Subscriptions and Membership: Revenue Lessons from the Guardian, Quartz and Kenya's Standard Group PLUS Skills You Will Need as a Media Start-up CEO

August 19, 2021

We've got a good roundup of articles from the US, UK and Kenya looking at elements of successful subscription and membership strategies (and what differentiates those two strategies).

One interesting thing to note from Kenya's Standard Group is how they had tried to develop a reader revenue-led digital transformation in the past, but it was only after a number of shocks to their ad-based business that made the change stick. It's also another good example of the value of known users and the use of registration.

Plus, the Press Gazette has a good look Canada's Globe and Mail AI-powered Sophi system. I heard the Globe and Mail's EIC David Walmsley speak about this at the Google News Initiative at the GooglePlex in 2019. With leadership at his level, I think it helps to overcome the cultural issues of AI supporting editorial decision making. As a product manager, I have grown sceptical of the supremacy of editorial gut feelings. As Walmsley says, too many stories require editor buy-in, and that can lead to strategic dilution if it's left to personal sensibilities not grounded in audience data.

Bringing in new subscribers and building durable relationships with them starts with revenue diversification and a focus on high LTV.

A bit of a bullet point hodgepodge, but this is true: "Your north star: delivering value in unique ways across the entire subscriber journey."

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

A good review of insights about membership from the Membership Puzzle Project as it winds down.

“Membership is a relationship. People give their money, but also their time, ideas, expertise and connections to support a cause that they believe in. There’s a sort of social contract between a news organisation and its members. It’s a two-way relationship,” says MPP fund director Ariel Zirulnick.

What does it take to be the leader of a new media business? We speak to the founder of an interactive journalism publication that has raised around $500k in investment

Having a community of people who get excited with you, make your ideas better, and lift your ambitions, I truly believe is the key to successful CEOs and successful companies.

In this special series that focuses on journalism rather than algorithms, we look at how Canadian publisher The Globe and Mail uses machine learning to design its homepage and predict what content its audience will value

Like many newsrooms, explains editor-in-chief David Walmsley, the paper was looking to solve the problem of ideas living or dying based on whether an editor buys into them. Although hunches are sometimes right, this also leads to many missed opportunities.

So the publisher progressively hired an army of data scientists and data engineers, who now make up about 10 per cent of staff, and refined the smart tool that can predict audience behaviour.

2021-08-09. When COVID-19 began spreading around the world, Standard Group made a strategic decision to invest when everyone else was holding back to see how long the pandemic would last. The leadership fast-tracked their digital business transformation by converting their newsroom into a fully digital-first operation.

Several declines in advertising and the pandemic sharpened their focus on diversifying their revenue. Using data and registration, they finally cracked digital transformation after several earlier efforts that failed to take hold.

Industry News and Trends

Press Gazette has been reporting on British journalism without fear or favour since 1965. Our mission is to provide a news and information service which helps the UK journalism.

Future talks of having a “US-first mindset”, which comes down to the size of opportunity North America can offer versus the UK. North America is Future’s “biggest market”, says Byng-thorne.

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