Start A Digital Subscription Business
About
Starting a digital subscription business requires a great deal of effort, dedication, and most importantly passion.
If you're interested in how to sell digital subscription, or selling digital subscription online, you can use this page as a guide for everything you'll need to know.
Want to learn more? You can check out our full guide on how to start a digital subscription business ➜
Key stats
Startup Costs
| Min Startup Costs | Max Startup Costs | |
|---|---|---|
| Office Space Expenses | $35 | $3,250 |
| Employee & Freelancer Expenses | $0 | $5,500 |
| Equipment & Supply Expenses | $500 | $5,000 |
| Website Costs | $232 | $6,500 |
| Business Formation Fees | $600 | $4,700 |
| Software Expenses | $150 | $2,794 |
| Advertising & Marketing Costs | $0 | $3,000 |
| Other Expenses | $0 | $800 |
| Total Startup Costs | $1,517 | $31,544 |
Successful Businesses
| Business | URL | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
WSJ Subscription | subscription.wsj.com | #419 |
|
WorthPoint Corporation | worthpoint.com | #1,768 |
|
Nashville Lifestyles | nashvillelifestyles.com | #459,869 |
|
My Nashville Magazine | mynashvillemagazine.com | #8,819,042 |
Pros & Cons
| Pros | Description |
|---|---|
| Flexibility | You can put as much time into the business as you'd like. If you like the work and have some initial experience, you can start small and manage all aspects of the business on your own. |
| Rewarding work | Starting a digital subscription business can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about. |
| Traffic to your website | A digital subscription business gives people a reason to visit your website and to keep coming back to you! |
| Meaningful business connections | You never know who you will meet or get to work with for your digital subscription business. This could be the start of an incredible business opportunity! |
| High customer retention rates | Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your digital subscription business becomes an integral piece of their every day lives. |
| Gain exposure and experience | This career allows you to gain experience working for multiple different businesses - which will benefit your resume and also keep things interesting for you! |
| Cons | Description |
|---|---|
| Motivation of employees | If you plan to have a sales/content team on board, finding creative ways to motivate them can be a challenge. It's important that you're able to offer great incentives and a good work environment for your employees. |
| Longer Sales Process | A digital subscription business can be a big time and money investment for your customer, so it's important you plan and predict a longer conversion funnel and stay in communication with potential customers. |
| Low margins | The gross margins for your digital subscription business are typically around 30%, which can make it more challenging to incur new expenses and maintain profitability. |
| High employee turnover | In the digital subscription business, employee turnover is often high, which can be quite costly and time consuming for your business. It's important to try and avoid this as much as possible by offering competitive pay, benefits, and a positive work environment. |
| Taxes | As a digital subscription business, you typically pay self-employment taxes which can be quite high. It's important to understand what you will be paying in taxes each year so you can determine if the work you're taking on is worth it. |
| High overhead expenses | With starting a digital subscription business, there are overhead expenses that come with selling a physical product. You will want to make sure you strategically budget for these overhead costs. We discuss this more in the startup costs section below. |
Marketing Ideas
-
1
Word of mouth
The most tried and true way to grow a digital subscription business is through word of mouth - some entrepreneurs would say it's more important than all social media.
-
2
Advertising on social media
Social media advertising is one of the leading ways to get the word out when it comes to digital subscription business.
There are various different Social Media platforms available to you. Some may be more critical for your marketing efforts than others, however, it's important to have an understanding of what's out there and available to you.
-
3
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a performance-based marketing method that allows you to show specific ads for services or products oriented to a very defined target, with the goal that the user visits your website or landing page.
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