Quick Overview
TraderInterviews.com, an online stock-trading advice site, clearly defines its territory in the crowded financial content niche: It provides audio interviews with real, successful stock traders, not gurus or stock theorists. Started as a free site in 1999, the company crossed over to a profitable subscription format in 2009 on the strength of that peer-to-peer content. Here’s how the team generates its interview-based content and promotes its unique, “no guru” approach.
Target Market
“Anyone who has an interest in online trading and wants to hear how other traders are approaching the market,” Bourquin says.
Subscribers are mostly:
- Men aged 25 to 45 with a high net worth
- Holders of online trading accounts worth at least $50,000
Content Model
TraderInterviews.com differentiates itself in the crowded online stock-trading info niche by offering “straight talk” audio interviews with successful traders. Bourquin stresses that these aren’t gurus or talking heads; they’re actual traders who’ve made money. They don’t have something to sell.
Weekly audio interviews with accompanying transcripts make up the bulk of content behind the paywall. There are about 225 interviews in total, ranging from 28 to 42 minutes.
During interviews, Bourquin asks traders:
- How they find good trades and continue to make money in their target markets
- What indicators, charts, software, and time frames they use
Half of subscribers log-in to the site to access the interviews. The other half get access via a secure, password-enabled podcast feed on iTunes. Subscribers also get access to members-only webinars and trading events.
The site offers minimal free content — mostly teaser copy accompanying the individual interviews and a 5 minute, 55 second introductory video on the homepage. The video:
- Explains what TraderInterviews.com is and the founder’s background as a trader
- Describes how its conversations with “real traders” makes it different
- Offers visitors a free sample interview download in exchange for an email address
Revenue Streams
Annual subscriptions generate the majority of site revenue. Annual subscriptions cost $499, but subscribers must renew each year. Another offer is called a lifetime pass: It costs $1,499 and includes a USB flash drive pre-loaded with all the interviews on the site.
In addition, visitors can purchase some interviews individually, priced at $25 each. The team added this option six months ago after receiving requests to purchase individual interviews.
“We decided getting something is better than nothing,” Bourquin says. “We wanted to make them expensive enough that if you downloaded five or six of them it would make sense to buy an annual subscription.”
Marketing Tactics
TraderInterviews.com relies mostly on affiliates and word-of-mouth to drive traffic to the site. At last count, unique monthly visits were 12,182 (according to Compete, September 2010).
Here are the major tactics they use to generate and convert traffic:
1. Content
The team uses interviews that aren’t quite valuable enough to put behind the paywall to drive traffic to the site. They’ll create a transcript, turn that into five or six articles, and then syndicate to other websites.
All of the articles link back to TraderInterviews.com. Sometimes they will turn an interview into a short video or podcast to put on YouTube or Vimeo — anywhere that might attract new visitors.
2. Search Marketing
Bourquin takes advantage of the inherent SEO benefits of the site’s keyword-rich interview content. Each interview transcript features plenty of keywords that arise naturally in conversation with traders. Still, he keeps keywords in mind when writing headlines and teaser copy.
“We do a little bit of Google AdWords,” he says about the paid search strategy. “We haven’t had a lot of success. We just can’t compete with E*TRADE for the keywords.”
3. Homepage Video with Free Sample Offer
The introductory video on the site’s homepage is a “huge part of our success,” Bourquin says. The video encourages visitors to enter their email address to download a free sample interview. Roughly 50% of homepage visitors view the video, he says.
“It gives them the opportunity to see who we are and what we do. We get a lot of people that go straight to the opt-in page.”
4. Email Marketing
“The email list is still our biggest money maker,” Bourquin says. “It brings in the most new members.”
About one out of every 100 email opt-ins becomes a paid subscriber, for a conversion rate of 1%.
Besides capturing opt-ins with the free sample offer, the team occasionally partners on opt-in campaigns with other financial sites that have a similar audience. They’ll send an email message to the partner’s list, and let the partner send an email message to their list.
New opt-ins receive an automated email welcome series — about one message every 4 days. The messages introduce opt-ins to the content on the site, offer a little bit of free content, and then after two weeks they’re asked to become paying members.
“I’m not about giving free content forever,” Bourquin says. “My goal is not to build subscriber list of a million. I’d rather have a list of 10,000 buyers.”
Email is also used to generate renewals. Each subscriber receives two reminders to renew at the end of their annual subscription — a week before and a day before the expiration date. Currently, about 50% of subscribers renew.
5. Affiliate Marketing
About 25% of paid subscriptions come from affiliate traffic. The best affiliates are small, independent stock trading sites that provide courses or newsletters, says Bourquin.
Affiliates put up a banner ad or write an article linking to the site’s free interview page, and the team tracks visitors from that link with a cookie. If those visitors become a subscriber at any time, the affiliate gets a portion of the subscription price.
Technology and Vendors Used
aMember: Membership and subscription management software, handles affiliate sign-up and tracking. http://www.amember.com/p/
AWeber: Email marketing software http://www.aweber.com/
MT stat: Transcription services that specialize in the medical and financial sectors http://mt-stat.com/
Patodia Inc.: Audio transcription services http://patodiainc.com/
Windows Live Movie Maker: Free video production/editing tool http://explore.live.com/windows-live-movie-maker
About Tim Bourquin
A unique beginning: Bourquin was a full-time police officer for the Los Angeles Police Department. He worked the 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift in South Central and traded during the day. “I opened my first account in 1997,” he said. “Back then only one or two brokers were offering online trading. The tools were primitive. I found it fascinating that you could buy and sell stocks online.”
He started TraderInterviews.com as a free, “hobby” site in 1999. Any time he’d occasionally talk to another trader to get ideas, he’d record it and put it on the site.
When asked what he likes best about running a subscription site, he says: “For a long time everyone tried ad-based revenues. But now, for a small content creator who has a narrow targeted audience, they can make a living charging for the content they create with not a lot of traffic.”
Subscription Site Insider’s Analysis
TraderInterviews.com is a great example of how powerful peer-to-peer content can be. Busy professionals often don’t have time for theories from the experts — they just want to know what’s working for people struggling in the same trenches as they are. The team does a great job emphasizing that its content comes from “real traders” who are “actually making money.”
The team also understands that busy professionals want options for how they consume content. By offering audio downloads and text transcripts, they can attract subscribers with different media preferences.
Finally, it’s great to see a subscription site define itself, its content, and its origins in a simple, six-minute video with a call-to-action that’s generating opt-ins. Introductory videos can be so powerful, yet so overlooked by subscription sites. And they’re important especially for those sites that have a unique or complicated content model to sell.
http://www.traderinterviews.com/
