You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #39, sent out on May 29th, 2024. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.
Clarín, L’Équipe, The Times… The Audiencers’ Festival line up is stacking up to be a good one
To add to our tour that could rival that of Taylor Swift (almost), with similar energy and even some live music, The Audiencers’ Festival is back in London on June 21st!
Amongst our already confirmed speakers:
> Craig Law, Product Marketing Manager at The Guardian 🇬🇧
> Romain L’Hôte, Director Marketing at L’Équipe 🇫🇷
> Marc Gendron, Publisher at Les Coops d’info 🇨🇦
> Ismael Nafria, expert of Clarín & independent consultant 🇪🇸
Plus an exciting twist to traditional business conferences by bringing France’s fête de la musique to London (if the content wasn’t enough, this live music really is the icing on the cake).
> Find the full agenda and reserve your spot here
Now to today’s newsletter:
- Behind The Audiencers: we officially launch our registration and community strategy
- 5 use cases to leverage AI in your operations: San Francisco Chronicle’s Chowbot helps you find the best place to eat in the city
- Calling all newsletter and podcaster pros, this event is for you
- Unique features to include in your premium package: out-of-the-box ideas to ensure your subscription is worth paying for
- Content to add to your reading list
Behind The Audiencers
October 13th, 2022: Marion & I launched The Audiencers at an intimate party on Boulevard Haussman in Paris. It felt surreal, like an idea that we’d had one evening that we’d never really imagined would happen. Little did we know that this idea of turning a simple blog into a whole publication would whirlwind to the point that The Audiencers is at today.
Our ambition was to unite publishing professionals around the common goals of engaging, converting and retaining online audiences. We created this new brand (The Audiencers belongs to the start-up Poool) with all the candor of those who don’t know what they’re doing, and the demands of those who want it to be useful.
Supported by the start-up’s marketing team, The Audiencers has never pretended to be a medium from scratch. And yet, even if all our readers are now well aware that this medium is the marketing arm of Poool, The Audiencers continues to grow in stature and robustness as a brand in and of itself. To the point where, through the accumulation of side-projects, it has become a community.
The idea was to find an appropriate balance between free access news and “decisive notes”, which would be restricted to subscribers-only.
A year and a half on from the launch and we’re practicing what we preach in our content by placing articles behind a registration wall and developing our community strategy…
> From the launch, we’d placed the second article read behind a newsletter wall, something that has been fundamental to our growth strategy but hasn’t allowed us to understand exactly what each reader is interested in
> So we’ve now integrated a registration wall into our articles using Poool, asking readers to create an account in exchange for access to content
> And thanks to our friends over at Viafoura, we’ve also added a comment section and notification bell to develop community engagement and encourage audiences to interact with each other onsite
> Plus we’ve added pages for our WhatsApp group and events, highlighting the importance of these in our community-building and audience growth strategy
This has also meant an updated header bar which had become slightly crowded with our 4 main topics (Decisions, Operations, Inspo and Benchmarking) on top of the tags (Paywalls, Onboarding, etc.)
My incredible UX skills coming into play below 😂 before Marion does the tech magic.
We’re learning as we go along, and working hard to put our own theory into practice despite the small team, but the growth of the community, both online and now in-person has been incredible. So, thank you!
And we’re very keen to hear from you. If you have any feedback, suggestions or have seen something that doesn’t look quite right, please get in touch.
> Full article by Marion is a great read here
5 use cases to leverage AI in your operations
This year, AI has created a major buzz in the media world (and in every other industry too). And whilst the discussions are interesting, there’s a lot of talk of ‘potentials’ and questions of what might be possible in the future. But let’s cut through the noise: how are newsrooms actually using AI today?
Writer and editorial leader, Anabelle Nicoud, shares 5 interesting cases of AI being used to optimize operations and increase reader engagement.
My favorite: The San Francisco Chronicle’s Chowbot
The “Chowbot” is an AI-powered chatbot that went live in February on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website, helping readers find recommended restaurants and specific dishes in the Bay Area.
> As the chatbot only uses verified data from the San Francisco Chronicle, the risks of false information and errors are limited
> Chowbot is reserved for the Chronicle’s subscribers only and was already being used by 10,000 users just a month and a half after its debut
> The publisher very clearly communicates the fact that AI is used to power this feature that takes information from existing SF Chronicle articles – “our Chowbot can help you search through nearly 1,000 reviews from more than 50 restaurant guides, all written, edited and vetted by the San Francisco Chronicle’s Food & Wine team”
> Find more examples from Newsquest, Gannet and L’Équipe on The Audiencers
Unique features to include in your premium package
I’m always keeping an eye out for unique benchmarks to share, and recently I’ve been seeing increasingly more innovative subscriber benefits. And it’s easy to see why this can be valuable to a publisher…
- Engage subscribers in new and exciting ways
- Create unique value that other premium packages don’t offer
- Acquire subscribers who may be interested in other verticals
- Increase the price of your subscription package through additional value
- Show appreciation for subscribers (make them feel valued for retention and loyalty purposes)
Let’s look at some examples:
Bild – collaboration with Lidl Plus
The press release shared that Lidl customers in Germany who use the Lidl Plus app and reach a certain monthly shopping volume will be rewarded by Lidl with a special bonus for their loyalty – access the digital premium offer from BILD for one month.
> BILDplus will be visibly integrated into the Lidl Plus app as a reward
> The prerequisite for using the access is registration with BILDplus
> The bonus is activated via the Lidl Plus app and can be extended every month if the purchase volume is sufficient
The Toronto Star – contests
Toronto Star have a whole page of benefits for subscribers, including contests for the chance to win enticing prizes as a way to show appreciation for their loyalty.
ELLE France – yoga classes
The final bullet-point benefit of subscription here is “1 free online OLY Be yoga class every 6 weeks, plus exclusive reduced offers”.
To continuously develop their subscription offer and acquisition strategy, the ELLE team have been testing this collaboration with yoga company, OLY Be, which supports both companies in acquiring new customers and advertising their offers.
Any other unique subscriber benefits that you’ve seen or developed yourself? Send them over!
Content to add to your reading list:
- Man of Many – the carbon-neutral, quality-focused, independent men’s lifestyle magazine picking up awards left, right and center
- FT Strategies’ webinar on June 5th: Building Resilience: Diversification Strategies for News and Media
- Pre-mortem: How to Fight Failure Early, from Products in Publishing
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