How did you create a subscription service with a monthly amount exceeding 120,000 yuan?
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This article The author You Shufan is currently the co-founder of Explore Force, on the PressPlay platform Launched “[24 Key Lessons for Career Jump](https://pressplay.cc/project/about/%E8%81%B7%E6%B6%AF%E8%BA%8D%E5%8D%8 7%E7%9A%84%E9%97%9C%E9%8D%B524%E5%A0%82%E8%AA%B2/89D1794DE0A4E6149ECCCC6DCD8C696F5)” subscription service. Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby.
[Why we reprint this article] This is not only the personal experience of a local subscription service provider, but you can also get a glimpse of the current development of subscription services and knowledge payment fields in Taiwan from the sharing of teacher [Yu Shufan] (https://www.facebook.com/gipi.net). If you are interested in developing your own subscription service, please remember to read this article carefully first, and then think about your market positioning and product differentiation!
I promised to come here in February to talk about [Subscription Service](https://pressplay.cc/project/about/%E8%81%B7%E6%B6%AF%E8%BA%8D%E5%8D%87%E7%9A%84%E9%97%9C%E9%8D%B524%E5%A0%82%E8%AA%B2/89D1794 According to DE0A4E6149ECCC6DCD8C696F5), today my subscription amount exceeded NT$120,000, and the ranking in PressPlay has now risen to 11th place. The progress is generally in line with my original expectations.
My thoughts on subscription services
Before launching my own subscription plan, I referred to the practices of some well-known knowledge subscription platforms in China. I believe that spreading the content and improving the predictability of knowledge will help everyone click the subscribe button. The so-called predictability means that you will spread out all the content you will provide to everyone in the future. When a subscriber knows what he can see next month and what he can gain throughout the year, the motivation to subscribe will definitely increase.
No one in Taiwan has really found an effective way to subscribe to knowledge. The number of paid subscribers of many media outlets has never exceeded the 5,000 mark. I think the key reason is that the predictability of the audience is too low. In the age of paying for knowledge, the media’s approach has not changed much compared to the past. Most of them just changed the original free content to paid, but what exactly the audience will get has not been explained. If they can target this part, is it possible to effectively increase number of subscriptions? I think it’s worth looking forward to.
Based on this, I released my entire live broadcast content at once, and the content of the 24 lessons was actually excerpted from my Q4 manager course last year. The structure and course content have actually been verified. I have a certain level of confidence in this and it also improves the [subscription plan](https://pressplay.cc/project/about/%E8%81%B7%E6%B6%AF%E8%BA%8D%E5% 8D%87%E7%9A%84%E9%97%9C%E9%8D%B524%E5%A0%82%E8%AA%B2/89D1794DE0A4E6149ECCCC6DCD8C696F5) predictability.
But currently my subscription number has not reached my expectation, what should I say? After my own evaluation, I concluded that the number of people reached was too small, so the number of people subscribing was relatively insufficient. When it comes to reach, there are several issues worth discussing: First of all, you will find that those who have more than 300 subscribers are all powerful self-media. They all have a certain social volume, but when I compare with them, it seems insufficient.
Secondly, the platform itself has limited traffic to subscribers. On the one hand, this is an operational issue. PressPlay does not spend too much time on traffic operation; on the other hand, it is a channelization and quality issue of paid platform content. For a platform that provides knowledge and content subscription services, if the content is not targeted, it will be difficult to attract local users. When the traffic is mostly brought by subscribers, it will be difficult to increase the number of fans after a round of promotion. For most subscribers, the amount will reach the peak of 90% in the first two months, but the subsequent growth rate is actually very small.
And I think this is a problem that subsequent subscription platforms should be able to help solve. I personally think Hahow’s profit sharing mechanism is worthy of reference by subscription platform.
Knowledge subscriptions in China are mostly provided in the form of video and text, and are usually not in the form of real time. This model can greatly reduce the burden on subscribers themselves. They can spend three days at the beginning of the year to record everything, and the platform can put the content on time. In addition, many payment methods are one-time low-cost fees (RMB 99 to 299 yuan), which greatly increases subscribers’ willingness to pay. Because China has a large population and it is easy to pay small amounts, this kind of high-quality, low-unit-price subscription service plan can usually obtain a good number of subscriptions (for example, from 20,000 to 200,000 people).
And is this approach feasible in Taiwan? I think there is no chance, and I would like to try this method in the future.
Subscription plans in Taiwan include video, text, materials, consultants, and community interaction (including online and offline). I chose the live broadcast plus text plus community interaction and coaching plan. This is the method that I have personally evaluated as the most suitable for me—because compared to spreading knowledge, perhaps physical sharing and Q&A can better convey the value of my knowledge.
Of course, this is also thanks to the inspiration given to me by many forerunners.
Why should I buy a subscription service?
A while ago, 囧Celebrities want to withdraw from the subscription plan, as well as the sharing of subscription plan from several seniors .today/2018/01/kyon-subscription-comment-part1.html), we can see that everyone’s mentality towards subscription is actually different, but there are three things worth discussing: first, the operating cost of knowledge subscription; second, the efficiency of making money; third, the significance of subscription services to your personal brand.
The first is the cost issue. Adi directly spreads his [cost](http://news.ttshow. tw/?p=26299), and 囧星人 also directly said that subscription services are actually not as good as homework. I think these views are Okay. But in fact, from the first day you start a subscription service, you should think about the issue of income and cost. After all, this is a business. If you cannot make ends meet, no matter how good the service is, it will not be sustainable, and subscribers do not want to see such a result. Therefore, what you should think about is not cheap and big, but setting a suitable price so that the audience who is willing to pay will pay for your knowledge.
I personally currently spend about 60 hours a month on subscription services. 60 hours can be exchanged for a subscription amount of 120,000 yuan. Many people may think it is good. Then let’s look at the second question, which is the efficiency of making money.
Most of the current subscribers are already well-known professionals or self-media in society, and they may already have a good income. For lecturers, they can earn anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 yuan an hour, which translates into 60 hours, which is between 180,000 and 600,000 yuan. This amount is much more than my 120,000 yuan! Moreover, my 120,000 yuan is not actually paid, and the platform’s commission will be deducted from it. No matter how you calculate it, this is not a very profitable business.
Therefore, from the perspective of the efficiency of making money, the subscription service is not as good as their original method. In this case, it is understandable to choose a relatively efficient approach and abandon subscription services. I think this is one of the key reasons why many professionals are reluctant to do subscription services. Even for me, in terms of money-making efficiency, subscription services are not in the top three, so why do I still do it? This brings us to the third topic, which is the significance of subscription services to my personal brand.
In Taiwan, no one is actually talking about the issue of management in a very structured way, and there are even fewer people in the 40-year-old generation talking about management-related issues. I hope I can be the first. I have written hundreds of management articles in managers and other management media. Coupled with my cross-strait, transnational, and diversified management experience in recent years, I have extracted many of my personal management ideas. I hope to popularize these concepts. To put it simply, I hope that through this subscription service, I will have a deeper connection with keywords such as “business management”, “young generation management”, and “Internet era management”.
When I step into the trend of paying for knowledge and talk about a topic that others don’t talk about, my positioning will be differentiated. And if there are clear distinctions, there will be opportunities to do some issues. If there are issues, there will be opportunities for exposure. With exposure, there will be a voice. What you want to advocate will have a better chance of being realized.
In addition, this subscription service is also an extension of [Explore Your Force] (https://www.facebook.com/exploreyourforce). The meaning behind the service is actually far more important to me than the subscription amount. When you think about these issues strategically, subscription services will mean something different to you, and you will also think about it from another perspective, away from cost and revenue.
Do you have any plans going forward? As I mentioned earlier, my main problem at this stage should be audience reach. I already have a solution to this problem and will gradually implement it in the next few months.
In addition, the physical and coaching programs take up a lot of my time and are difficult to scale. I have also figured out how to increase the scale without sacrificing quality and without significantly increasing my investment time. Let me get rid of this part first.
As for the 24 lectures this year, what are the plans for next year? Will there be nothing left to talk about? In fact, I am not worried about this part at all, because the theme can be deep or shallow, and it is not difficult to plan again according to the needs of the audience. After a whole year of adjustments and interactions this year, it is not necessarily that we will start to provide better focus services next year.
This subscription plan has been around for about two months now. It cannot be called a success or failure, it is just an attempt. I won’t talk too much about other parts. Friends who are interested in Subscription Service are welcome to communicate more. I will add more later.
[You Shufan Teacher Additional Suggestions] For those who are interested in investing in subscription service providers, never forget to think about the reuse of resources.
As mentioned earlier, I spend about 60 hours a month on subscription services. What do these 60 hours include? The rough calculation is roughly like this:
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Live broadcast (6 hours).
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Offline course (8 hours).
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Community discussion and interaction (8 hours).
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Coaching service (36 hours).
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Prepare teaching materials for live broadcast and courses (2 hours).
You will find that the time I spend preparing teaching materials is unusually short. This is of course not because I really only spend this time preparing teaching materials, but because I do not count the time preparing teaching materials here.
Make flexible use of your intellectual assets
I adapted the teaching materials from my internal training, open classes, and exploration of the force courses. I did not significantly revamp my teaching materials for the subscription service. After all, I also deliberately made the course and subscription consistent in terms of audience definition; and because of this, I didn’t spend too much time preparing. And this kind of using a resource twice or three times can definitely greatly improve work efficiency.
If you hope to live through knowledge, then you must constantly think about how to make the most effective use of your past knowledge assets. As a knowledge worker, the knowledge you possess is your product. Blogs, digital tools, or today’s knowledge subscription platforms are all tools and means. They help you spread knowledge more effectively, rather than the other way around and use your knowledge to achieve subscription services. Once the master-slave relationship is wrong, your approach is likely to go wrong.
Knowledge is the main body, and the subscription platform is just the vehicle.
Follow your knowledge system to develop subscription services
If you want to make a subscription service, I suggest you take stock of your own knowledge system first and let the subscription service revolve around your knowledge system. Otherwise, in the process of continuously contributing knowledge, you will gradually feel exhausted when writing whatever comes to mind, and then you will not know what to share with your subscribers. Well, this pressure is no joke.
If you take stock of your own knowledge system first and lay out all the content you want to talk about throughout the year at once, in addition to increasing the predictability of your subscribers, you will have a better idea of the content you will provide later, and you will not be flustered when preparing. Moreover, because all the subscription content is prepared around the knowledge you are good at, it is not that strenuous to prepare; and because you have done a knowledge inventory, you will know better where you are strong and where you are weak. Gradually, your knowledge system will become more complete.
And this increasingly complete knowledge system will give you the opportunity to use it for a second time. Whether it is planned as a physical course, an online course, writing a book or giving a speech, it will be of direct help to your personal accumulation of knowledge and increase in income. I recommend that anyone who wants to try a subscription service take this advice into account.
I wrote the previous article and some friends gave me some feedback, so I used this article to make some replies.
★ Recommended further reading:
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[A brief discussion on subscription fundraising (Part 2): Restrictions and challenges for creators of “closed content”] (https://www.contenthacker.today/2018/01/kyon-subscription-comment-part3.html)
★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL5): How to run corporate official websites, blogs and publications [Registration now]
★ Content Hacking Lecture Series (CHL6): How to use presentations for content marketing [Registration now]
★ To improve your content power, please don’t miss the online course “[Content Power: The Super Power of Building Brands] (https://hahow.in/cr/content-power)”
★ Photo Credit: The Creative Exchange
Further reading
- Huang Shaolin talks about “The Tao and Techniques of Paid Member Management”: Seize members’ perception and improve user retention rate
- Knowledge Paid Content Subscription Summit: You Shufan talks about five insights into engaging in paid knowledge services
- The key to success of “subscription-based services”: effectively maintaining long-term relationships with users
