INMA's Report by @g_piechota on Converting Infrequent Readers into Subscribers PLUS Google's News Revenue Hub

October 06, 2021

Today's newsletter is about conversion and revenue, which are two major issues that media organisations are grappling with as they pivot to paid content strategies. Up first is INMA's new report about mining infrequent readers for conversion. The conventional wisdom is that super fans are the easiest to convert, and that is true. But if media businesses are able to expand conversion to more infrequent users, then that definitely increases the pool of potential customers you can tap. But you can't obviously use the same product and marketing mix for these infrequent users. That's interesting for sure.

Next up is Google's next effort to support revenue at news organisations. They are rolling out a news revenue hub, a platform that integrates a number of digital and traditional payment methods with MailChimp and Salesforce. It definitely looks like it will bring some sophisticated CRM functions to a wider range of players.

PLUS how audiences turned to the open web when Facebook and its digital empire went offline on Monday. How a local news company turned to newsletters to gain new subscribers during the pandemic. Goodbye Scroll hello Twitter Blue. The lessons for other media companies from Ozy's fall.

The majority of subscribers will be light readers — and, INMA argues, publishers should be segmenting and studying this audience.

What Happens When Facebook Goes Down? Traffic To The Open Web Soars - 10/06/2021

From person-to-person coaching and intensive hands-on seminars to interactive online courses and media reporting, Poynter helps journalists sharpen skills and elevate storytelling throughout their careers.

The Google News Initiative will support News Revenue Hub in developing a new integrated donation-processing system, News Revenue Engine.

The full announcement from Google about th News Revenue Hub.

Examiner Media, a publisher of free weeklies in the Lower Hudson Valley of New York, rebuilt its staff with a grant from the digital newsletter platform.

Scroll — the ad-free web subscription service purchased by Twitter in May 2021 — is getting shut down as an independent service so that it can be added to the Twitter Blue paid subscription service.

The company was built on years of lies that together created a woefully false narrative about its business, financials and culture.