During the recent INMA Media Subscriptions Summit, news media executives heard summit organiser Greg Piechota say these magic words: “There is no [subscription] ceiling.”

Piechota, head of the INMA Readers First Initiative, ended the weeklong summit with the words everyone needed to hear, encouraging attendees to “make journalism f-----g sustainable because we need it.”

Leading up to Piechota’s finale were two days of a Manhattan study tour, during which 40 news executives from around the world visited 10 news media companies. In addition to hearing news subscriptions research, attendees toured newsrooms and heard details of how New York-based news companies are growing subscriptions and reader revenue.

Here are a few subscription-related stats shared during the study tour:

From Piano:

• On year one of a subscrption, an annual subscription is worth 30% more than a monthly subscription.
• On year three of a subscription, annual subscribers stay on twice as long as monthly subscriptions and are worth 60% more than a monthly subscriber.
• By year three of a subscription, there is no difference in retention rates between paid trial users and no trial users.

From Chartbeat:

• News traffic grew by 12.7% in 2023.
• 73% of subscribers remain loyal to a news site (finance and sports publications have an even higher loyalty).
• 72% of pageviews are on mobile devices.

Those numbers and many other in hand, the study tour continued with a first-hand look at how news media companies are working to grow subscriptions:

The Atlantic

One study tour attendees oohed and aahed their way through The Atlantic office building — featuring rooms named after Atlantic authors of fame (think Mark Twain) and a staircase/bookshelf study tour attendees couldn’t stop oogling — Megha Garibaldi, chief growth officer, and Jefferson Rabb, chief product officer, shared subscription strategies of the 167-year-old media company best known for its print magazine.

“The mission has not really changed in 167 years,” Garibaldi said. “Our brand values are rigor in the pursuit of truth, diversity of viewpoints, curiosity and humility, and complex ideas clearly expressed.” 

NPR has described The Atlantic as a “thinkpiece factory,” and its journalism reaches 50+ million each month.

Yet, the company isn’t profitable — but hopes to be this year. It also hopes to reach 1 million subscribers this year “and do it with a total focus on our values,” Garibaldi said.

The Atlantic, an Apple News+ partner, launched its digital paywall in 2019 and grew from less than 500,000 to close to 1 million in the past four years with three offers: digital-only, print + digital, and premium (ad free). 

Last year, the team focused on product and growth, bringing in a smart meter (which went from five to three free articles), payment features (like auto renew), and subscriber experiences (like article gifting).

This year, the focus is on marketing and engagement with consumer campaigns, brand awareness, strategic partnerships, and expanded distribution. When thinking about growing subscriptions, the team is focused on the smart meter, price optimisation, reader/subscriber engagement, creative marketing campaign, and journalism. 

KPIs are evolving here, as they are at other media companies the study tour visited. 

“It’s clear monthly uniques are no longer the most meaningful indicator of the health of a business,” Garibaldi said. They are now tracking social impressions, broadcast interview reach, newsletter opens, non-subscriber return rates, subscriber dormancy, syndication impressions, podcast listens, event attendance, and Apple News engagement.

“Uniques alone do not tell us what we need to do and can be generally misleading,” Rabb added. “This understanding led us to explore mid-funnel metrics, trying to understand the quality of engagement and what levers we as an organisation have to truly reach our audience. This is a recent change in thinking, and we’re very excited about this. We’re responding to a changing environment. These metrics are about much more than traffic.”

Bloomberg

Bloomberg aims to equip business leaders with essential news, information, and connections to succeed. The digital platform, Bloomberg.com, serves as a central hub, enhancing and supporting the Bloomberg ecosystem, including various media platforms and products.

In 2023, Bloomberg reached 500,000 subscribers, launched its “Context Changes Everything” brand campaign, and introduced product improvements for a better user experience, Chief Digital Officer Juliz Beizer shared with study tour attendees. Beizer has seen a significant shift in traffic sources, with declines in search and social:

“If you look at our monthly traffic, it used to be in the big heyday of COVID 70 million people a month. It’s been traditionally around 47 to 50 [million]. Now it’s like 30 to 35 million people a month. That’s a lot of million people. 

“We’re seeing some big declines in some of our traditional methods for getting people to our site. This is a once-in-a-generation type moment in media. The way we have reached audiences since 2005 is changing.” 

Bloomberg’s strategy pivots from top-of-the-funnel audience acquisition to middle-of-the-funnel engagement to drive subscriptions, Beizer said: “That’s where I think we as an industry need to be focused on instead of chasing that big, big scale. As exhilarating as it was, why don’t we focus on the value we can bring every day? Because that’s what drives subscriptions businesses.”

Deep user research revealed four unmet needs, including the desire for full context, a curated news experience to combat information overload, actionable content and data, and insights to stay ahead, Beizer said.

Bloomberg’s approach focuses on meeting these needs through product and content innovation. One change: the launch of a new homepage and user-focused features like article saving and comparative stock charts.

“For our most important users, this was an unbelievably important destination,” Beizer said. “The key features on this page are really about integrating our market data into the content in a way that we hadn’t done before, giving a personal touch.”

Subscription growth tactics included a registration wall, using analytics to effectively target users with either the paywall or registration wall based on their likelihood of subscribing, and streamlining and enhancing user experiences.

“One of the things that’s really helped us fuel this growth of 500,000 plus subscriptions has been about conversion tactics,” Beizer said. “You’ve got to spend a lot of time focusing on your levers, focusing on what cohorts of audiences convert.”

The Guardian

Known for its donation revenue model, the 203-year-old Guardian relaunched in the United States in 2011 (after a failed 2007 attempt). Currently, the publication has 275,000 recurring supporters with 170,000 one-time supporters in the United States funding its mission to be “open to all, funded by man, beholden to no one.”

The Guardian is owned by a trust that sets its annual budget, and more than half of its annual revenue for its U.S. operation comes from donations. The media company has three offers for readers who want to support its journalism by paying: US$5 a month, US$13 a month, US$35 a month. Marketing efforts drive readers to the middle tier, while the third, premium tier offers no advertising. In addition, revenue comes from one-time donations, which generally are steady and US$50-$US60 each.

“Our conversion rates are similar to paywall conversion rates at other media companies,” Emilie Harkin, senior vice president/growth, told study tour attendees. 

The Guardian’s recipe for supporter growth includes a cross-discipline supporter revenue team with members from growth, editorial, and marketing. 

“They stay true to mission and explain it over and over and over again,” Harkin said. “It’s taking advantage of moments in your marketing like hitting our 200th year [in 2021]. We adapt to success in local markets as a global organisation and ask how can you develop ideas in markets that have a global impact.”

Jane Spencer, deputy director and senior vice president/strategy, touts The Guardian’s relatively new reader revenue program with saving the brand’s U.S. entity.

“When Trump was elected, reader revenue shot through the roof,” she said. “We broke even in 2020 I think. Now reader revenue is 57% of total makeup, advertising 38%, and the other 5% is licensing and other bits.”

The Guardian newsroom is fully invested in metrics and knows the stories that tend to drive reader revenue, Spencer said, which are stories about the environment and social justice.

“We don’t share hard numbers, but we share stories [with the newsroom] that have the highest conversion rates,” Spencer said. “That gives you insight into stories that are really hitting a nerve with readers. That data has led to a lot of behaviour changes in the newsroom. It’s not like a business side metric, it’s an engagement metric. People feel so strongly when they read something they pull their wallet out and want to give us money.”

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