You're reading The Audiencers' newsletter #52 sent out on November 27th, 2024. To receive future newsletters straight to your inbox every two weeks, sign up here.
Our second annual Festival in Paris, and what. a. turnout.
Think of a French publisher, and they were probably there! But I take no credit – Marion and the client success team at Poool did an incredible job at bringing The Audiencers’ French community to life. A WhatsApp group that’s normally pinging with messages every few seconds was silent as professionals found themselves together, in the same room, sharing lessons on acquiring, converting and retaining audiences.
All I did was stand on stage, say a few words in French and blind the audience with the British flag (maybe the best photo of our Festivals yet).
Now, on to today’s newsletter:
- 🥐 4 retention lessons from L’ÉQUIPE & Les Echos-Le Parisien shared at The Audiencers’ festival Paris
- Daily Maverick’s superpower database to get members involved in journalism
- Ask Me Anything: how to make your hard paywall dynamic
- Why Lifetime Value (LTV) matters for subscriptions
- Articles to add to your reading list
🥐 4 retention lessons from Paris
Two huge names in the French publishing landscape, L’Équipe and Les Echos-Le Parisien, took to the stage last week at The Audiencers’ Festival Paris to share retention and re-subscription strategies following an incredible year of acquisition.
And it’s worth listening to what they have to say – L’Équipe, for example, the renowned sports publisher, (inevitably) took advantage of the momentum of the Paris Olympics to launch a monthly subscription offer at €2.24 for 36 months in the 1000 day run up to the Games. Despite this super-low offer and an increase in price post-Olympics, 75% of those who subscribed to this reduced offer are still active today!
What can you takeaway from their discussion on stage?
1. Retention and engagement strategies are a team effort. Not just marketing. It’s a tasty blend of talents in data, CRM, distribution and, of course marketing. Several publishers also made a special mention to customer service, an essential aid to re-engaging ex-subscribers.
L’Équipe highlighted how journalists have been brought into retention, with unique functionalities and strategies to highlight value in paid offers. For instance, previews of upcoming releases in the newsletter (leading to increase in content consumption), new commenting features including interaction with journalists, and a WhatsApp channel gathering 195K followers (+6.3 CTR).
2. Measure, classify, simplify, prioritize: data should above all be simple, understandable, accessible in real time, and actionable.
At Les Echos – Le Parisien, subscribers are segmented into 3 categories:
-> Subscribers who haven’t logged in for a while with a high churn propensity – the publisher has chosen to completely stop sending emails to 20% of this group as a test.
-> Subscribers with a falling level of engagement – they’re targeted with personalized content and an invitation to join the subscriber-only debating feature
-> Engaged subscribers who should be converted into brand ambassadors – communication is more focused on services and features (as opposed to content)
3. 70% of re-subscribers do so within 7 days of the end of their access. So L’Équipe has developed a strategy for during a subscriber grace period and 30-days post-end-of-access, with personalized offers and messages from the editorial team
4. Test, test, test. the introductory price, tagline, design, email content, recurrence of notifications and pushes… To reach profiles with lower RFV scores, multidisciplinary teams at L’Équipe tested over 300 different messages in one year to identify 15 segments, with specific offers and messages for each.
> A brilliant summary of the session by Laura Pironnet on The Audiencers
Daily Maverick’s superpower database
An incredibly powerful part of any community strategy is getting your readers involved in journalism, allowing them to see themselves as part of your brand.
At Daily Maverick, the South African publisher with a unique Membership model, a simple idea of collecting data points around new members’ job & expertise, has led to a “superpower” data base of contactable readers, ready for any news story or investigation imaginable.
Doctors, engineers, accountants, tourism operators, CEOs…
Economists, teachers, game-farm owners, marketers, business strategists.
They all make up Daily Maverick’s Superpower database of contactable Insiders.
But, importantly, unlike most data collection, the questions were framed as benefiting members rather than the publication. By sharing these details, an Insider could be contacted by the Daily Maverick team to participate in their journalism, provide expertise on a certain topic or even be invited to join a panel session at one of their events.
> Find my full interview with their team here
“Ask Me Anything” – How to make your hard paywall dynamic
On Tuesday, December 3rd, join me for an Ask Me Anything on dynamic models for a hard paywall strategy!
TL;DR – if you’re dead-set on a hard paywall model, but still looking to increase conversion rates, then dynamicity is still for you! In this hopefully-very-interactive-because-you’ll-ask-lots-of-questions session (😉) I’ll share dynamic hardwall case studies and answer any of your questions on how to get started with being dynamic.
> Sign up to register for the 3rd December, 4pm CET/11am ET session here
Why Lifetime Value (LTV) matters for subscriptions
In subscription models, profit isn’t just from the first sale. It’s the long-term value of a customer over their entire relationship with your business. Understanding LTV—how much profit you expect from each customer during their subscription—helps you decide how much to invest in acquisition.
TL;DR to be LTV-savvy
LTV = Total Profit per Customer over their entire subscription life.
The metrics for finding LTV:
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA)
- Retention & churn rates for an average new order
- Pricing (what you’ll be charging the customer over time including any price increases)
- Costs to serve (essentially, the costs associated with fulfilling what you’ve sold)
- Ongoing marketing costs (onboarding, renewal costs if you have them…)
The impact?
LTV transforms decision-making, letting you focus on sustainable growth rather than one-off sales. It’s essential for everything from marketing strategy to high-level financial planning.
Why it matters:
Whether you’re a small team or the CFO, LTV lets you predict long-term profit and justify marketing spend—ensuring your customer acquisition is profitable.
Interested in getting started with LTV? Abi Spooner of Atlas, the recurring revenues growth consultancy, shares her tips on The Audiencers
To add to your reading list
- Enhancing audience engagement with data-driven decision-making: a practical guide
- Tech-powered paywalls increase conversions at news companies – examples of Blick, The Philadelphia Inquirer & Times Internet
- How these Argentinian newspapers attracted hundreds of thousands of subscribers amid rising inflation
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