How to get people to pay you to read your advertising

Last October I dropped this dirty bomb in an email: === A few months ago, “Email Players” subscriber Brian Kurtz had Yours Crotchety on a webinar as a guest trainer. The subject: How I run my print newsletter business. And I said something on the call I suspect rattled a few people, probably shocked others, and very likely sounded really cool to a few more. What I am talking about is what the REAL purpose of a print newsletter is — whether it’s paid, free, monthly, or whatever frequency. And that purpose is to sell your other offers. (And/or rent your customer list to other publishers to sell their offers to them too.) That’s the entire purpose of selling any kind of most any monthly publication. I don’t care if we’re talking about $500/month newsletters or a 10 cent comicbooks. That doesn’t mean your content shouldn’t be valuable & worth far more than you charge (it should). But the magazine, comicbook, and tabloid industries have always done this. Comicbook writer Larry Hama — who practically single-handedly helped build G.I. Joe into the billion dollar brand it is today — once gave a great example of how many popular comics existed for the advertising, like the Vampirella comics, which were merely a vehicle to sell the publisher’s toy catalog via the ads inside it. That was where the real money was. And the customers loved it, as well as buying from the ads. The point? There’s a whole other publishing underworld out there hidden in plain sight. If you’re paying attention, you’ll see it all around you. And if you’re smart, you’ll figure out how to model it for your own offers. === I’m reprinting that here for one reason, and one reason only: Everything about that applies to not just print newsletter subscription offers, but membership site subscription offers, monthly coaching subscription offers, and even software subscription offers. It’s always amusing when I get pushback on this. “Ben how DARE you sell me something in content I’m already paying for!” And it’s even more amusing when these exact same “marketers” getting heartburn over it realize that pretty much everyone else BUT them are doing the same thing. Like, for example, when they visit Disney stores, theme parks, and websites. Or when they turn on any of their Apple gadgets. Or when they go to see a Hollywood movie, play games on their phones, visit the hospital, or so much as go to church. Fact is, when you know what you’re doing with your subscription offers, your best customers not only won’t mind… they’ll probably be GLAD & grateful when you do sell them other things within content and on platforms they are already paying you for access to. Just like Disney, Apple, etc customers are. More: It’s absolutely astounding how behind-the-times most marketers are. And, thus, how self-sabotaging their own thinking is. Which is why our new 15+ hour Subscription Biz course — that goes into great detail about this topic — is not going to be something people with mental “hangups” about money will truly understand, much less be comfortable doing. If that’s you, this course will do you zero good. And it will even piss you off considering it does the exact same thing. For everyone else, here’s the deal: In my opinion, this course is hundreds if not thousands of dollars of value, easy. But it’s yours for only $20 if you buy it before midnight EST tonight. (Sunday, 3/7) Here’s the link: Ben Settle P.S. If you have any tech questions send an email to help@learnistic.com. Copyright © 2021 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA To unsubscribe or change subscriber options, visit: