You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #50 sent out on October 30th, 2024. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.
We’re on newsletter 50! 🥳
In today’s edition:
- Identifying key engagement drivers at DER SPIEGEL
- Annual or monthly subscriptions? The debate continues
- The importance of human touch in journalism, and ideas to get started
- “Free vs premium survey” report is in, including best practices to better approach this question
- Articles to add to your reading list
Identifying key engagement drivers at DER SPIEGEL
The DER SPIEGEL team set out to use audience research to uncover which editorial and product features lead to regular and deep engagement.
The goal: to be able to prioritize which features should be promoted and explained during onboarding, and incorporated into product design considerations
Results: All features are mapped on the usage-preference matrix below using two axes. The Y-axis shows the observed usage values from our website tracking tool, while the X-axis shows the preferences that fans indicated in the survey.
8 features can be identified as engagement boosters:
> Apps & push
- Around 75% of fans use the app, making it a significant driver of engagement. It also serves as an engagement booster across different age groups.
- Push notifications are regularly used, particularly among fans under 40. Interviews showed room for product optimization, as there is a desire for more customization of which push notifications users would like to receive.
> News & update
- News features like our headlines section or our daily morning briefing “Lage am Morgen” are highly popular among SPIEGEL fans and are frequently accessed.
- Live blogs (not shown in the matrix) are especially favored by fans under 40
> Opinion
- Comments and columns are highly valued and regularly read. Even though positioned less prominently, it became one of the most sought-after product features on our front page.
As well as debates, quizzes, video, thematic pages & recommendation boxes.
What do they plan to do with this information?
1 – Increase the number of engaged readers by strategically nudging those with lower usage towards key engagement drivers and support the adaptation of ritualized interactions with these features
2 – Enhance the visibility and ease of access to these engagement drivers on the homepage
> A brilliant article by Alex Held & Angelika Zajac on The Audiencers
Are annual or monthly subscriptions more valuable to your business model?
When considering this question, there are 4 things to bear in mind:
> Ease of acquisition (i.e. acquisition take rates)
Data suggests that consumers favor monthly plans, with new monthly subscriptions outpacing annual ones 5:1.
> Pricing power and flexibility
For smaller media companies, raising prices is key to sustainability. Monthly subscriptions offer greater flexibility and drive higher ARPU, with $12.64 per month compared to $7.36 for annual subscribers, contributing more to long-term revenue.
> Subscriber retention
Mather Economics’ benchmarks show that annual subscribers have better retention in the first year compared to monthly subscribers. However, by year two, the retention gap narrows to just 5%, indicating that the initial advantage of annual plans levels out over time.
> Subscription revenue / volume growth
Monthly subscribers drive 1.7 times higher ARPU than annual subscribers.
While annual subscribers are relatively less price-sensitive, they require significant discounts, contribute less to ARPU, and are fewer in number, limiting potential revenue gains from focusing solely on annual plans.
Recommendations?
> Optimize your subscription mix for growth: Mather suggest a mix of 50% monthly subscribers at the full rate, 25% on introductory offers, and 25% on annual terms to maximize revenue and subscriber growth.
> Leverage the powerful LTV framework
> Test, test, test!
The importance of human touch in journalism
A recent study looking at journalistic values according to audiences, found a misalignment compared with a journalist’s view on the topic.
Specifically, ask journalists about the core professional values that define good journalism, and the answers have been pretty consistent across the decades: factuality, impartiality, public service, autonomy, and ethics.
However, this study (albeit being a small one) found that audiences instead brought up more human elements: approachability, empathy, and skills in communicating clearly and in ways that emotionally resonate.
As RQ1 highlighted in their newsletter, one responded said: “I think that a journalist has to be a very approachable person, especially when it comes to interviews. The journalist has to build trust to be able to address all the topics. So, above all, I think a journalist has to be very empathetic, a person very open to listening as well.”
Ultimately humans connect with humans, not brands. Nothing new, but an essential to build a strong community, and something publishers are starting to latch on to and utilize throughout the reader journey.
How are publishers bringing journalists into the limelight, humanizing their content?
Health Central, who focus heavily on sharing detailed, well-researched content, put their experts at the forefront by highlighting them in a drop-down box below the subtitle.
EBRA Media in France placed their editor-in-chief on the paywall, increasing click-through rates on the subs CTA by 426% and conversion rates by 12%.
FT integrates this into the subscriber onboarding journey, allowing readers to set up alerts for articles published by certain journalists.
The Telegraph encourages journalists to go into the comments section at a specific time each week. This is marketed on social media, on the homepage and app (including push notifications) to encourage readers to get involved.
“Getting journalists involved has helped us show the value of an engaged community to our business model. In turn, this ensures the comments section is not only active but contributing to our journalism… We’ve seen a 119% increase in the number of comments posted once an author has ‘gone below the line’, i.e. joined the discussions in the comments section.” – William Whittington, Lead Community Moderator shared at our London Festival.
Free vs premium: survey report out now
In collaboration with Atlas, our recent survey found an overwhelming majority of publishers decide to block an article with a paywall or not based on the article itself, generally the value-level:
- Short articles are “free” – e.g. breaking news and service news
- In-depth features are “premium” – e.g. Columnists, in-depth analysis
Ultimately, it’s about the reach and conversion potential of the article.
When is this decision made?
The decision of whether the article will be free or premium is usually made before the article has even been written, but this is situation dependent. For instance, some publishers note that article performance is tracked post-publication and that teams might decide to add a paywall to a free article if it has particularly high traffic with the goal of maximizing its value for conversions.
How do you measure the success of your premium articles?
- Last-click conversion and assists (ie articles read in the run-up to a conversion)
- First click conversion (working on last click), subscriber page views, time on page
- Last click conversion and engagement
- Premium content visibility rate
- Subscriber engagement
- Paywall stop rate
- Media Time
> The full report, with best practices & benchmarks
To add to your reading list
- How eco-friendly is your news website? Journalism.co.uk share a free tool to find out, and Thomas Baekdal analyzed 70 publishers to find how climate-focused they are (spoiler: they’re surprisingly not
- The ultimate guide to audience research methods for digital publishers
- Consider goals & tech readiness to unlock opportunities for AI-powered paywalls
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