Subscription vs Ads

[Ipho]

Hi everyone,

I am running a smaller online bushiness and lately I have felt really stuck and would appreciate any help. I have been searching internet for forums like this and ran into The Fastlane Forum which is really amazing since The Millionaire Fastlane was a book that started everything for me (really thank you @MJ DeMarco ). I was an exchange student in the USA back in 2013 and I bought this book on Kindle and I loved it (at that time I could not understand English that well so I read it again at the end of my exchange year haha). After The Millionaire Fastlane , I started reading similar books, I started learning about SEO, email marketing, webdesign and web development, PPC and other essential things to the online business world. Little later, I finally started my website for which I am seeking help here now.

So about my problem. I have a smaller membership website with about 20 000 registered users. It's not that many, however, I think even with this amount I could be making some decent income but I am not. The website is not a community website where I would share some tips or learn anyone. The concept is more similar to a dating site, you pay to send messages and to unlock other features (but it's not a dating site and nothing sexual). It costs 10-20 dollars for one month (I am testing the pricing at the moment). Unfortunately, not that many people are willing to pay for it. It's not because their is not demand for my services though. Some of my competitors have 400 000 - 1 000 0000 visitors a month and my website has better design and more functions (it's not just a copy). Their pricing is even higher than on my site (30 -60 dollars) so I know the demand is there. Of course, I tried, to do similar things like my competitors do, I implemented free trial, notifications emails, prolonged the membership from one month to two/three months etc . These changes helped a bit, but nothing major.

I think that for websites like mine, it's mostly about getting the "momentum". Once you get certain amount of people to the website, the people start interacting. More notifications = more people coming back = more people willing to buy. I think if I got like 100 000 traffic a month, it would all started going right.

However, it seems impossible to reach that traffic. I am building my SEO continuously, but that's take time and I know that organically I could reach only around 50 000 visitors anyway (based on competitors numbers and keywords). The rest of the traffic for my competitors go from paid ads. I have tried paid ads many times but was never profitable. The metrics of my ads are great, low CPM and cost per click, may new registrations, but just not that many sales. If I could at least break even, I would continuously run the ads and tried to get that momentum.

I think some of my competitors grew their websites in unethical way (based on articles and reviews on the internet). They just created a lot of fake profiles and faked the interactions and that's how they grew their traffic. I don't want to go that way. I am trying to provide my users with value and build a brand.

So I am stuck at his point, growing just organically to big numbers is not really possible and I growing with ads neither since I can't afford to run them continuously- not getting return. I was thinking about joining affiliate network, but then decided not to. Had a meeting with someone who is a partner with CJ affiliate in my country and the guy was surprisingly honest with me. Affiliate networks can be great but they work once you have a working offer which I may not have. Watched some paid courses about traffic generation and learned the same thing there. Affiliate networks is about scaling what is working. I would go for it anyway at the moment just to test another thing, but the set up for CJ in particular is quite pricey and it seems to me that is better to spend that many on testing ads instead.

Based on my calculations, I would make more money on advertising platforms, but don't want to go that road just yet. Don't like the idea that my business would make money from ads, event though I am positive it would work. Even though my traffic is not that great, I have quite a lot of page views. People spend a lot of time on my site (around 7 minutes) so ads could work quite well. I have heard a lot of good things about AdThrive. In order to register in AdThrive, your website needs to have at least 100 000 page views mostly from the US. I am not on that number but quite close. If I made the website free and decided to go with the advertisement model, I would reach that number in less than a month (At the beginning I ran the website for free for some time to get the first few thousands of registration fast and at that time I hit the 100 000 page views a month. Once I switched to paid model, it obliviously dropped).

So that's an option I have but as I said I am not sure I want to go that road.

If you could guys tell me your thoughts, I would be grateful.

Thank you everyone in advance

 

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[Andy Black]

What would your members value enough to pay for a subscription?

What would they value enough to buy once from you?

Is there anything they already buy elsewhere?

It sounds like you need to get a certain size to have the network effect? It may not help you though. If you had more people and they stayed longer it won’t help if you can’t get them to part with their cash.

If you can’t figure how how to make money now then having more members won’t help (I don’t think). I say this having worked for a startup that tried to build a network effect social network and pumped thousands into new user acquisition. They grew numbers alright, but they never added enough value for people to pay for anything. It eventually went under... after allegedly burning through €40m in funding.

Running Adsense Ads on your site may help I suppose. You could see what ads keep appearing after a while. Google’s algorithm might tell you what’s the best match of ads to the content of your site. That could help you find the types of products your members are interested in.

Me personally, if I was building a community then I wouldn’t be doing it to make money when they left (via ads). I’d want to do it so they bought something from me directly.

If you can figure out what they’ll buy from you, then you can grow via paid ads (if you can dial it in of course).

Bit of a rambly answer I know.


TL;DR

Figure out what your members value enough to pay for. Even if you run ads you’ll be showing ads for businesses who (hope to) have something your members will pay for.

“Sales solve everything.”

 

[DeletedUser67262]

Whatever your site is, are you giving your customers above and beyond value? Remember giving value is key and don't worry about your competitors so much. I mean check them out and see if you can add a spin on something they don't offer.

Value and longterm is key.
Hope that helps.
Run your own race!

 

[Sadik]

Hi everyone,

I am running a smaller online bushiness and lately I have felt really stuck and would appreciate any help. I have been searching internet for forums like this and ran into The Fastlane Forum which is really amazing since The Millionaire Fastlane was a book that started everything for me (really thank you @MJ DeMarco ). I was an exchange student in the USA back in 2013 and I bought this book on Kindle and I loved it (at that time I could not understand English that well so I read it again at the end of my exchange year haha). After The Millionaire Fastlane , I started reading similar books, I started learning about SEO, email marketing, webdesign and web development, PPC and other essential things to the online business world. Little later, I finally started my website for which I am seeking help here now.

So about my problem. I have a smaller membership website with about 20 000 registered users. It's not that many, however, I think even with this amount I could be making some decent income but I am not. The website is not a community website where I would share some tips or learn anyone. The concept is more similar to a dating site, you pay to send messages and to unlock other features (but it's not a dating site and nothing sexual). It costs 10-20 dollars for one month (I am testing the pricing at the moment). Unfortunately, not that many people are willing to pay for it. It's not because their is not demand for my services though. Some of my competitors have 400 000 - 1 000 0000 visitors a month and my website has better design and more functions (it's not just a copy). Their pricing is even higher than on my site (30 -60 dollars) so I know the demand is there. Of course, I tried, to do similar things like my competitors do, I implemented free trial, notifications emails, prolonged the membership from one month to two/three months etc . These changes helped a bit, but nothing major.

I think that for websites like mine, it's mostly about getting the "momentum". Once you get certain amount of people to the website, the people start interacting. More notifications = more people coming back = more people willing to buy. I think if I got like 100 000 traffic a month, it would all started going right.

However, it seems impossible to reach that traffic. I am building my SEO continuously, but that's take time and I know that organically I could reach only around 50 000 visitors anyway (based on competitors numbers and keywords). The rest of the traffic for my competitors go from paid ads. I have tried paid ads many times but was never profitable. The metrics of my ads are great, low CPM and cost per click, may new registrations, but just not that many sales. If I could at least break even, I would continuously run the ads and tried to get that momentum.

I think some of my competitors grew their websites in unethical way (based on articles and reviews on the internet). They just created a lot of fake profiles and faked the interactions and that's how they grew their traffic. I don't want to go that way. I am trying to provide my users with value and build a brand.

So I am stuck at his point, growing just organically to big numbers is not really possible and I growing with ads neither since I can't afford to run them continuously- not getting return. I was thinking about joining affiliate network, but then decided not to. Had a meeting with someone who is a partner with CJ affiliate in my country and the guy was surprisingly honest with me. Affiliate networks can be great but they work once you have a working offer which I may not have. Watched some paid courses about traffic generation and learned the same thing there. Affiliate networks is about scaling what is working. I would go for it anyway at the moment just to test another thing, but the set up for CJ in particular is quite pricey and it seems to me that is better to spend that many on testing ads instead.

Based on my calculations, I would make more money on advertising platforms, but don't want to go that road just yet. Don't like the idea that my business would make money from ads, event though I am positive it would work. Even though my traffic is not that great, I have quite a lot of page views. People spend a lot of time on my site (around 7 minutes) so ads could work quite well. I have heard a lot of good things about AdThrive. In order to register in AdThrive, your website needs to have at least 100 000 page views mostly from the US. I am not on that number but quite close. If I made the website free and decided to go with the advertisement model, I would reach that number in less than a month (At the beginning I ran the website for free for some time to get the first few thousands of registration fast and at that time I hit the 100 000 page views a month. Once I switched to paid model, it obliviously dropped).

So that's an option I have but as I said I am not sure I want to go that road.

If you could guys tell me your thoughts, I would be grateful.

Thank you everyone in advance

Why does it have to be only paid or only ads? Can't it be both? This forum is a perfect example. There's ads for free members but none for paying INSIDERS members? Freemium is perfectly legit when growing a user base. I would suggest like @Andy Black said above, find something which your members would be willing to pay for. Put that behind a pay wall premium members only. Put the rest of the content for free and show ads on them.

And about your premium membership, it could be problem of messaging you know if people are paying on your competitor site but not yours maybe you need to relook at your copy and sales funnel.

And all the best.

 

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[Ipho]

Whatever your site is, are you giving your customers above and beyond value? Remember giving value is key and don't worry about your competitors so much. I mean check them out and see if you can add a spin on something they don't offer.

Value and longterm is key.
Hope that helps.
Run your own race!

Thank you for your reply Tim. I agree that value is the key and I am keep improving my website to make it more useful. Even have a feedback button and listen to what my visitors have to say. Pretty much all the money I made through the website I reinvested back into it. I offer what my competitors don't offer, actually have much more functions than what they have. That's what really bugs me. They are making money and I don't even though my website is more functional. It's all about the traffic I think. But that's where I am stuck since I don't have return on my ads.

 

[Ipho]

Why does it have to be only paid or only ads? Can't it be both? This forum is a perfect example. There's ads for free members but none for paying INSIDERS members? Freemium is perfectly legit when growing a user base. I would suggest like @Andy Black said above, find something which your members would be willing to pay for. Put that behind a pay wall premium members only. Put the rest of the content for free and show ads on them.

And about your premium membership, it could be problem of messaging you know if people are paying on your competitor site but not yours maybe you need to relook at your copy and sales funnel.

And all the best.

Thank you for reply Sadik.

You are absolutely right. I also thought about that. But I got stuck with that thought too because to be able to register on the better advertising platform, I need bit more page views. As I said, I would achieve it easily, but only if I made the website for free.

Or maybe I am overthinking it and aiming to high at the very beginning. I could of course start with google adsense and try to build it up to the better platforms later.

I watch my competitors funnel closely and also get inspiration from their sale copies. Our sales funnels are pretty much the same. The only difference, and in my opinion key difference, is that they are established and have big engagement on their website. They have that momentum. People interacting with each other and drawing more and more people to the paid version. This happens automatically if you have large number of registered users, but my 20k registered users are far from enough to create that momentum.

 

[Sadik]

You are overthinking it. Just identify what you can package as paid members only benefit and move it inside the premium section. Make the main site free and put Adsense on it. Adsense works until you can find better alternatives.

For momentum, It's difficult to suggest strategies without knowing what your site offers. But in general there has to be something on your site which people really want. I have a membership site in a very deep tech niche where documentation is hard to come by. I have a docs section where you can download documents by one of two ways. One, upload a document which is useful or TWO, buy premium. Since people really want the documents, they buy premium if they don't have something to share themselves. This keeps both the site growing by people who upload documents to download and keeps the money coming from Premium.

 

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[itfactor]

Are your users aware of your competitors?

Perhaps they find your competitors’ offer more enticing than yours, plus they have the authority because they are “bigger”?

 

[DeletedUser67262]

Thank you for your reply Tim. I agree that value is the key and I am keep improving my website to make it more useful. Even have a feedback button and listen to what my visitors have to say. Pretty much all the money I made through the website I reinvested back into it. I offer what my competitors don't offer, actually have much more functions than what they have. That's what really bugs me. They are making money and I don't even though my website is more functional. It's all about the traffic I think. But that's where I am stuck since I don't have return on my ads.

Did ever look where your competitors are getting there traffic? Keywords on the website? Do they advertise on facebook? or is it SEO on google?
I'm not sure what you are providing, but maybe you can gain some insight into how they connecting with the market.
Maybe that does not even matter, do you have something that people can really engage with that other sights don't.

You have to just keep researching and take an action and see if it's sticking.
Hope that helps.
Best Tim

 

[Ipho]

You are overthinking it. Just identify what you can package as paid members only benefit and move it inside the premium section. Make the main site free and put Adsense on it. Adsense works until you can find better alternatives.

For momentum, It's difficult to suggest strategies without knowing what your site offers. But in general there has to be something on your site which people really want. I have a membership site in a very deep tech niche where documentation is hard to come by. I have a docs section where you can download documents by one of two ways. One, upload a document which is useful or TWO, buy premium. Since people really want the documents, they buy premium if they don't have something to share themselves. This keeps both the site growing by people who upload documents to download and keeps the money coming from Premium.

Thanks that's a good idea.I could keep both paid and free version and make my the free version more functional to keep more free users on the site longer and reached that desired pageviews.

 

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[Ipho]

Are your users aware of your competitors?

Perhaps they find your competitors’ offer more enticing than yours, plus they have the authority because they are “bigger”?

Yes I am aware of my competitors. But as I said, my website has more functions and for better price so mine should be more enticing.

Their authority is bigger as the have been around longer than me.

 

[Ipho]

Did ever look where your competitors are getting there traffic? Keywords on the website? Do they advertise on facebook? or is it SEO on google?
I'm not sure what you are providing, but maybe you can gain some insight into how they connecting with the market.
Maybe that does not even matter, do you have something that people can really engage with that other sights don't.

You have to just keep researching and take an action and see if it's sticking.
Hope that helps.
Best Tim

Yeah I did. My biggest competitors are getting most of traffic from Facebook ads. They run their ads continuously for quite a long time so they have to be profitable with them. I have run the same ads as them and even though the ads had great metrics and people were engaging with the ads and clicking on it a lot, I did not have many sales from them and eventually I had to stop running them otherwise it would ruin me.

So this is really frustrating as I know it can work and I could turn my business around very fast with just facebook ads as my competitors, but it's not working for me.