Have I told you lately how much I LOVE recurring income? Here’s a case study about a guy who has not one, but FOUR different newsletters that he puts out twice per month.
These are super simple newsletters that contain all the latest stuff he’s found on the internet about the topics. How in the world does he find all the latest news, articles, blog posts, stories, video clips, photos and so forth?
Google alerts.
Yup, it’s that easy.
He creates a dozen or so Google alerts for keywords and phrases for each niche and Google spoon feeds him all of his content for free. In some cases he asks for permission to reprint a post or article. For other things he simply rewrites it into his own words. And even more often he’ll provide an intro and then a link to the video, article or whatever.
Seriously, this does not take a lot of time or brain power. His strong point is he chooses topics that he’s interested in so that it never becomes boring to him.
I asked him if I could share his newsletter topics with you, but he was pretty firm in saying no. But what I can tell you is all 4 of them are not things you might think of off the top of your head. And that makes sense.
The BIG topics are already covered on millions of websites, videos, articles, magazines and so forth. It’s the little sub-niche specialized topics where people are craving more info and not wanting or even knowing how to hunt it down themselves.
I’ll give you an example: Cats and dogs are EVERYWHERE. No one really needs to subscribe to a newsletter to read articles on cats and dogs. But sloths… now there’s a much smaller niche that isn’t covered nearly as much as more popular pets. Or how about iguanas? Sugar babies? Or tarantulas?
If you insist on choosing a big niche, then sub-niche it down. Instead of cats, focus on the care of cats with a certain illness (diabetes, kidney disease, etc.) or a certain breed of cat.
What should you charge for a curated newsletter? In most niches, $10 or less works well. This makes it super easy for people to sign up and there’s almost no incentive to stop the subscription.
Let your readers send you articles and photos of their own for your newsletter. Put in a classified ad section, too. People think it’s hard to create a newsletter, but the fact is you don’t even need to have an original thought to do it. Between curated content from the internet and submissions from your readers, all you have to do is assemble the newsletter, save it to PDF and send it out to your subscribers. You don’t even need a membership site to do this.
Don’t want to do a newsletter? Create a podcast or video subscription instead.
You can get new subscribers by striking deals with blogs and list owners in the niche. Because these are smaller niches, it’s far easier to get people to mail for you for a small fee or sometimes even for free if they really love your newsletter.
This is a model that will never die, takes a minimum of work and even builds you a list. You can promote products to your list above and beyond the newsletter. In many niches the money you make from promoting products will double your income from subscriptions, so why not?
And by the way, that $3,500 a month figure is from just ONE of his newsletters. Remember, he’s got 4 of them.
Make a list of topics that interest you, no matter how weird or even obscure. Choose one that has an active audience you can reach. Create a sample newsletter, contact people in the niche and get your first subscribers. This almost sounds too easy, doesn’t it? Then again, many of the best ideas are the simple ones.
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