Financial Newsletter Marketing — A Peek at Stansberry Research’s Product Ladder
July 30, 2008 by John_Newtson
Alright, let’s continue with this financial marketing series on the product ladders of various investment publishers.
Today, let’s look at what is probably the most profitable (at least for now) arm of Agora, the $300+ million publishing empire of direct marketers.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that this financial publisher does in the neighborhood of $50 million a year. Whether that’s right or not they are definitely a very successful publisher.
When we look at their product offering and editorial content here’s what we see:
- 2 FREE e-letters – They publish them daily. Agora is in my opinion one of the preeminent ezine marketers online, not because they do everything perfectly or even right all the time. But because they publish a LOT of them across their different divisions. And they leverage their combined media-platforms very well across services and divisions.
- 5 Front-End Newsletters – All at the same price-point of $99. Also notice that these all are annual continuity programs. Renewals are critical in the subscription business to maintain and grow your customer base. Most publishers I’ve seen are running renewal marketing campaigns but I’ll bet Stansberry’s auto-renew option gives them a better retention rate.
- 14 Backend Products & Services – These include 1 course, 3 high-price “Lifetime Memberships” that each includes several of the other services and subscriptions, and 11 other investing & trading services ranging from $500 to $4,000.
You probably notice the product ladder is remarkably similar to Investor Place’s product ladder. They had 7 front-end newsletters and 15 backend newsletters.
As we get into more of these you’ll start to see these patterns emerging. The structure of a $30 … $40 … or $50 million financial publishing business isn’t difficult to map out if you’re paying attention to what other successful companies are doing.
Having such a robust product ladder means you can actually pay more to get a new customer, which in turn, opens up your prospect universe. And the key to explosive sales growth is what you do with a customer after you get him. Having a developed product ladder gives you good options to promote to new customers to generate more profit, sooner.
One of the most encouraging things about all of these businesses is that none of them are fantastic at all parts of their marketing. From working for many of them, tracking them for several years, talking to insiders, tearing apart their campaigns, offers and everything else I could get my hands on I’ve come to realize that being “pretty good” and even just “competent” at the core areas of acquiring and selling to customers is enough to be very successful.
And when you do excellent work, things can really explode.
Click here to view and download a PDF of this financial marketers product ladder.
Yours for faster profits,
John Newtson
Chief Direct Marketing Officer
Explosive Direct Marketing
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[...] Click here to see the front-end products and back-end products for Stansberry Research. [...]
John,
Didn’t know you were putting out these KILLER blog posts … great stuff bud!
In fact, even though we’ve been friends a long time, I found your site in a google search — guess that’s a good thing for you
Question:
For guys (take the financial markets you’ve covered) who put out 5-day a week or 7-day a week e-newsletters … when are they “PROMOTING?”
Do they then send additional SOLO e-mailings for promos, do they tie it into their newsletters, or what?
Are these guys STILL seeing strong online response with a mailing schedule that heavy? I know your former boss, Clayton, has modeled his Copy/DM newsletter similarly — for obvious reasons … that’s what he knows from the DM/financial markets, but is the list STILL responsive with that much stuff coming in?
To summarize into two questions:
1) Do you see a high unsubscribe rate with 5-7 emails/newsletters per week?
2) How do these guys promote the other pieces of their product ladder? In solo mailings, or what?
Thanks bro — and keep up the amazing work,
JP Maroney
aka Mr. Monetizer
Hey JP!
Thanks so much for the kind words. They mean a lot coming from someone with your experience.
Whew! Those are some big questions. So let me give you the short version here and I’ll post the nuanced, fully expanded conversation as separate posts (thanks for giving me ideas for my next several posts!)
1. Not really, the unsubscribe rate varies list to list but in the financial markets prospects and customers are already looking for daily information. They’re cnbc junkies and are constantly on top of the news and reading multiple sites.
So a lower frequency can actually put you at a disadvantage because if they are going to other sources — often competitors — for their information more often then they hear from you — they’re listening to you less and less.
In the white-hot center of this market (day traders for instance) you can actually hit the list multiple times a day IF you have useful, topical and relevant things to say.
Now, if you have a list used to a lower contact frequency and suddenly increase your contacts dramatically you will definitely see a spike in unsubscribes.
Folks who are used to a lower contact level will react more negatively to your increased frequency than will folks who come in after you’ve increased frequency.
But this shifts market to market — in the health field 3-5 contacts a week seems to be the top — but there are ton of caveats in that having to do with different segments of your list.
To break those down we’d have to get into lead scoring and other data-driven marketing activities — which will require a series of posts.
RE: HOW RESPONSIVE ARE THESE LISTS that are getting up 12 (yes TWELVE) emails a week?
Very, VERY responsive. Some of these lists are still producing $15-$20 million months on a fairly regular basis.
Another caveat though: I believe you should offer a DOWNGRADE option for the frequency of contact in your unsubscribe process.
That lets you save a high percentage of folks who would leave you because they want fewer emails. You can offer a 1-2 times a week ezine option as an optional alternative to unsubcribing - just remember to reduce your promotional contacts to this list segment as well.
2) How do they promote? Every way they can!
Seriously though, you’ve got a broad range of promotional opportunities going at once.
Including:
- Major launches that are advertorial in nature — promoting a major free event setting up a new, higher priced service sold through high-frequency dedicated emails. These go out IN ADDITION to the regular ezines.
- the ezines are often advertorial in nature. So they deliver excellent content that supports the sale of either the major launch, or another product or service.
- the ezine have ad inserts for products.
- dedicated emails — when a major launch is not going on you can segment the list to cross sell or upsell. Or just let it rest passively or have rejuvenation campaign.
- direct mail to the house list. And a lot of it!
Every one of these spots gives them the opportunity to upsell, cross sell and downsell to their customer base.
And customers who buy a higher price service are prime prospects for the big ticket memberships. These are the slack adjusters where you sell a lifetime membership for $12k or more giving them full access to everything in order to move a ton of cash forward in the business. DIrect mail and “personal” emails are the workhorses for these products.
This is especially profitable if you know the life cycle of your customers and plan your promotions of these types of services for maximum profitability.
Anyway, the BIGGEST PROBLEM I’ve seen with increasing contact frequency is poor execution of the content. Watered down versions of what the customer wants DON’T do you nearly as much good and can drive away your best customers.
So in my view the content is critical. And so is the relationship you build — which should be CONSCIOUSLY planned.
One tip for prepping new leads for higher frequency is to have your conversion series deliver surprise bonuses & gifts at your desired level of frequency and in the same format as your promotions in order to condition people to look for your emails.
The first week or two is a critical part of the relationship AND since RECENCY is the biggest predicter of future behavior the early part of the relationship is also the most potentially profitable.
So I tend to recommend a higher contact frequency in the beginning to:
1. Maximize initial sales — very important when you’re paying for traffic and need to get to break even fast.
2. Get prospects used to getting emails from you.
3. Bond and build the relationship with the reader to help set up further sales.
Anyway, now I’m rambling a little, hope that all makes sense.
I’ll post some more practical stuff on how to navigate increasing frequency without churning & burning the list in the near future.
And thanks again JP for the compliments!! Means a lot coming from you.
John Newtson