If something is popular when it's free, you can almost always count on a certain small percentage of people to be willing to pay for extra. In software this model is called "freemium", because the majority of users sign up for a free subscription or free trial, and then a small percentage – often on the order of 0.5% to 2% – will upgrade to pay for extra premium features.
In the case of free content, if your audience is large enough and the interest is high then there will sometimes be a market for extra higher quality and related content for a premium fee. This can be done even with news-type content, the most famous example being the Wall Street Journal, which has a paid subscription model.
But premium content works at its best on sites where there is some sort of learning involved. People looking for knowledge are often willing to pay for it, particularly if it's specialized, hard to find otherwise, and being taught by an expert! If your blog is providing the free content, then this paid content effectively means that this is a "freemium" system.
In a premium content model you should be selling access to some sort of content that is related to the regular blog. This is a logical connection and ensures that your audience is going to convert as smoothly as possible. You can offer all sorts of content behind the paid wall including video, audio, text, or even related downloads of tools and resources.
For example, a site about self improvement could have a premium area that offers extra video interviews with self improvement gurus, a downloadable calendar for planning improvement strategies, and some meditation music tracks.
You can also package in services into a premium content model. For example, one-on-one mentoring, group webinars, moderated forums, or personalized email help with the content.
Another strategy you can take with premium content is to have a progressive unveiling system. So when the user signs up, they initially get access to a certain amount of extra content and then this gradually increases over time.
This might work in the form of a course that gets harder and more advanced as you go along, or simply as a "coming soon" sort of promissory system to keep users hooked. Either way, the most important thing is to deliver on the promise and fulfill your obligations to users. So if you are using a progressive unveiling system as a means to produce content as you go, be careful that you don't promise more than you can create.
Essentially your premium content area is a product you are selling, so you should research and plan it as such. Work out how you can add as much value as possible for your readers. The more value you can add, the more likely the subscriptions will sell.
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Note: This article was sent to us by: Ethan C. Moore at 02172011
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