To subscribe or not to subscribe? That’s the new & old question 🤨.
What I mean is, subscriptions as a concept are not new. Newspapers, magazines, in-person membership clubs, etc., have been around for a while.
What’s relatively new, in the grand scheme of things, is paid subscriptions run by infopreneurs and thought leaders. And you only have to search as far as Substack (a website and software that allows people to create their own free or paid newsletters) to access the potentially shocking reality of how profitable and successful (at spreading ideas) some people's newsletters are.
The top two paid food newsletters have tens of thousands of people paying $5/month. And one of the top tech newsletters has thousands of people paying $50/month . . . another with tens of thousands of people paying $15/month.
It would have seemed wild, potentially unbelievable, 10 or so years ago that this could be the case.
But of course, that's the beauty of the Internet. If you have ideas, knowledge, solutions, and helpful/entertaining insights to share, you have the opportunity to find the crowd of people who are willing to pay for just that.
And you have options for a recurring/subscription-style thought leadership product. You can create and host a:
- Paid newsletter
- Monthly/quarterly course-style content with community features
- Guided membership community or mastermind
Option 1: Paid Newsletter
Using a tool like ConvertKit or Substack, you can launch a newsletter that (A) only has a paid option, or (B) has a certain number of free emails per month (ex: 1) with all the other emails that month (ex: 3) available only to paid subscribers.
The former is a great way to go if you already have an established audience; the latter is your friend if you need to grow your audience while simultaneously offering an upgrade to your paid (deeper/more) content. But even if you already have a pre-established audience, the latter is a great model for growth.
Suleika Jaouad's newsletter (The Isolation Journals; shown in a screenshot below) is a good example of the some free, some paid model.
Option 2: Monthly Course-Style Content with Community Features
Using a tool like Patreon, Podia, Circle, or Buy Me a Coffee, you can release monthly/quarterly educational content and host a community to go along with it.
You can go "community lite"—by building a forum for people to come ask questions or post updates related to your content. Or, you can go "community heavy"—where the community (feedback, accountability, coaching, friendships, etc.) is the main thing and the course content is just a nice addition.
Or you can create some other combination of content and community. Neville Medhora's Copywriting Course (pictured in the screenshot below) is a great example of a membership that aims for both high-quality content and an amazing community you won't want to leave.
Option 3: Guided membership community or mastermind
Another option is to create a community or mastermind that isn't attached to a specific course or learning materials. Using a tool like Circle or Mighty Networks, you can create a space where the main value and attraction is the conversations and relationships between people.
You can kind of classify NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)—a nonprofit organization—as a thought leadership organization that has chosen Option 3.
People join and rejoin NaNoWriMo each year because of the community. Many writers meet lifelong friends inside the community and love it for the culture and conversations it creates around writing and fiction.
Note: you have other options than the 3 types of subscriptions above, but these are some of the more common structures you'll find.
Okay, so in this email series, we've reviewed creating a thought leadership book, a signature workshop, and/or a recurring subscription. So what should you do? Which one/ones are right for you?
Your decision will of course be based on the goal of your work, a.k.a. the reason you even want to share your ideas with the world in the first place.
The three types of thought leaders we talked about in the last email (activating, systematic, and elite service) each have a unique "business model" behind them, which we informally labeled as cash, credit, and invoice, respectively.
One could easily make the case that any type of thought leader can benefit from a book, a workshop, or a subscription.
I'll argue this:
✅ A book is probably foundational for all three types of thought leaders at some point. I tend to err on the side of calling it non-negotiable, but I'm open to discussion on this.
✅ Signature workshops work well for systematic thought leaders, first, elite service thought leaders, second, and activating thought leaders, third.
✅ Recurring subscriptions or memberships can technically match with all three types, but I'd caution you to have something else you're building toward as well. Are you using the subscription as a place to build out the content for your book? Or a signature coaching program? And at what rate? A pace that will likely take years? Or a faster pace?
That said, you may use a subscription/membership as your place to just work out your feelings and thoughts on a topic, and to engage with people who are passionate about (or in need of) the things you care about.
There can be great value in that, so it's important to know what you want to get out of your decision, whichever way you go.
Okay. The last question we need to address in this series (before you start receiving our regular emails) is this: how do you get your amazing ideas in front of new people as a thought leader? How can you actually grow from scratch?
I'll be back in a few days with that email, and warning: it's an intense one 😬.
Until then,
Regina