You don’t have to rely on big launches or promotions as the only way to attract paid subscribers.
There are many different features and strategies you can use to grow your paid tier organically.
One of the most effective ones is what we call the ‘Free + Paywall Strategy’.
We use this strategy with practically all of our premium posts, and it brings in new paid subscribers organically every single week.
In this video, I walk you through exactly how this feature works, and how we’re using it to grow our own paid tier.
This video is part of our Bestseller Blueprint, which is a 15-step system to go from zero to Substack Bestseller with 100+ paid subscribers.
The Bestseller Blueprint is exclusively available to our Substack Accelerator members.
→ Click here to learn more about the Substack Accelerator.
The mistake most creators make
A common mistake I see when reviewing Substack publications is that creators lock their premium content completely behind a paywall without showing any substantial part of it for free.
By doing so, your free subscribers (who might be interested in upgrading) don’t have any idea what your premium content is actually like.
They have no sense of the quality of your premium resources, so they hesitate to hit the upgrade button.
Instead, it’s more effective to give part of your premium content away for free (by using this Free + Paywall Strategy), so your free subscribers actually get a taste of how valuable your premium content is.
I always make the comparison of running a bakery.
If you run a bakery but you never let people see the cakes, never let them smell what’s baking, or never hand out a small sample to taste it, how would anyone actually know if the cakes are worth buying?
They wouldn’t, so they’d walk right past your bakery.
But if you show the cakes, people can smell them, and you give away a small sample, now you get people interested in actually buying the whole cake.
Premium content works the same way.
When you let free subscribers read a substantial part of your paid posts, they get a clear sense of the quality of your premium resources.
This actually makes them more interested in upgrading, because they’ve received a taste of your premium content.
That’s what makes this Free + Paywall Strategy so effective. It’s not pushy, because you’ve already given real value before ever asking for anything.
And it’s not guesswork for the reader, because they already have a clear impression of what they’d be unlocking. And more clarity leads to more sales.
Applying this strategy to video posts
Substack has designed this feature also for video posts, which converts very well for our publication.
In the following video, I show exactly how to implement the Free + Paywall Strategy specifically for video posts:
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