Tag: reader revenue

Why Every Media Company Needs an Audience-First Business Strategy

Growth — every media company strives to achieve it. And yet, many business strategies are unsuccessful in driving continuous, long-term growth. 

So what kind of growth tactics are the most worthwhile and effective for media companies?

It’s quickly becoming clear that organizations that position their audiences at the center of their growth strategies set themselves up for ongoing success and stability. 

As a writer for Columbia Journalism Review put it, there’s a “need for better media structures — in which readers are no longer audiences, but partners in the work.”

This means that organizations must do more than deliver content and products that align with their brands. Instead, it’s essential for media companies to prioritize their audiences and work with them to create engaging content, products and experiences that support and represent their digital visitors. 

Explore the following text to find out why audience-first business strategies are necessary if you want your organization to survive and grow within the industry.

The Connection Between Reader Revenue and Sustainable Revenue

In the past, the media industry was mainly fueled by advertising revenue. But when the pandemic caused marketers to slash advertising budgets and block ads near specific keywords, the world saw that advertising revenue couldn’t sustain organizations on its own. 

Now, publishers need to unlock new revenue sources that they can control, completely free from third-party organizations.

That’s where reader revenue comes in.

By monetizing readers directly on their digital properties, media companies can break free of their dependence on third parties, like advertisers and social media, and become self-sustaining. 

“Reader revenue directly supporting your business is something that you have control over and can continue to grow,” says Amalie Nash, SVP of local news and audience development at Gannett. 

As organizations engage and nurture their digital audiences — on their own terms — they can increase loyal followers who are willing to pay and keep paying for premium content and experiences. In other words, these dedicated, paying subscribers provide a robust and stable source of revenue. 

Funke Mediengruppe, a German media organization, also notes that one digital subscriber brings in 11 times more revenue than a person who reads free, ad-supported content.

Embracing an audience-first business strategy allows media organizations to earn and maximize sustainable revenue.

People Will Support Brands They Care About

When you put your audience at the center of your business growth plan, you can transform ordinary website visitors into engaged, paying brand advocates. 

That was the case for Zetland, a Danish publishing company that established strong relationships with its visitors and encouraged them to become loyal brand ambassadors. 

Through an ambassador campaign, digital community members were asked to support the brand by finding new members to join Zetland’s community. Zetland brought in thousands of new paying members by the end of the campaign, with 346 consumers participating as active ambassadors. 

In this scenario, Zetland formed an effective business strategy by highlighting the value its organization offered to digital visitors before asking for support. 

You can deliver additional value to your own visitors through on-site, engaging experiences and trusted content. As a result, ordinary visitors can become so much more than paying community members: They’ll become fans of your brand who actively want to help grow your company’s digital community. 

Erin O’Mara, president of The Nation, explains that “an engaged community is really meaningful, not just the way they interact… but also how they can be ambassadors.”

Extracting Actionable Data From a Connected, Engaged Audience

No growth strategy is complete in the media industry without a plan to collect audience data and draw useful insights to inform business decisions. These data insights can personalize on-site experiences to attract and captivate visitors continuously. 

With two-thirds of consumers willing to give up their private details for personalized, convenient services, media organizations can tap into a wealth of knowledge about potential and existing community members.

You can also use your visitor data to run targeted, high-performing advertisements right on your digital properties. 

At the end of the day, there’s no need to guess what kinds of content and experiences will win over your audience. Not when you can find out directly from their data. 

Your audience has the power to help your business thrive, regardless of anything that may be disrupting the industry. You simply need a data-informed, audience-first business strategy to transform visitors into engaged community members loyal to your brand.

5 Best Practices Media Companies Can Learn from European Publishers

This article first appeared in Publishing Executive

With more people living in Europe than in the U.S. and Canada combined, there’s a massive knowledge pool among European media companies that many North American publishers have yet to access. 

But the digital world stretches far beyond Earth’s physical borders. In fact, publishers in North America face many of the same challenges that European media companies deal with and, in some cases, have already overcome. 

So if you’re interested in maintaining a successful media business, we simply need to look to our fellow neighbors across the world for answers and inspiration. 

We’ve rounded up the top takeaways from extremely successful European publishers below — because a handful of European publishers are clearly doing something right. 

Establish a Relationship with Readers

While consumers can drive up your company’s revenue, they can also come and go without hesitation. Friends, on the other hand, tend to be eternally loyal as long as they’re engaged continuously. 

German news publisher Die Zeit has developed a program based on this sentiment that grows a base of loyal friends who actively support the brand. This program allows consumers to participate in live conversations with the company’s staff, and even suggest stories they’d like to see covered.

As a result, its audience is highly invested in the published content. 

“The loyalty of our subscribers is what makes our journalism here at Die Zeit possible,” Lennart Schneider, who runs their Friends of Die Zeit program, explains in an INMA webinar.

After all, building meaningful relationships with consumers is an effective way to make media companies stand out from competitors.

Understand What Kind of Content Converts

At the 2020 INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in New York, Norwegian news publisher Aftenposten reported that its subscription revenue has climbed by 80% since restructuring its business model. One of the major changes that contributed to this growth was the company’s approach to content. 

Aftenposten’s successful business strategy prioritizes the types of content that converts users, and locks it behind a paywall. To accomplish this, the publisher has minimized the barriers between its data experts and editorial team.

“The whole purpose is to democratise our data and give it to the journalists,” says Aftenposten’s brand manager. “For us, that’s been the key to driving change and to feel like everyone is working toward the same goals.”

Structure Your Paywall around Data

Aftenposten isn’t the only publisher whose paywall and data strategies are intertwined. Many European media companies use their first-party data to inform their paywall strategies so registration messages appear when audience members are most engaged. 

Take Sweden’s MittMedia, for instance. Based on its audience data, the publisher found that the majority of its page views occur 60 minutes after content has been published. 

As a result, the publisher has seen success by adjusting its paywall to only lock content after those first 60 minutes.

Automate Time-Consuming Newsroom Tasks

Newsrooms around Europe are rapidly adopting intelligent automation. For example, The Guardian created its own tool to create articles automatically and Schibsted has implemented an AI-based tool to improve content recommendations and personalize user experiences. 

In both cases, the publishers end up saving editorial resources.

“Our time is limited, our resources are limited,” explains the editor-in-chief of the London Evening Standard in an INMA webinar. “I suggest you look at your audience and your core values and then look at some of the tools that are out there and try them.”

Explore New Ways to Engage Audiences

One French publisher, Le Monde, is growing at a steady pace of 14,000 new online subscribers each month. Most recently, the publisher has been testing investigative podcast series to expand breadth of reporting and boost their subscriptions.

“Podcasts are a way to connect with new audiences,” the deputy editor of Le Monde told Digiday. “For audiences who may not come by themselves to Le Monde, this can be a contribution to driving our long-term strategy of digital subscriptions.”

However, engaging new audiences doesn’t need to be limited to podcasting. The more opportunities you can give consumers to engage with your brand, the more likely they are to convert. In fact, there are a whole slew of engagement tools your media company can implement on its digital properties.

From community-building tactics to automated newsroom strategies, European publishers offer a whole range of insights that can be leveraged to improve your own company.

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