In a world of falling traffic, trust and the increasing use of AI, building relationships with readers is more important than ever. It’s the difference between a fly-by and a loyal, returning user who interacts meaningfully, feels a sense of belonging with your brand, who advocates for you and brings in new audiences.

It’s a strategy that many publishers are already benefiting from.

This article shares a few of these case studies, diving into what’s working, sharing lessons to take away and articles to dive in deeper.

1. The New York Times: reporters in the comments

The New York Times recently turned comments into an editorial product to develop relationships with readers and enhance the perceived expertise and trust in journalists.

What’s working

A new “Join the Conversation” section of The New York Times was launched earlier in 2026, creating a discussion dedicated space for Times readers and reporters.

• On the article page, a featured comment modal directs readers toward the conversation window, which includes a refreshed layout and reader profile icons
• On some articles, Times reporters have shared thread-style breakdowns of their story and reporting process, adding context for readers who jump straight to the comments. These summaries, along with new inline headshots, build on the “enhanced bylines” introduced in 2023, which were aimed at highlighting journalists’ work

• Conversations are led by a direct question, followed by a comment from one of The Times’ journalists.

• The best contributions are highlighted and surfaced

This strategy helps conversations to feel valuable, and participation feels meaningful. Instead of noise, comments become an extension of the journalism.

What you should steal from The New York Times’ model

• Reframe comments as an editorial space, designed for quality over scale
• Lead the discussion with a direct question and a trusted voice
• Involve journalists directly in the conversations, ideally with a tag (think X’s blue tick), text or photo to highlight their position

Dive deeper into The New York Times’ model

• The New York Times is becoming subscription infrastructure for other publishers
• The New York Times dynamic paywall model, analyzed

2. Financial Times: loyalty isn’t built by speaking louder, it’s built by speaking with

Communities are built on trust, and for FT, this sits at the center of the brand. What’s more, it’s specifically recognized as a business driver. 58% of subscribers chose the FT specifically because they needed a reliable news source they could trust. To sustain it, they must strike a balance between trust in what they say, through quality and credibility of journalism, and trust in what they do, through the experience delivered at every touch point.

What’s working

Commenting has been a significant part of FT’s community-building efforts, especially as those who read the comments are 11x more engaged than those that don’t, and commenters themselves are 46x more engaged than those that don’t read or write comments.

• Community guidelines are easy to find and understand
• AI-powered moderation is being used to bring up the moderation baseline, re-trained off human comments, with humans still kept in the loop
• Editorially-reviewed AI-generated question encourage readers to join the conversation and be more thoughtful in their commenting

• A live Q&A feature, designed to encourage broader participation and lift conversation into the story

The team have also worked hard to cultivate “evangelical” communities, creating spaces for “authentic” and “nerdy” interactions that go beyond standard corporate communication.

The FT Alphaville section for instance has developed a core of evangelical fans by maintaining an authentic tone that appeals to readers on a personal level.

• It’s free to read
• Journalists engage directly with readers
• It doesn’t feel corporate or that the tone is being moderated
• You can meet the journalists in real life at small, unashamedly nerdy events!

These micro-communities focus on specific niches where belonging forms most naturally.

To deepen this advocacy, the FT also launched the Trusted Voices marketing pilot in 2025.

• Personal branding: By elevating individual writers and creating personal brands, the FT encourages readers to defend and promote specific journalists, which in turn reinforces their loyalty to the parent publication.
• Broadening inclusivity: Initiatives to make the FT feel less like a “gendered entity” (moving from 80% male in 2016 to 92% non-gendered perception in 2025) have been essential in making more people feel they belong, thus empowering a more diverse group of advocates.

What you should steal from FT’s model

• Move beyond engagement metrics towards trust, belonging and advocacy
• Use AI to reduce resources needed on moderation, but keep humans in the loop in the right places to build relationships with readers
• Consider building, or making use of existing, external, micro-communities that focus on specific niches – this is where belonging builds most naturally

Dive deeper into FT’s strategy

• Smarter discussions thanks to AI-generated talking points
• Building and serving communities with Ryan Y. Kellett, Financial Times and THECITY

3. Der Spiegel: from comments to conversations

The team at Der Spiegel found that whilst commenting was a huge part of their audience engagement strategy, conversations on a single topic were happening in multiple places across the site, diluting the potential value of this feature.

What’s working

The solution: a debating product inside of their website

• Qualitative research found that users associate trust and safety with these conversations when they happen under the DER SPIEGEL branding, so clear branding and a custom design ensures audiences feel confident that they’re in a safe space
• No possibility of “disliking” a comment, only liking

• They decided against real-name commenting after research that suggested users wouldn’t feel comfortable with this. They also have an account verification process, even for free members
• The feature is promoted in subscriber onboarding to increase regular usage amongst subscribers.
• And debates are integrated into editorial content and vice versa to encourage recirculation. Notice the high visibility of premium (S+) content here to promote the value of subscription.

Mexico’s Milenio has done something similar but with video content, fostering deep discussions on everyday life topics (Mexican lifestyle and social topics).

What you should steal from Der Spiegel’s model

• Test new, innovative formats to maximize the value of community engagement and encourage more guided interaction
• Integrate community features into the registration and subscription funnel
• Even if the community isn’t commenting at the end of articles, link community to content to encourage recirculation and continued engagement

Dive deeper into Der Spiegel’s strategy

• Going further with interactive engagement: introducing the debating feature
• Audience Research: identifying Key Engagement Drivers at DER SPIEGEL

4. The Times: reader-led journalism

The leading publishers have created an eco-system where readers fuel journalism that then fuels reader conversations, and so on. This is exactly what they’ve established at The Times & Sunday Times in the UK.

What’s working

After seeing conversations spark from a certain topic or article in the comments section, The Times’ Reader Comment Journalists reply directly to readers or set up interviews to dive deeper into the topic, with the goal of creating reader-led articles.

“Reader-led articles give a direct voice to our readers, but it also improves our journalism! The piece on the right below came from a call-out at the bottom of an article that got an amazing response from people telling us about how they beat their diagnoses. We ran it as a story and it really humanized the journalism. The other piece came from the simple idea of asking why people were running the London marathon. It pulled very touching stories together, and you could see in the comments section how positive the reaction was. These reader-led articles often bring yet more valued conversation within the community.” – Peter Jackson, Reader Comment Editor at The Times and Sunday Times

Live Q&As with journalists are another important engagement tool to directly connect The Time’s readers and writers.

The Times works with polls and embedded carousels to elevate comments, and they also feature reader contributions in their journalism, such as “Reader’s recipe”. This has a positive impact on the brand, and highlights how The Times’ values its readers.

What you should steal from The Times’ model

• Make use of reader comments to fuel journalism
• Consider strategies that help readers feel part of your brand and connected to journalists
• Use polls, quiz’s and Q&As to establish 2-way interaction

Dive deeper into The Times’ strategy

• Developing community beyond commenting, with The Telegraph and The Times

5. Other publisher relationship-building strategies of note

• The Globe & Mail’s live Q&As with journalists, call-outs and reader-led content
• The Economist’s Substack experiment: “Off the charts” is a newsletter on Substack, designed to engage new audiences who are already on this platform
• Digital Spy’s forums

• WIRED’s subscription re-launch, which now focuses heavily on community-building, in particular with their exclusive, subscriber-only newsletters, each with a writer at the forefront

• Handelsblatt Circles: lessons on community from Chief Growth Officer Jan Kleibrink
• Village Media have launched “Spaces” their own chatting platform, for users to connect with others based on topics of interest or joining in on conversations

> Daily Maverick built a database of contactable readers and their expertise

> The Guardian US meets underrepresented communities where they are

And the article you HAVE to read if you’re moving towards community-building: Why the most valuable newsroom KPI is no longer reach but belonging

The post Steal this strategy: examples of publishers building relationships with readers (and how to replicate them) appeared first on Audiencers.

The line between subscription and membership is blurring, but that doesn’t mean membership is just subscription with a different name.

Subscription is a transaction. Membership is a relationship.

It’s the difference between “Pay to access content” and “Support something you care about, and be part of it”

To help you build a successful membership model, this article shares 4 publisher case studies, with strategies to steal from each. One of these publishers, The Guardian, would likely say they have a supporter model over membership, but the strategies built around conversion are very membership-like, meaning there’s still plenty to take away from their success.

1. The Guardian: turning readers into supporters

The Guardian’s journalism is free to access for everyone. But even without a paywall, over 1 million readers support them on a recurring basis.

What’s working

Although there are some concrete benefits to supporting The Guardian (such as exclusive newsletters, less ads and access to their app), supporters aren’t paying for access, they’re supporting and participating in The Guardian’s mission. It’s this emotional layer that’s paying off.

Messaging around gaining support is built around the 10 ‘supporter motivations’:

1. Editorial independence  
2. Protect the free press  
3. Investigative journalism  
4. Trustworthy, factual, high quality  
5. Holds power to account  
6. Open for all, no paywall  
7. International perspective 
8. Financial challenges in media  
9. Better understand world events  
10. It’s only fair to pay

These are then integrated into homepage banners, end-of-article ‘epics’ and emailing, where messaging is continuously tested, iterated and updated, often making use of current news events:

Every public-facing module is reviewed by an editorial eye to ensure the tone is a seamless extension of the journalism, not a jarring commercial break. This plays an important role in building relationships with readers.

In the US, this year-round messaging and UX testing helps to inform the team for their annual end-of-year campaign, running from early November, through Giving Tuesday and on to midnight on December 31st, the most critical window in their financial calendar.

In their most recent EOY campaign (2025), the final numbers were staggering: 

• Total raised: $3.1 million in liquid cash by Dec 31st (exceeding their $3M goal).
• Lifetime Value (LTV): The estimated total value of the campaign (including recurring commitments) is $8.6 million
• Year-on-year growth: This represents an 83% increase in campaign value compared to the 2023 “standard” year (because a presidential election year – as 2024 was – is usually an outlier).

What you should steal from The Guardian’s model

• Understand reader motivations for supporting or subscribing to you
• Continuously test messaging and offers, integrating supporter motivations
• Experiment with innovative ‘asks’, like The Guardian’s article count
• Bring the reader onboard with your mission, so they really see that their support is valuable to you

Dive deeper into The Guardian’s model

• The Guardian: reader revenue growth & proposition development
• Behind The Guardian’s record-breaking US End of Year campaign
• Relaunching The Guardian app: changing reader habits means we must also evolve

2. The Kyiv Independent: humanizing the newsroom

The Kyiv Independent is a young, English-language media, launched in a context of war, who has transformed from a 18-person startup into a globally recognized authority with over 27,000 paying members and 3 million monthly readers.

What’s working

The team has successfully built a mission-driven membership model with a community of supporters around a shared cause. Part of this success is thanks to building trust with their audience, something that is done between people, meaning they work hard to humanize their newsroom.

Instead of hiding behind a corporate brand, the Kyiv Independent puts its journalists at the center of its marketing:

• They don’t shy away from talking about themselves: their work, almost never say no to interviews, a lot of commentaries and opinion articles…
• Marketing communications are built around journalists and their personalities

• Membership is a community, not a transaction. It’s not a key to a locked door, but a way to keep information free for everyone
• Communication is always transparent, giving a glimpse into the behind the scenes and creating visible experts through personality-led journalism

However the team doesn’t shy away from campaigns asking for support. Countdowns to reach their target, birthday campaigns, country-specific campaigns… these have been a vital part of their growth strategy, creating urgency but with purpose and identity.

What you should steal from The Kyiv Independent’s model

• Be openly transparent on your funding, editorial choices, impact…
• Translate what you stand for, and what would be lost without you in messaging
• Bring the newsroom along with you, putting them front and center in marketing campaigns
• Build channels for journalists and readers to connect, whether that be through Q&As, reader-led articles or discord communities
• Ensure supporters are valued as individuals whilst also helping them feel part of something bigger

Dive deeper into The Kyiv Independent’s model

• How The Kyiv Independent is growing membership through relationship-building
• Inside The Kyiv Independent’s membership model

3. Condé Nast: building a premium membership layer

Condé Nast already had strong brands and a mature subscription model, but wanted to build belonging amongst their most loyal audiences. The team therefore created a ‘Membership’ tier that sits above subscription.

What’s working

This new membership layer represents a fundamental pivot from serving passive recipients to active participants. 

This clearly differentiates it from subscription.

Whilst their traditional subscription represents a scale/volume tier…

• Audience: Broadly focused on volume
• Value Exchange: One-way (passive recipient absorbing content)
• Goal: Volume and scale-based value – content for scale

…Membership is the niche, high-value tier

• Audience: Caters to a very specific segment of the audience.
• Value Exchange: Two-way. Members are active participants contributing data, feedback, and engagement. They expect to belong to a community.
• Goal: Engagement and high retention, not volume – content is focused on the funnel.

This focus on belonging is reflected in their metrics, measuring loyalty and engagement over volume. The most critical metrics include ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), Renewal Rate, Recency (how recently they engaged), and Feature Engagement (which features are “stickiest”).

What should you steal from Condé Nast’s strategy?

• Don’t be scared of putting membership and subscriptions alongside each other, but make sure to clearly differentiate them
• Membership means moving beyond access to an elevated experience. For high-value tiers, Condé Nast commits to a white-glove treatment. This involves building dedicated membership teams trained to provide high-touch service. At industry events, these teams are equipped with “face sheets” to know members by name and be aware of their recent professional achievements, fostering genuine, human-to-human relationships instead of brand-to-consumer transactions.
• Measure membership differently – belonging and advocacy aren’t easy to define, but they definitely go beyond traditional engagement
• Segmentation matters: one size of subscription tier doesn’t fit all, and you’re potentially leaving money (and advocates) on the table by not creating a higher tier for them

Dive deeper into Condé Nast’s model

• When is a subscriber more than a subscriber? How Condé Nast is evolving its audience strategy with membership
• How Condé Nast is growing the “happy middle” of the audience funnel

4. Daily Maverick: involving members in journalism

The South African publisher, Daily Maverick, is an outstanding example of a successful membership model.

What’s working

One of their unique strategies that’s contributing to this success is a growing database of contactable “Insiders” (Daily Maverick members), providing expertise on every topic imaginable.

“You’re part of this community – it’s more than just a subscription and we need your help. We don’t know everything and there are experts amongst you. Be a part of Daily Maverick, share your expertise.”

Via a 3-step survey in the email onboarding series, Daily Maverick asked Insiders for their name, email address, phone number, job and other areas of expertise, their ‘superpower’ as it became known internally.

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. 

It’s an impressive way of making a member feel like they’re directly supporting and involved in your journalism.

According to the reader revenue team, every newsroom should be looking for this sense of belonging, the feeling of being proud to be “a Daily Maverick reader”. And this “superpower” strategy, where community members are put at the centre of journalism, will help achieve exactly this, ensuring Insiders are a part of Daily Maverick.

What you should steal from Daily Maverick’s model

• Give readers opportunities to be involved in your work, whether than be through this form of database, commenting, debates or call-outs. Membership becomes real when people can do something, not just support something.
• Create direct channels between readers and journalists
• Build this into your value proposition – it’s a benefit for members, not just for your membership model

Dive deeper into Daily Maverick’s model

• Learning from Membership models: Daily Maverick’s superpower database
• Boosting membership conversion at Maverick Insider with FAQs

The post Steal this strategy: 4 membership models succeeding for publishers (and how to learn from them) appeared first on Audiencers.

As media organizations shift from volume-based traffic to value-based reader revenue models, the challenge often lies in bridging the gap between an anonymous click and a loyal subscriber. Sadly, this isn’t like Married at First Sight… this relationship won’t be built in a day, nor with a paywall alone. It takes time, energy and a variety of formats to develop. 

Milenio, one of Mexico’s most influential news groups, has well understood this. Their answer wasn’t found in aggressive paywall tactics, but in cultivating a highly engaged community within its own ecosystem.

We spoke with Chief Reader Revenue Officer Juan Manuel Nava Madrazo about how, by strategically pivoting toward conversational tools and gamified loyalty, Milenio has successfully tripled user time-on-site and established a sustainable pipeline for its January 2026 paywall launch.

Moving beyond “social media friction”

For years, Milenio relied on Facebook for its comment sections. However, this led to audience leakage, where users were pulled away to external social platforms, and a double login friction that stifled local community growth. Worse, the lack of moderation created a toxic environment that excluded younger audiences and alienated quality readers.

“We needed to centralize data and convert anonymous readers into loyal registered users, all within our own ecosystem,” 

To reclaim its audience, Milenio replaced its social media plugin with a proprietary community engine, Logora, focused on three pillars: 

• Unified login (SSO): Eliminating friction by integrating the comment system directly with Milenio’s registration.

• Smart hybrid moderation (AI+Human): A robust moderation that drastically reduces toxicity and ensures a civil debate.
• Local identity: Total customization, including avatars specifically designed to reflect Mexican culture (e.g., Frida Kahlo), strengthening the sense of belonging.

• New editorial product (“Realidades”): Creation of a new video-debate section that fosters deep discussions on everyday life topics (Mexican lifestyle and social topics).

This ownership of the community, with attention to details that help encourage participation, is paying off across the board: 

1. Community growth

• Volume: +150% in daily comments in the first year and an additional +100% in the second year
• Engagement: Over 120,000 comments accumulated with 80–85% approval rate (vs. 60% previously) and 120,000 interactions (likes/votes)
• Quality: Users went from leaving emojis or short phrases to writing reasoned paragraphs and reading others’ opinions

2. Retention and time spent

• All Milenio users: 1 minute 48 seconds
• Registered users (non-commenting): 2 minutes 20 seconds
• Registered users using commenting: 4 minutes 40 seconds (+200% vs. average)

3. Conversion driver for registration

• 10-11% of new daily registrations come directly from the comments widget
• Between 2,000 and 2,500 new users register each month to participate in comments
• Commenting is the 4th most important registration source for the media outlet, surpassing many content sections

The new video series “Realidades” shows:

• +20% higher participation
• +10% more users writing arguments, not just voting

Gamifying loyalty: the points milenio program

A central component of Milenio’s retention strategy is Puntos Milenio, a loyalty program that rewards high-value behaviors with redeemable points.

To bring Puntos Milenio to life, 3 key elements were needed:

• The talent of the Milenio team (Development, Business, Data, etc.).
• External platforms that understood their needs
• Trust in the project

With these three elements, they had to integrate and adapt different technologies so they could coexist and function as a single system. In addition, it was essential that operations and configuration were as simple and scalable as possible.

The end user was always the focus: “someone for whom we aimed to create an easy, hassle-free experience and who clearly understands the value of staying informed through reliable journalism”.

Users aren’t aware of how they earn points in detail, to avoid cheating of the system, but internally these are built up by:

• Engaging with content: commenting, reading multiple articles, or reaching specific scroll depth targets
• Watching videos (encouraging long-form consumption)
• Referrals: sharing articles to social platforms (to bring in new potential registrants)

Although the project is still in a maturation phase, the initial results already show strong signs of impact:

• More than 2,500 users are currently participating in the program
• They have generated more than 1 Million points, mainly by reading news, playing EntrenaMentes, listening to podcasts, watching videos, and commenting on content

These points can be exchanged for tangible rewards, such as discount coupons for Starbucks, Amazon, and Google Play. Critically, subscribers to Milenio Plus receive double points for their activities, adding a layer of perceived value to the subscription itself.

Community “Lovers” as a qualified pool for subscription

Registration is widely recognised as a valuable model to launch pre-subscription. It helps to build a qualified, engaged audience of potential future subscribers, as well as providing a testing ground for conversion tactics. Mileno, however, have gone a step further by building a community around registration, ensuring these audiences are engaged enough to convert when faced with a paywall. 

Commenting is placed behind the registration wall, establishing a simple value exchange that builds engagement whilst collecting key data points. 

Using Marfeel’s scoring, Milenio identified commenters as high-value “Lovers” (70 pts vs. 10 pts for casual users). With 50% of registered users classified as lovers, this community is the prime target for the subscription revenue to come in 2026.

The post Owning the community and gamifying loyalty: Inside Milenio’s engagement strategies appeared first on Audiencers.

In the hyper-competitive world of digital media, where attention is a scarce commodity and paywalls are the standard defense, The Kyiv Independent is carving out a different path. Launched in November 2021, just three months before Russia’s full-scale invasion, this English-language newsroom has transformed from a 18-person startup into a globally recognized authority with over 27,000 paying members and 3 million monthly readers.

The secret to their impressive 78% growth in 2025 isn’t a complex algorithm. It’s a commitment to relationship-driven journalism. By treating their audience as a community rather than a series of transactions, they’ve maintained an average monthly churn rate of just 1.64%, significantly lower than the industry average.

The post How The Kyiv Independent is growing membership through relationship-building appeared first on Audiencers.

On my recent trip to New York, Condé Nast shared how they’ve developed a multi-layered membership ecosystem designed to drive loyalty, connection and higher lifetime value. Of course, I was hooked. So I followed up with Director of Global Consumer Revenue, Holly Johnson, to find out more about this shift from a volume-based model towards deep engagement and loyalty. 

Catch up quickly:
- Condé Nast is one of the world's most renowned media companies covering a wide variety of genres, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, WIRED, GQ, Architectural Digest (AD), and more
- To build belonging amongst their most loyal audiences, the team have created a "Membership" tier that sits above subscription
- The value exchange here is two-way: Members are active participants contributing data, feedback, and engagement. They expect to belong to a community.
- This strategy is paying off: a member has an LTV (Lifetime Value) up to 50 times higher than a subscriber, amongst other benefits listed below

A holistic, inter-connected ecosystem

Condé Nast views its portfolio of brands not just as publications, but as Intellectual Properties (IPs). The fundamental strategic question guiding all development is: “Where does this brand have permission to play?”

The team aims to leverage the brand’s authority across the entire consumer lifecycle, tapping into different value exchanges (and thus revenue streams) to build an inter-connected eco-system. A consumer may start as a commerce customer, then event attendee, subscriber and eventually a member. This breadth not only builds a consumer’s affinity to the brand, but also ensures sustainability and flexibility in a challenging market. 

The post When is a subscriber more than a subscriber? How Condé Nast is evolving its audience strategy with membership appeared first on Audiencers.

At The Audiencers’ Festival in London this June 24th, Panos Sarlanis, Co-founder of IamExpat Media, invited by kind invitation by code.store, the media tech and low-code experts, shared their journey of empowering expats navigate every aspect of life in a new country. 

The secret? Understanding their audience’s needs, building revenue streams around this and continuously innovating to serve evolving needs. 

From personal need to pioneering platform

Panos’s own expat journey began in 2007 when he moved to Rotterdam with one of his co-founders for his studies and met the rest of the founding team there. A year later, after moving to Amsterdam, the idea for a comprehensive platform for internationals moving to the Netherlands was born. 

“When you move to a new country, there are so many challenges you have to deal with. You may have no network, you may not speak the language, you don’t know who to trust for the main services you need.” This sense of insecurity sparked the creation of IamExpat.

The platform’s core mission is to empower the expatriate community by providing essential resources, tools, and a community to more confidently navigate life in a new country. This includes a wealth of content: news focused on expat life and local culture, crucial guides on topics like taxes and healthcare, articles from experts and even a dedicated job board and a housing platform. 

Today, IamExpat is active in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, welcoming a million users monthly and collaborating with over 800 companies annually, ranging from banks to real estate agencies and healthcare providers.

Evolving beyond traditional revenue streams to consider user needs

In its early days, IamExpat focused on building the brand through “evergreen content,” such as guides on applying for work permits. This foundational content continues to perform, and has provided an important advertising space for monetization.

But as the platform grew, the team began exploring other revenue streams based on their user’s needs. The question they kept asking: “What essential needs can we solve with new products or services?”

This led to the launch of directories, helping users find trusted professionals, from tax advisors and language schools to English-speaking dentists, lawyers and career coaches. These have become a significant part of IamExpat’s business model.

Recognizing the challenges of finding accommodation and employment in new countries, IamExpat also launched a housing platform (aggregating rental properties from partners) and a job board specifically tailored for their international and multilingual audience. 

These “classifieds”—directories, housing, and job boards—now account for a considerable part of their revenue. Directories contribute the most, and this highlights the high value and conversion rate of these specialized services that focus on user needs.

From online to offline, to online again

IamExpat’s journey didn’t stop at online services. “What if users and clients could actually meet in person?”, leading to the creation of the IamExpat Fair in 2015. These events bring readers and advertisers together under one roof, fostering direct connections. 

Since their inception, the fairs have attracted over 40,000 visitors and 600 exhibitors across four locations in the Netherlands and Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic, while initially impacting revenue, spurred further innovation. The need for personal advice remained, prompting IamExpat to shift from offline to online with webinars. What started as a temporary solution has become a permanent and successful part of their business model, with events and webinars (primarily the fairs) now being important revenue contributors. This diversified approach not only serves their existing advertiser base but also attracts new clients who may not have considered online advertising.

Today, IamExpat boasts a remarkably balanced revenue model in the following areas:

• Online Marketing (banner ads, content marketing, email marketing)
• Classifieds (directories, job ads)
• Events (fairs, webinars)
• Affiliates

However, Panos emphasized the need for constant vigilance in the rapidly changing media industry, citing concerns like platform shifts, cookie deprecation, the rise of content creators, and the uncertainty surrounding AI.

A crucial first step in further diversifying IamExpat’s portfolio was a significant technological upgrade. Recognizing their outdated website was a “big pain point,” they decided to rebuild everything from scratch. Partnering with Code.Store, they adopted a modern tech stack, including a headless CMS (Directus), Vercel for front-end hosting, Cloudflare for caching and CDN, Algolia for powering search, and n8n to import jobs and properties.

With the close support of the team at Code.Store, this overhaul dramatically improved performance and user experience, while maintaining an SEO-first approach.

Vertical expansion and community spaces

Looking to the future, IamExpat is considering different expansion plans. Ideas for diversification include:

• Vertical expansion: Identifying opportunities from popular products and services for expatriates
• Membership programs: Offering packages with special discounts and offers from existing clients, potentially as a company benefit for international employees.
• Merchandise: While not expected to be a major revenue driver, it could enhance offline branding.
• Physical IamExpat spaces: A bold vision for a blended short-stay, co-working, café, and restaurant space where expats can live, work, learn, and connect. This concept draws inspiration from media companies like Time Out, which have successfully integrated online and offline experiences.
• Geographic expansion: Bringing their proven model to new international destinations in Europe and globally.

What can you take away from IamExpat’s diversification strategy?

• Diversification is crucial to reduce exposure to industry volatility – new products and services are no longer optional
• New products must be aligned with the core mission and users to expand reach and influence.
• Build products with cross-functional teams that unlock synergies
• Be open-minded for opportunities to emerge
• Offline experiences will become even more vital for building connections and trust – direct client contact is invaluable for distributing and selling new products.
• The right technology and partners are essential for scaling – keep the tech fresh to unlock speed, scale and innovation.

IamExpat is open to strategic partnerships to support its growth plans. Interested? Contact their team via https://www.iamexpat.com or connect with Panos.

"IamExpat shows what we do at code.store: help clients pick the right stack and make the move without pain. We retired their costly Drupal 7 system and migrated to Directus Cloud + Vercel. Our team handled the migration end-to-end—data, content, SEO, editor workflows, and deployment—without downtime. For media and publishers, we provide practical, full-scope IT outsourcing, from CMS, Data, Mobile apps to subscriptions. The relaunch of IAmExpat is a good example: with the right stack and a focused team, you get a faster site, lower costs, and room to grow."
- Maxime Topolov, Founder & CEO at code.store

The post IamExpat: Keeping users at the center when diversifying revenue appeared first on Audiencers.

With the tsunami of content that's coming with AI, building communities - where publishers listen, engage and interact with readers - will prove essential to survive. In an incredibly interesting session at WAN-IFRA's World Congress in Krakow, Ryan Y. Kellett, 2025 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow for Journalism Innovation at Harvard, Hannah Sarney from Financial Times and Nic Dawes from THECITY shares how they're reimagining journalism as a collaborative, community-driven practice. 

The new news ecosystem

Ryan Y. Kellett, 2025 Nieman-Berkman Klein Fellow for Journalism Innovation at Harvard, discussed the current “news influencer” environment.

Specifically, people who are at the cross road of creators and journalists, using creator tactics from a journalistic point of view, building direct connections and personal brands with audiences, often through platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. Thie is the Opinion section of internet news – a space that has seen rapid growth and where mis-, dis- and mal-information can and does spread rapidly.

For Ryan, these news influences have a lot of lessons in building and serving communities for media organisations. But, of course, the rise of these creators, who don’t necessarily have the same reliable news sources or training as traditional journalists, don’t come without challenges.

What is a creator-model journalist? 

• Creator journalists combine journalism with elements of content creation
• Creator journalists work independently, in collectives or collaboratively
• Creator journalists run a small business with multiple products and revenue tied to ads, sponsorships and donations
• Creator journalists are accountable to their audience on social media, often by creating a para-social relationship

What can we learn from creators? 

• Be more trustworthy in sharing expertise and having bias
• Become more accessible in online spaces where audiences already consume other content
• Be more reliable in tone and style, including bits of personal life to add a human touch
• More transparency in choices made to run a sustainable model
• Be more responsive to audience feedback 

Creators are often a supplement, a new way of thinking about news, but elevate news organisations because of their resources.

But this doesn’t come without challenges, for the creators and the industry. 

• The algorithm still rules the world around us for both creation and consumption
• Is this actually the uber-fication of news, if journalists are all independent contractors? Who will do BIG investigative or accountability journalism? 
• Curating your own news feed with the creators you like is actually really hard. And it’s hard to elevate new voices
• No incentives for young journalists to train. Inconsistent ethics and editorial judgement
• Does nothing to counter polarization and conflict entrepreneurs

What can your newsroom do to lean into a creator future? 

• Share your favourite creators with colleagues and even bosses
• Identify and uncover talent on staff most comfortable with creator spaces. Give them resources and support to try something new 
• Align talent with aesthetic without forcing brand on them (where a lot of newsrooms go wrong!) – don’t squeeze them in the brand, be creator / person first 
• Empower your audience teams to explore and lead with AI tools
• Partner with non-journalist creators, paid and organic. Try academics or other subject-matter experts you trust first
• Formalise a creator-program that scales affiliate/referrals for subscriptions or registrations
• Start an in-house creator team to extend your brand at the top of the funnel 

Loyalty isn’t built by speaking louder, it’s built by speaking with

Hannah Sarney, Editorial Product Director at Financial Times, highlighted the importance of building a future of trusted journalism. How? Trust builds loyalty, community builds trust, and community is built through two-way engagement spaces.

Curate the story but also the conversation around the story 

Given that owned platforms have the highest trust, it’s here that publishers need to build conversations and interaction around the journalism.

This has already been proved at Financial Times:

• Comment readers are 11x more engaged than those that don’t
• Commenters are 46x more engaged than those that don’t read or write comments

However, research found that although 50% of subscribers read comments, only 4% actually write them. Maybe the door doesn’t feel open, or maybe the door isn’t easy to find?

Encouraging commenting at Financial Times

Protect civility

• Making community guidelines easy to find and understand
• Clearly enforced by the moderation team
• AI-powered moderation bought in to bring up the moderation baseline, re-trained off human comments, with humans still kept in the loop

Spark participation

• “Join the conversation” tag with a question to encourage readers to answer and be more thoughtful in their commenting
• Make it easy for readers to jump down to the comments section

Fostering connection and togetherness

• Upcoming live Q&A feature designed to encourage broader participation and lift conversation into the story
• Only send these questions to journalists, rather than publishing on the site immediately, making the entry-point less intimidating
• Easy-to-use, mobile-first experience
• Clearly defined roles and experts
• Easy to catch up when the event is over

Build direct 1-2-1 relationships to create stability and resilience against big tech platforms 

Nic Dawes, Executive Director at THECITY, a local news nonprofit serving the people of New York City, with a clear mission: provide news for underserved communities.

One way that they achieve this is with targeted, printed postcards via mail, a uniquely non-digital strategy to get in front of the people impacted by these stories. The postcards include explanatory journalism, a QR code to the website and question-and-answer content.

Recipients then share questions, with journalists writing back to thank them and close the loop, showing that readers are part of the process, reinforcing communities. This also helps to better serve readers as content is based on reader questions

These stories have consistently strong evergreen traffic performance, help to acquire new audiences and allow for sponsorship opportunities for different campaigns.

Although they may not be a key driver of immediate donor intent, they have the potential to short-circuit search and AI related challenges (although significant scale-up is required).

The post Building and serving communities with Ryan Y. Kellett, Financial Times and THECITY appeared first on Audiencers.

Membership in the Handelsblatt ‘AI Circle’ costs €2,500 per year. In return, members receive access to exclusive events, discussions with experts and the editorial team, a Handelsblatt subscription, and much more.

With ‘Circles’, Handelsblatt, the German-language business newspaper, aims to demonstrate what a media company can be in the 21st century. In addition to the hyped topic of AI, they’re also focusing on exchange and networking among decision-makers at the PULSE women’s network and the upcoming TECH (Technology Experience Convention Heilbronn) conference.

In one of my recent Subscribe Now podcast episodes (in German), Chief Growth Officer Jan Kleibrink explains how they acquire members for their high-priced communities and what their big ambitions for the future look like.

1. What are “Circles”?

Handelsblatt now has a fairly extensive portfolio of memberships for various areas of interest. These have evolved significantly over the past few years, leading to each having their unique business model.

Their ‘Circles’ products were originally intended to keep people connected between major events. Accordingly, membership was initially free, financed through sponsorships and ticket sales.

Shortly after launching the first communities, a pandemic broke out (some will remember) and the demand for virtual networking was huge. This put Circles in a very good position.

Since then, new circles have been launched (Pulse, TECH). Unlike the others, these are packaged as high-value memberships where it’s not sponsors who pay for the content and network access, but the members themselves.

2. Prices depend on company size and number of licenses

The membership itself and their respective prices vary slightly between circles. For instance, Pulse costs €2,000 or €3,000 per year, the AI ​​Circle €2,500, and TECH €20,000 for three members. Startups receive significant discounts, and those who purchase multiple licenses can save up to 20%.

While that sounds like a lot of money at first glance, Jan says that some people believe that such communities should be offered at a much higher price given their value.

3. Memberships and Professional Briefings are two sides of the same coin

In a previous newsletter, I featured Table.Briefings who, interestingly, charge up to €2,388 per year. They’re in the same price range as Circles, and also offer in-depth coverage for highly interested specialist communities.

The big difference is their approach. While Table.Briefings primarily focus on regular and in-depth content, Circles focus on the network. The AI ​​briefing newsletter is even free at Handelsblatt and serves more as a marketing channel for the Circle.

However, Jan can well imagine that both approaches will converge in the coming years – briefing providers could also increasingly rely on events and Circles could perhaps expand their content offerings.

4. Events are the focus

Circles attract the most members around major annual events like the AI ​​Summit. The AI ​​Summit costs between €990 and €1,550 alone and is included for members. A member could therefore estimate that participation in the Summit alone justifies 62% of the membership fee.

Interestingly, there’s hardly any mention of Circles on the AI ​​Summit registration page. Jan explains this by saying that they don’t want to overwhelm or confuse attendees when purchasing an event ticket, but that participants will be made aware of the Circle after purchasing the ticket and during the event.

5. Subscriptions and memberships appeal to different target groups

In 2016, Handelsblatt launched their business club. The hypothesis back then was that subscribers would become members. Live journalism, networking, and exclusive benefits are just as important for subscription as the editorial content.

There is not much left of the Handelsblatt business club (their sister magazine’s club, WirtschaftsWoche, still exists) and membership has moved away from paid content.

The idea is that events often attract guests who don’t have subscriptions, and many subscribers never attend an event. These are two target groups that only partially overlap and also have very different willingness to pay.

At the same time, the Handelsblatt subscription is also an added value for Circle members and part of the bundle, but it is not the main focus.

(I already wrote about the return of memberships in a previous newsletter)

6. TECH: “The largest single initiative the Handelsblatt Media Group has ever launched”

Handelsblatt has big plans for the “Technology Experience Convention Heilbronn.” The event, which will take place for the first time from May 25-27th, aims to establish itself as a “Technology Davos,” where the world’s most important decision-makers come together to discuss Europe’s technological future.

The website already states that it will be more than just a conference, but rather a membership. TECH is intended to combine learnings from previous Circles and expand them into something truly large. Whether this succeeds remains to be seen in the coming years.

If you like this article, you can follow my work in four ways:

 Follow me on LinkedIn

Discover my newsletter (in German but easily translatable)

 Subscribe to the podcast (in German)

The post Handelsblatt Circles: 6 lessons on community from Chief Growth Officer Jan Kleibrink appeared first on Audiencers.

“Community building” has become an increasingly more important strategy for digital publishers in recent years, helping to develop a loyal, engaged audience on-platform.

The Globe and Mail is no exception – from live Q&As with journalists to call-outs and reader-led content, their community work is certainly one to be inspired by. We spoke to Audience Growth Manager, Rebecca Zamon, about these initiatives.

The post Audience, engagement and community at The Globe and Mail appeared first on Audiencers.

Regular commenting below articles has always been a frequently-used engagement feature on DER SPIEGEL. In fact, Product Manager Laura Badura shared that at the peak 1.7M comments were left in a month… too much for AI and human moderation to manage and too much for users to read . 

Not only this, but conversations on a single topic were happening in multiple places across the site, diluting the potential value of this feature. Debates on the US elections for instance took place in the comments section of several articles covering the topic a day. 

So, when the time came to review the feature and evaluate tools used, Laura and the DER SPIEGEL product team decided to run some user research to understand the popularity of comment sections, why users turned to DER SPIEGEL for debating instead of X or Reddit, and find ways of improving the feature.

A lot of research later… 

Quantitative analysis meant asking questions such as “How much do you use the space?” and “Do you prefer active or passive participation?”, revealing that only 5% of users are commenting on a regular basis.

This is supported by industry research in Germany by Reuters Institute. The graph below shows active participation in news reporting since 2013, with the yellow results representing commenting.

Qualitative research found that users associate trust and safety with these conversations when they happen under the DER SPIEGEL branding. There’s a mutual appreciation for the publisher’s work, and a reputation that users appreciate. Moderation means that users know that not every comment gets through to be published, and that journalists can vaguely guide discussions if needed. Overall, interaction options are highly appreciated by users as they have a clear desire to engage and know others’ opinions.

For those users who haven’t yet participated, the term ‘safe space’ kept coming up, particularly amongst women. Some mentioned interest in using the feature but a worry of publishing under their real name as well as deliberate choices over which topics they want to participate in.

Re-building the feature with this research in mind

To build trust with users and ensure they feel confident that they’re in a safe space, clear branding and custom design allows the debates to fit perfectly into DER SPEIGEL’s site.

Their tool for implementing debates into the site, Logora, allowed for plenty of features, but it was important for DER SPIEGEL to evaluate which would be the most relevant to their audience. 

For instance, one of Logora’s features is a form of rewards system for high commenters that sends a congratulatory message after a certain number of comments. But the team decided not to implement this at the launch to give readers the chance to test and interact with the debates un-interrupted. However, today, one year on from launching, and they’re considering ways of rewarding high engagement such as this. 

The team also decided to omit ‘dislikes’ on comments to support the creation of a safe space. 

Interestingly, they’ve also decided against making it obligatory for commenters to use their real name to allow users to feel safe. However, they have an account verification process, even for free members, and are continuously evaluating this decision. 

Real name commenting at The Times

At The Audiencers’ Festival London, The Times & Sunday Times shared how they did the opposite, aiming to reduce toxicity by reducing anonymity in their comments section. The idea: “people should know who they’re speaking to if you want a high quality conversation.”

At the time, only 37% of commenters were using their real name, today they’re at an impressive 98%.

“It was a long process involving many different departments at The Times, and lots of communication around it. Subscribers were told early on that they needed to use their real name, and there was a 3-step process to do this. But since making the change we’ve seen toxicity come down – it’s a safer, more welcoming community, and attacks on writers were down 25% – and an increase in the number of comments. People who don’t use a real name stick out for a bad reason – they’re now blocked and then become compliant.“

Debating in practice

For SPIEGEL Debatte, you only need to create a free account or log in to read the debates. 

But in order to actually comment, react, see the distribution of votes (before the debate has ended) or suggest a debate topic, you need a paid subscription. 

The feature is promoted in subscriber onboarding to increase regular usage amongst subscribers.

And debates are integrated into editorial content and vice versa to encourage recirculation. Notice the high visibility of premium (S+) content here to promote the value of subscription.

This premium article below is accompanied by a debate topic open to all, allowing free members to engage in the debate to an extent without being able to benefit from the full experience and accompanying content – a great balance between engagement and frustration to encourage conversion.

To reach new users and draw attention to the digital platform, they sometimes show comments from SPIEGEL Debatte in the print magazine and link to the Debate Space via a QR code. And finally, they also draw attention to the debate on social media channels such as LinkedIn or Instagram by publishing quotes or voting results, linking to the debate.

The goal wasn’t necessarily to increase conversions or retention, but commenting and interactive engagement has been an important feature of DER SPIEGEL’s site, so improving this feature was important, especially for subscribers who have full access to debating.

Some initial results

• Within the first 7 hours of launching, 10,000 users logged in within the debate space
• In the first year, the team created over 900 debates with more than 3M votes and about 400K comments.
• The quality of comments has increased with feature changes. “That is a qualitative observation for now. But it is also reflected in the rate of accepted comments, which has risen from 80-85 to 85-90 percent.”

Thank you Laura for taking the time for this interview!

The post Going further with interactive engagement: introducing the debating feature appeared first on Audiencers.