the first one to find and avail yourself of the niche.

The four ways you make money with a newsletter

The publisher of a printed newsletter has at least four opportunities to make money. Not each is essential or even appropriate for every type of publication. These “rules” apply to many online newsletters and subscription websites, as well.

I personally know the publisher of another newsletter that has been profitable for more than 30 years and has, at any given time, only two or three subscribers. Not two or three hundred, two or three individuals!

First, you can charge a subscription or membership fee. Depending on the value of the content you are offering, the fee can range from $29 to thousands of dollars. Depending on the niche and the voracity of your readers, you could make a very handsome profit on subscription fees alone.

The ratio of subscribers to the fee is far ranging. You could have 100,000 subscribers paying you $29 annually for your content and gross nearly $3 million annually.

Alternatively, you could have very few subscribers paying you a great deal for enormous amounts of very specialized, very detailed information. I know of one publication that has only 10 subscribers who pay $1 million each for the content.

I personally know the publisher of another newsletter that has been profitable for more than 30 years and has, at any given time, only two or three subscribers. Not two or three hundred, two or three individuals!

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Second profit center

Some newsletters sell advertising. Selling advertising may or may not be appropriate, depending on the subscription price and the topic.

Some newsletter readers only subscribe because of the advertising. They want to read the ads to find a product to buy. That product could be anything from a used airplane to a suite of dental office equipment.

Some newsletters are entirely advertising. Do you have an Auto Trader or Boat Trader publication in your area? Aren’t they simply newsletters comprised entirely of advertisements for cars and boats that are for sale?

Third profit center

Ancillary products sold by the publisher can be a gold mine. Suppose you write a newsletter for photographers who are interested the lost art of resin-coated and silver gelatin prints. This is a highly specialized field that is decades removed from modern digital photography. It’s a very narrow niche, but would probably find a couple thousand subscribers, primarily hobbyists, each willing to pay $100 or more annually for this specialized information.

If you were the publisher of Silver Print Photographer, couldn’t you also sell the advertising space in your newsletter to yourself? Shouldn’t you be selling all of the archival, gelatin, silver-processing chemicals, paper and other tools needed to engage in this hobby? Why not? Your subscribers would love the convenience of buying directly from you.

In fact, couldn’t your newsletter actually be a cleverly disguised catalog for your products and services? Couldn’t it be numerous pages of advertising wrapped in a few pages of instructional articles? Would your subscribers be any less happy with your publication if it were a product catalog combined with some how-to information? Probably not, if you pick the right niche.

Fourth profit opportunity

The fourth way to make money with a newsletter is to establish it, make it profitable, get it running as a turn-key operation, and sell it to someone else.

Profiting from a free subscription website

How much air travel do you do? Do you have any idea where the most comfortable seats are on a 747 or an Airbus? Did you know that there are at least two free websites that will tell you this information?

Three and a half years ago, Matthew Daimler, a frequent flier and avid traveler, founded SeatGuru.com. As the name suggests, it’s a comprehensive guide to airplane seat information. It survives on advertising revenue alone. It’s free.

So is SeatExpert.com, a similar site. Nether one requires you to register or “join.” They fail to capture your name and email address, which is a huge lost marketing opportunity.

Similar travel websites

FlyerTalk
Free. Registration required.

Great Circle Mapper
Free. No registration require. No advertising either. Another lost opportunity.

Crew Start
This is an airline crew portal. Registration is required.

Johnny Jet
All-purpose airline resource. Registration not required.

Airline Meals
Actual pictures of actual in-flight meals and a discussion forum. No ads; no registration required. Another missed opportunity.

Solo Dining
Dining tips for business travelers. No ads; no registration required. A huge missed, undeveloped marketing opportunity.

Conclusion

I believe that any one of the above sites could be re-created using the subscription website business model and made to be profitable. The revenue models to use would be (1) paid advertising to support the website content and (2) direct, permission-based marketing of related products and services to the registered subscribers.

The key to success is collecting the names and email addresses of people who are interested in travel.

Build your list! Mail to it often! The greater the size of your list, the more potential customers you have for your products and services.