Thanks so much to everyone who filled out Advisorator’s Member Survey. Nearly 300 of you responded, and more than half of you took the time to fill out written feedback as well. It’s given me lots to think about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, I thought I’d share some quick takeaways on what you all want\u2014and don’t want\u2014from Advisorator membership<\/a> in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To gauge how much you value the different parts of Advisorator’s weekly newsletter, I asked how much you’d miss each section if I stopped writing them (on a scale of 1 to 4). The results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n On a related note, there’s a healthy mix of folks who read the newsletter cover-to-cover (57%) and who skim through for interesting bits (38%), so I’m glad the newsletter caters to both approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The guides and tutorials on Advisorator’s website<\/a> also scored highly when I asked how much you valued them, with an average score 3.53\/4. And in a separate question about how I could improve on an existing Advisorator feature, “More online guides and tutorials” was the most popular answer (at 44%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s no contest for what hypothetical new membership perk you’d like most, with “Video tutorials” getting 53% of the responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ll be honest: The writer in me kind of hates this, but I get it. Videos are often the best way to demonstrate a product, feature, or concept, and the format is just more viscerally engaging than text ever could be. YouTube and TikTok are huge for a reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think I could do a good job with video. The challenge is finding the time to do it, especially without an infusion of new subscription revenue to buy me more time away from freelance work. Then there’s the question of distribution: Do I put videos on YouTube in hopes of finding new audiences, or focus more on paywalled videos for members?<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of which is to say, I hear you, but it’ll take me some time to think through the best approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started Advisorator’s Slack space<\/a> on a whim in 2020 after writing about how my high school friend group was using it for group chats<\/a>. I’m glad I did it, and we have some pretty knowledgeable folks who chime in\u2014including a few other tech journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as a whole, Advisorator members aren’t really into it. Most respondents gave the Slack space a 1 out of 4 when asked its value, and the average score was 1.93, far lower than any other membership perk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s partly on me for not hyping it up as a major selling point, but the chat room format just might not be the best fit for Advisorator readers anyway. In a question about what existing benefits you’d most like me to improve on, a more active Slack was the least popular answer (2%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have no plans to shut down the Slack space, which doesn’t cost me anything and is low-maintenance, but I think it’s time to examine other community-building options instead. For instance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, there’s solid interest in a more traditional forum, with topics and conversation threads you can access through a regular web page. Asked what hypothetical new membership perk you’d most like to see, “Discussion forum” was the second-most popular response (behind video) at 19%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve been intrigued by the idea of a members-only forum for a while, and could even see this being something I offer as a kind of unifying membership perk across both Advisorator and Cord Cutter Weekly. Setting it up would be fairly trivial; the real work would be in encouraging folks to participate. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked how you’d respond to a hypothetical price hike of $2 to $3 per month, only 59% of you said that you’d probably keep your subscription, while 21% said you’d probably cancel. (The other 20% were write-ins, most of which boiled down to “I’d have to think about it.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n While there’s probably a way to raise prices without causing a backlash\u2014as part of a big foray into video, for instance\u2014I’m not sure it’s worth the risk. Besides, I like that Advisorator is on the affordable end of the subscription newsletter pricing spectrum. Consider this idea off the table for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, 79% of you said you’d probably keep paying the current rate if I made subscriptions optional and unlocked the full newsletter for everyone, and only 2% said they’d stop paying entirely in this scenario. The rest said they’d either pay more (5%) or less (13%) than they do now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I love the idea of this model and know some folks have found success with it (most notably Jason Kottke<\/a>), but it’d also be a huge leap of faith. It’s not something I plan to fully embrace anytime soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, the responses tell me there’s room to be more aggressive with introductory pricing for new subscribers. Advisorator has an incredibly low churn rate (less than 2%), as the value quickly becomes clear once you’re a subscriber. If I lowered the barrier to getting more folks in the door\u2014say, with occasional deep discounts for the first year’s subscription\u2014I don’t think too many of you would be offended, especially if it results in letting me spend more time on the newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toward the end of the survey, I asked two opposing, open-ended questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n After detecting some common themes in the responses, I added them to a spreadsheet and fed it to ChatGPT for analysis. Here’s what I found:<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is my blessing and my curse. While I usually try to pick topics that apply to everyone, sometimes my interests get more specific. On more than one occasion folks have cancelled their subscriptions because I dedicated a single week’s feature column to a platform they don’t use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I’ve made peace with it. While there are plenty of great newsletters, podcasts, and sites that cover a single platform in depth, that’s just not me. I like dipping into different operating systems because they each excel at different things, and they give me perspective about what the others are missing. That lack of tunnel vision is part of what makes Advisorator unique, and the comments from all sides suggest I’m doing an okay job keeping things in balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most journalists have at least a little bit of narcissism in them, and I’d be lying if I said that your positive feedback didn’t tickle that part of my brain. Even after nearly seven years of publishing Advisorator, it’s still validating to read comments like these:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve said it before, but writing this newsletter has been the highlight of my career, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. Do you have more feedback to share with me after reading this? Just reach out via email<\/a>. Thank you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks so much to everyone who filled out Advisorator’s Member Survey. Nearly 300 of you responded, and more than half of you took the time to fill out written feedback as well. It’s given me lots to think about. For …<\/p>\nMost of you enjoy the entire newsletter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Online guides are a hit (and you want more)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You really, really want video<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Advisorator Slack is a bust \u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2026 But a forum might work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A price hike seems dangerous \u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u2026 But pay-what-you-can could work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The cross-platform coverage struggle is real<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Nice comments are nice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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