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You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #19, sent out on July 26th, 2023. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.
As I'm tying up some projects and *trying* to close all my chrome tabs before heading off on holiday in August, I thought I'd do a little wrap-up edition of the newsletter this week, serving up some of the best performing content from The Audiencers since our launch last October!
I also wanted to take a moment to thank you – last week saw a record number of new subscribers to this newsletter, something that never ceases to amaze us. So, thank you very much to new (and old) readers, I hope our content helps you to achieve your business goals, impress your colleagues and overall do your job better!
The most read article
A gallery of 50+ screenshots of paywalls from publishers around the world, with best practices & advice for each example, helping you to benchmark without having to spend the time crawling the web.
Time-saving, inspiration-providing & an essential for any subscription publisher… no wonder it's been such a hit.
The latest, not-to-miss contributor article
The brilliant Anjali Iyer, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at The Washington Post, is popping up all over the place at the moment with a great contribution on The Audiencers and another on INMA, sharing how WP is driving revenue through subscriber onboarding and investment.
My personal fave
If you haven't yet read any of Lars K. Jensen's articles, you're missing out! His position between product, audience, data and journalism has taught him a great deal about the subscription world, and his articles give us the chance to learn from his experience.
My personal favorite is this one on premium icons. How should we label our subscriber-only, paywalled content? A star, padlock, diamond or nothing? But what if we turned the question around to instead ask ourselves how we should tell subscribers what they do have access to?
P.S. Lars is joining us at The Audiencers' Festival! He'll be on a panel discussing bridge roles and joining us for the networking evening event so you'll have plenty of time to learn more from his experience.
The one that got away
Our first contributor article, published back in October, was quite a talking point amongst readers at the time. But, naturally, it's fallen through the crack as we've continued to publish 2 articles weekly since.
Eric Le Braz, journalist and ex-editor-in-chief at Harvard Business Review & Prisma Media, shares his thoughts on how journalists should reconsider the traditional pyramid framework in favor of a technique that's more suited to a paywalled article in a digital subscription model.
“In paywalls as in love, you have to attract without revealing too much of yourself… the publisher only specifies the angle from the title, often in the form of a question, but never provides readers with the answer before the paywall. They'll outline the who, what, where and when whilst reserving the main answers to the premium part of the content – why, how, and what next?”
> Find Eric's piece here, a must-read for your editorial teams!
Most talked about LinkedIn post
It's no surprise that The New York Times had to make an entrance at some point in this list… (see the post in full on LinkedIn)
And a special mention for our illustrator
We're so lucky to have developed a really funky, unique style at The Audiencers, and it's thanks to Aurélie Garnier, our talented illustrator.
Given that we're based in Paris, this is one of my personal favorites:
What's next?
The Audiencers' Festival of course!
THE event for digital publishing professionals working in audience development -niche, I know, but that's what's going to make it so valuable! The room will be filled with others working on the same challenges as you, but perhaps the expertise & experience you need to do your job better, impress your colleagues & achieve your goals. We already have so many brilliant readers signed up, from The Telegraph, Berlingske Media, The Atlantic, The New Statesman, The Independent… and you?
October 12th, London, 1:30pm-late – be there or, well, miss out, because the content is exclusively for those attending!
> Find the full agenda & register your interest here
SO excited to see you there!
But for now, I'm taking a little holiday in August, so you'll get your next newsletter on the 23rd!
See you then,
Madeleine
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