© Illustration by Aurélie Garnier
Lennart Schneider is Founder of Subscribe Now, helping decision-makers in the subscription economy attract subscribers and keep them happy. In this article he shares insights on how to acquire members for high-priced subscriptions from his podcast episode with Chief Growth Officer at Handelsblatt media.
Key takeaways to copy & share
> Handelsblatt sells communities, not content. Its AI Circle costs 2,500 euros a year, the Pulse women's network 2,000 to 3,000, and TECH 20,000 for three members > The 2016 business club assumed subscribers would become members. They didn't. Events draw people who never subscribe, subscribers rarely attend, and the two groups have very different willingness to pay > The annual AI Summit is the anchor. A ticket alone costs up to 1,550 euros, so the event justifies most of the membership fee, and members join around it > Circles are barely mentioned on the Summit registration page. Handelsblatt deliberately holds the pitch until after the ticket is bought, rather than asking people to weigh two decisions at once > Handelsblatt's free AI newsletter exists to market the paid Circle, inverting the usual logic. Kleibrink expects briefing publishers and community publishers to converge on each other's models within a few years
