These three key points are the reasons why we are the biggest perimeter at Matters and earn a steady monthly income

In a conversation with Matty in mid-October, I learned that we are Matters "the biggest stove around the kiln". In short, we have the most kiln subscribers.

At the beginning of April 2021, we launched the "Story Storytelling on the Border of the Empire" plan around the furnace. At that time, the last sentence of the FB announcement was "As long as one person subscribes, we will "open the furnace". Six months later we had 87 subscribers (13 October figures), of which 83 were paying subscribers.

The authors of Matt City will probably agree that articles about life here are more popular than those about popular science and academics, and we see a similar situation in our data. A total of 56 articles have been published so far, with an average of 121 claps per article, which is incomparable with other Matt Gods.

But the subscription system allows us to not care too much about the number of clapping hands, reducing the psychological burden of a single performance, because you can know at least how much income this month is at the beginning of the month (the total income will be announced at the end).

It's like someone paid us to create first!

This article is to share with the author Matt our business experience in the past six months. We use the Venn diagram to divide the business strategy into three parts (as shown in the figure below), first introduce the strategy attributes of these three circles, and then explain the overlapping circles. The strategic implications of some representations.

We believe that value A, publicity B, and commitment C, the overlapping part E of these three circles, is the ideal model for operating a furnace in Matt.

Circle A: Value

The first thing we think is the most important thing is to clearly articulate the value proposition of the creation, which is what it is for. And honestly we think it’s hard to resonate with potential subscribers without a good idea and story, or a too personal creative reason, willing to pay upfront every month without knowing what to expect.

The purpose of telling values, ideas, and stories is to resonate with potential readers. Readers may be applauded because of the practicality or good-looking of a single article, but to maintain a high level of each article and have a fixed output, the pressure is too great, even because a certain hard-produced content fails to achieve expectations Clapping hands, reinforcing the eternal debate about what articles deserve to be seen.

But if the reader buys not only the work, but also the idea behind it, you will be more relaxed about the performance of a single article (maybe the reader will too).

Our copywriting for promoting the fireplace directly emphasizes three value propositions:

1. Introducing Quality Macau Studies
2. Promote a culture of paying for knowledge
3. Introducing the real Macau to the Chinese-speaking world outside Macau

Therefore, all creative content, plans and actions are carried out around the value proposition. Even if the benefits are great, things that violate the value proposition will naturally not be done. In the past six months, we have indeed encountered a "temptation" that may bring a hundred times the return, and finally rejected it. This story will be mentioned later.

At the beginning of the copy, it is clearly stated why "knowledge is paid", or "creation has a value". Both the author and the readers who can pay are less psychologically burdened, and they will no longer need to spend time explaining why they are charged.

With the value endorsement, you know that the subscribers and you have reached a consensus, and everyone has a "resonance".

Therefore, we suggest that authors who want to start the fire can first think about the value proposition of their creation, and even spend a piece of content to clarify these things first.

But with a value proposition and enough potential readers, Matt Universe is definitely not enough.

Circle B: Publicity

A second and equally important strategy is publicity. The subscription system is destined to only attract specific readers. It provides specific services for readers with certain needs. If you know that potential readers are mainly there, it is impossible to turn a blind eye, and you should actively strive for it.

For example, our potential readers are obviously mainly from Macau. According to the research , the most used social media in Macau in 2020 is WeChat (85%) and Facebook (63%). Because of the limited content theme, we can't use WeChat, and we can't give up Facebook and focus on Matt City, which has a limited audience.

The value proposition requires publicity channels, and it is clear that its potential audience is there, so it forms the set D of A and B: "Don't give up the galaxy" .

Authors who have read Matt's official article " Matt Universe Co-construction Project" will know what the Milky Way is relative to Matt's Universe. Many Matt authors also fled to Matt's Universe because they were injured in the Galaxy, but they must attract In favor of subscribing readers of some value, we choose not to give up on Galaxy.

The number of our Facebook page and the number of followers of Matters are both growing at the same time. After trying to find the correlation with the number of subscribers from different data, we first found that the number of followers of Matters is probably not related to the number of subscribers. Convert into subscribers. It's reasonable to think about it. After all, everyone is an author who is looking for valuable creations, and it seems particularly difficult to obtain internal subscriptions.

On the contrary, the "average number of interactions" of the Facebook page has a certain correlation. We repost articles around the furnace, sell ads (with subscription money), announce new articles, repost article quotes, publish achievements in Matt City, etc. on the page, which should help maintain the interaction rate.

There is no way to know where the subscribers are from the kiln data, but assuming that those 1⃣ who only subscribed to our kiln, 2⃣ have no works of their own, and 3⃣ who only tracked us or the official account were obtained from Facebook, then among the 83 paying subscribers , at least 58% from Facebook. And that's just conservative numbers, as some subscribers also started creating afterwards.

Even if you don't agree with how the galactic universe works, someone needs to take the galactic natives to see the new universe.

Circle C: Commitment

With the idea and the pitch, the only way to keep subscribers is to deliver on the original promise. But our experience is not just delivering on promises, but doing more.

The biggest difference between the subscription system and the traditional commodity transaction is that the latter is a one-time transaction from production to delivery to the seller, from top to bottom, while the subscription system is a continuous service provision based on subscribers. In the words of Robbie Baxter, author of The Forever Transaction, “To get a permanent transaction, you have to return it with a permanent commitment.”

Continue to honor the original value proposition and become the overlapping part of the AC circle, the strategic implication of the F area.

Taking our three value propositions as an example, the first is to produce 1-2 social articles introducing Macau research every week, that is, continuous publication. Although one article per week is in line with the plan, we have actually maintained a frequency of two or more per week in the first half of the year.

The second commitment is to promote a culture of paying for knowledge. Needless to say, as long as subscribers do not unsubscribe and the number of subscribers continues to grow, this promise will naturally be fulfilled. How great!

The last one is to promote Macau to the outside world. Matters, who has readers from different Chinese-speaking regions, specializes in writing articles about Macau, which is to promote Macau to the outside world. But we have done more. In the past six months, we have successively cooperated with Macao local online media "Ai Hsu Daily" (but it has recently been suspended due to political reasons ...), Macao Chinese-Portuguese bilingual media "Macao Platform Plataforma" and Taiwanese media "Corner International" " to reach a partnership.

What I want to say here is that as long as you make a promise, you have to try it if you succeed or not, and explain it to your subscribers and readers.

Our monthly review content will be posted on the FB page and around the fire, telling our subscribers what we have done this month, what difficulties we have encountered or future plans, and recently we have also set up a monthly questionnaire to collect suggestions.

This is not only a way to gain returns, but also a process of building mutual trust with subscribers. At the same time, it is also promoting and telling potential subscribers: "Look, we really have a lot of intentions to do it, don't we have a good idea, good content, and good team to support it?"

Complementary strategies of publicity and continued fulfillment of consultations constitute the overlapping part G: "Return to Rewards, Monthly Review" .

Once we received an invitation from the Chinese content website "Today's Toutiao" , and the other party clearly used 120 million daily traffic to lure it, at the cost of not being able to write politically related content. We rejected it because it clearly contradicted the core values and the ideological orientation of the readership.

Some commitments with subscribers can only be understood, but they cannot be violated.

But subscriptions aren't for every Matt author

Really, the subscription system is not suitable for all Matt writers, its shortcomings are too obvious.

First, you're wasting a lot of time on things other than writing. It's so important to run Facebook's readership, that's how you get new subscribers and keep old ones. If there is only interaction when new articles are released every week, under the all-evil algorithm of "Galaxy Universe", they will be forgotten by readers long ago.

So you have to spend a lot of time to do a lot of non-writing related posts, and there is a team that can cover each other, but most of Matt City writers work alone, and it is too busy to write and engage in FB and Matt’s community.

It is also quite frank to say that because our main audience is on FB, it is difficult to spend more energy on the interaction of Matt City, and one of the reasons for Matt City to gain applause and popularity is to interact, so sometimes I feel that FB and Matt, clapping, and subscribing are kind of a trade off relationship. Matt writers who are interested in a subscription system may also weigh it.

However, the benefits of the fireplace are obvious, and once again it is "stable and predictable income"

Below are our half-year revenue figures, excluding Likecoin revenue. Every month, when you see the "expected revenue for the next month", you will feel more at ease, and you will be more willing to invest in cost execution strategies (such as book draws and advertising).

Value proposition, accurate publicity, and fulfillment of promises are the three major operational strategies of "Storytelling on the Border of the Empire". I would like to share it with everyone in Matt Universe, thank you!

👉Writing for a long time around the furnace publicity handover

👉All Evil Galaxy Universe

👇There are also alternative payment methods specially set up for Macau people👇