Six tactics to build a newsletter from 0 to 10,000 subs in three months PLUS A publisher steps away from Google's AMP and sees little downside

August 30, 2022

Hello, after a long bank holiday weekend here in the UK, we're back. We've got a good round of practical articles about product thinking in practice at news organisations including tactics on hitting your email newsletter growth goals, a walk through why Tribune Publishing decided to ditch Google's AMP format and where data teams sit in news organisations based on their organisational focus.

Use these tips to grow your audience.

This is an example of a playbook that is well executed. None of the tactics are particularly novel, but when joined up, they have delivered results. I'll highlight two of the six tactics. The first is just classic product development: User research. This identified the topic for the newsletter. And another tactic which we used to great effect in my previous job was paid leader generation through Facebook. Our costs were a little higher than in the study, but it still was a very solid way for us to drive subs.

Ahead of its June 2021 algorithm update, Google made a significant announcement as part of its shift to emphasize overall page experience in determining its search ranking — it was lifting its thumb…

This is fascinating. One of the major drivers was how poorly AMP pages were at driving subscriptions, and they took back control over their mobile user experience. They found that mobile search took over most of the referrals, and they got rid of a lot of tech debt.

Broadly, data teams at news media companies fall under product or engineering. Here is a look at why.

Another good article of observations from INMA about the data transformation happening at media organisations. What is interesting to me is how there is a distinction made between marketing, product and engineering. Outside of media, marketing and product often are difficult to distinguish. You'll even see roles such as product marketing manager because marketing teams have often conducted market research that fed into product development. In media companies, marketing is often seen mar comms - advertising and product promotion.

2022-08-26. The publishing sector has been developing its audience-centric thinking for some time now, and for the most advanced players it has been central to their success. Audience news needs, as a strategic, actionable concept, has been helping forward thinking publishers to find their product-market fit, be much more purposeful about their mission and add more focus to their operations, writes Dmitry Shishkin.

Dmitry Shiskin writes about his user needs model for WAN_IFRA. It's a fascinating product model that Dmitry used to great effect at the BBC and has turned that model into a very effective tool in his consulting.

Brian Grazer, Bryan Lourd, and Fred Ryan dish on the DC paper’s partnership with Imagine and CAA, which already has four projects in development. “I actually wish I’d thought of it!” says Richard Plepler.

Very interesting. The Washington Post has been mining its archive for creative projects ala All The President's Men. I guess if anyone is going to make money from this type of work, it only makes sense for the paper to try to get their cut.

Is there a future for NFTs, or is it another example of a pandemic-fuelled boom gone bust?

The market has crashed with trading volumes collapsing by more than 80%.

Tweet Tiles are "a new, customizable way to expand the creative surface area of a tweet" that could give news publishers a way to stand out in feeds.