On this week’s episode of the podcast we take a deep dive into the subscription trends of the past year. To get insight from someone who’s had experience in subscription management, we spoke to Zamir Walimohamed, Head of Digital, Marketing & Subscriptions at Motor Sport Magazine. Zamir has been playing a pivotal role in driving Motor Sport Magazine’s digital expansion and marketing initiatives for 12 years now, during which time he’s seen trends come, go, and stay.
Zamir tells us about how the magazine has managed bringing print subscribers into its digital ecosystem, and why a growing propensity to pay for digital subscriptions is benefitting magazines across the industry. He also discusses the extent to which off-the-shelf subscription management tools are fit for purpose, and where the smart money is being spent on improving retention.
How publishers have reacted to subscription trends over the past 12 months will be one of the chapters we explore as part of our upcoming Media Moments 2023 report. Find out more and pre-register for the report here.
Here are some highlights from the episode:
Changes in the technology which powers subscriptions
[The technology] space has changed quite a lot. In fact, it’s pretty impressive now that you have a number of cloud-based subscription platforms that align basically with best practices that allow customers to pay via a number of proprietary payment methods, whether it be Apple Pay, PayPal, direct debits, they’re able to tailor different offers to customers, depending on where they are, on preference of geographical locations.
So a perfect example for me would be, somebody in the US is presented with just a digital only subscription, the price is displayed in US dollars, it eliminates the delivery address because it’s a digital product. And that for me is it’s amazing, because 10 years ago, that didn’t exist.
You can take it off the shelf. But I think the difficulty that a lot of publishers have is our legacy infrastructure that we have in place. A lot of these softwares are plug and play, anyone new starting up has a broad range of options available to them that just makes sense for them to just go into that direction. But someone like Motor Sport or any other kind of old school publishers out there, we’re built differently. We’ve got a lot of old processes that in order for us to unplug subscriptions, it’s not as easy as plug and play, we got to unplug 10 different things before we could plug in the new system.
But I don’t think it’s a case of publishers not believing in the technology because some of the large publishing companies have already done this, they’re taking advantage of some very powerful software that’s out there. But I do believe over time, a lot more publishers will be taking advantage of this.
The importance of integration
Without a shadow of a doubt, email for us is one of our strongest platforms. Over the years, we’ve developed it and refined it to make sure it accommodates our customer needs. It now integrates into our subscription and website.
So as an example, if somebody has purchased a full subscription, the whole bundle subscription, naturally, they probably wanted the print magazine delivered to their home. We dropped them into a welcome programme saying, thank you for subscribing to Motor Sport. Then a week later, we may send them another communication to say, don’t forget, you have access to a free Motor Sport app where you’re able to access Motor Sport on the go. And then keep making them aware of the various options that are available to them, products or services, whether that be the podcast, our database, the 100 years of archive that’s all available online, and we drip feed that to them. So even the older [subscribers] are taking advantage of all the solutions.
And it’s important to know that actually, in order to take out a subscription to Motor Sport, you have to supply an email address. So we will always be communicating with them.
Probably another example to give to that is naturally we do offer trial subscriptions. And again, that’s perfect for us because we funnel those people and treat those people very differently to those that have taken out a straight subscription, because obviously some people have a trial and then drop off. We then offer them options that are available to say to them, all of this is what you’re missing out on. Or maybe giving them another incentive. Maybe they took out a print trial, we then offer them a digital trial. But it’s slightly cheaper to tell them, maybe you want to take advantage of everything that’s available to them online.
Why Motor Sport retains the word ‘magazine’ in its branding
There’s obviously a number of other businesses out there with ‘motor sport’ in their name in some way, shape, or form. So including ‘magazine’ helps us reinforce our identity. But I think retaining the word ‘magazine’ in our branding reinforces the rich heritage and the authority of journalism that Motor Sport has delivered for many years. It resonates really well with our current core audience, who value, depth and quality, which aids persuading new subscribers who are seeking that sort of substance and tradition.
I would also say that the word ‘magazine’ implies a collection of content that is not just timely, but timeless. We get comms from subscribers that have been subscribing to us for decades. And I think that’s important, that sense of lasting value that encourage you know, I think that helps both digital and print subscriptions, because it represents content that’s worth something.
The risk of subscription fatigue
I think there is a risk of subscription fatigue. But the market is saturated with so many people offering content, with more and more websites coming out of the woodworks. But I would say it’s probably going to affect publishers who don’t offer a clear, unique selling proposition. Publishers that delivers a solid product with a distinct, high-quality content dedicated to a dedicated audience, I personally believe are going to continue to thrive.
The key to avoiding subscription fatigue for me is to provide exceptional value that cannot be easily replicated by other sources. For publishers who have a good understanding of the audience’s needs and preferences, and actually invest – it’s a hard thing to say, but you’ve got to invest in meeting those consistently. And then for me, I think it’ll be fine.
