Compare and improve your performance in digital reader engagement and subscriptions vs. similar brands
Benchmark your performance internationally
Discover best performing strategies and tactics
Review your business strategy and budget
Introducing INMA’s Subscription Benchmarking Service
After a year of testing with selected publishers, INMA has extended an invite for a new performance benchmarking service to all.
This service is available at a discounted rate to INMA corporate members that publish at least one online news service, and requires an additional subscription.
The full service costs US$ 7,500 per year per publisher for members, or $15,000 per year for non-members. In 2022, 2023, and 2024 a publisher can sign up multiple brands without extra costs.
Some 234 national and regional brands from all over the world have contributed the data to the service since the launch of the pilot in autumn 2021. That is 60 publishers with brands from 35 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Pacific.
Every quarter, INMA confidentially collects 20 data points on performance, calculates 40 KPIs and slices them by cohorts – geography, maturity, target market, and type of the paywall, among others.
The data is presented in an aggregated and anonymised way in the form of an online report (dashboard): nearly 350 charts, tables and graphics in 21 interactive tabs.
Each brand has personalised scorecards on engagement, registration and subscription, allowing comparisons to cohorts of similar brands and the top performers in each KPI.
Inspired by members, we added new pages visualising engagement, newsletter and subscription funnels. These data stories allow you to compare performance at each stage of the customer lifecycle - from reached to subscribed.
Additionally, on a special request of the participating publishers who have a group of brands of similar characteristics and wished to compare them between each other, we have introduced a complementary report. The 'Group' report makes it easier to compare brands within your group.
Recent updates also include a new section: Forecasts. It allows you to see the prediction of your future digital-only subscription business KPIs that we have made based on your historic performance.
Yet, the service is not only an online dashboard. During exclusive Webinars we present in-depth analyses of trends, striking differences between cohorts and inspiring correlations. We also invite the best performers to share best practices.
On request, we also connect publishers for one-to-one meetings to exchange ideas and experiences.
During individual briefings and ask-me-anything sessions with INMA analysts we demonstrate how to use the benchmarks for gap and opportunity analyses, strategy and budget, and for planning new initiatives.
INMA partnered with Laboratorium EE, a Polish-Lithuanian research and software development company, to build the online report and assist in data collection, verification, and analysis.
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Why INMA's subscription benchmarks are different
Engaged community of peer publishers
Personalised benchmarks and experience
No software or consulting lock-in
We design this as a peer-to-peer exchange: low-tech, but also low-cost. Participants are not locked-in into any hardware, software, nor consulting agreements. Publishers can join and cancel the subscription any time.
We select comparable brands from across the world to ensure the value of benchmarks. We also limit participation to news brands only.
Data-rich dashboard is an immediate deliverable, but equally valuable are actionable insights and best practices shared during webinars curated by INMA
We build a benchmarking community and not just a data product. We facilitate learning from each other. We save your time and money in finding expertise or peers.
Our customer success team and analysts assist in data collection, verification and analysis. We build frameworks to help apply the insights.
What INMA members are telling us
“Without benchmarks, running a business is like driving with your eyes closed."
“Comparisons make us try doing better and let us discover new ways of thinking, new strategies and new tactics.”
"We are overwhelmed with ideas about what others are doing. We miss facts about whether these ideas actually work.”
These are some of the comments of publishers that wish to grow their business, yet have limited access to reliable and trusted information about how their performance compares to their peers.
With this exclusive benchmarking service, INMA aims at assisting you in evaluating and improving performance of your online reader engagement and subscriptions.
Key benefits
Zoom in to personalised scorecards to compare your brand with cohorts of similar brands and markets. Assess your performance in reader engagement, registrations and newsletters, and in digital subscriptions.
Zoom out to get context about the trends across cohorts and markets. Find patterns and differences between target markets, regions, maturity, type of a paywall or content formula.
Perform gap and opportunity analyses to identify areas for improvement. Map your funnels, compare your KPIs vs. the benchmarks and analyse the gaps vs. best performing brands.
Review your business strategy and budget. Use benchmarks to validate assumptions in your plans vs. the benchmarks. Adjust goals and budgets.
Justify plans for new initiatives. Validate your hypotheses vs. the benchmarks. Use data on the best performance to plan your business case.
Use INMA resources to improve your processes. With 6,000+ case studies in our archives, webinars and presentations, find the best practices to implement.
Find peers and expertise among INMA members. Ask for one-to-one matches and get connected with peers who excel in the area of your interest.
Apply now
Click here to apply