The document discusses strategies for news media companies to shift from advertising revenue to reader revenue. It emphasizes focusing on readers through better understanding their needs and experiences, organizing company structures around readers rather than advertising, using data to make decisions, and working to attract, engage, and retain readers through the "funnel" from awareness to subscription. Key steps include serving the local community, prioritizing the user experience, integrating systems, improving marketing and metrics, and changing organizational culture to align with the new business goals.

1. Reader Revenue
The Pivot to Data, Funnels and Readers
Damon Kiesow
Knight Chair in Digital Editing and Producing
Missouri School of Journalism
@dkiesow

2. • Collection and use of data
• Segmentation and marketing
• Organizational alignment
• A focus on readers
https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/reader-revenue/what-it-really-means-to-shift-to-reader-revenue/

3. Google, Facebook, Amazon
https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-digital-ad-spending-will-surpass-traditional-in-2019

4. • Programmatic advertising needs scale
• Most journalism has specific geographic
constraints
• Chasing a scaled business model but a
geographically-constrained editorial mission is
a fundamental conflict
• A diversified subsidy model requires an
engaged community
Chasing Scale

5. • Average page-load times are too high
• Ad takeovers and abusive redirects drive daily
complaints
• Click-bait, attention-gap headlines, promoted links…
• Opportunity cost spent on platform plays
• Pushing out-of-state stories over social to go viral
• A focus on page views as the key metric
The Consequences of Scale

6. • Subscriptions
• Memberships
• Donations
New Goals

7. Nine Easy Steps to Reader Revenue
1. Serve your community
2. Organize around reader revenue
3. Focus on the reader, and the user experience
4. Integrate and align your systems
5. Use the funnel to attract, engage and convert users
6. Make data informed hypotheses and decisions
7. Improve your marketing
8. Work on acquisition and prioritize retention
9. Change your culture

8. Provide Value
Comprehensive, In-Depth, Accurate,
Timely, Balanced, Representative,
Trustworthy, Transparent, Concise, Usable,
Engaging, Interesting, Habitual
Media Insight Project

10. A challenge for many media companies:
• Tension between Advertising and Audience
• Conflicting goals and incentives across departments
• Siloed skills, data, tools and insights
Align Your Organization

11. • A marketing campaign targeting a specific audience
• A proposal to launch a new paid sports vertical
• Design of a personalization feature
• A research study to create an ad-free experience
Eliminate silos

12. • A marketing campaign targeting a specific audience
• A proposal to launch a new paid sports vertical
• Design of a personalization feature
• A research study to create an ad-free experience
Editorial & Advertising & Audience & Product
UX & Product & Development & Audience & Editorial
Eliminate silos
Marketing & Analytics & Social & Audience
Audience & Advertising & Analytics & Product

13. Improve your systems
• Audience
• Analytics
• Marketing
• Content Management

14. Improve your UX

15. Work the Funnel
Implicit recognition of
brand, or explicit visit.
Interest
Engagement
Choice
$
Awareness
Return visit with intent
not just a blind referral
Critical point of intervention
for publishers
Decision to buy or other
longer-term relationship
Subscription or other
commitment.

16. Critical point of intervention
for publishers
Find out What is Engaging
Implicit recognition of
brand, or explicit visit.
Interest
Engagement
Choice
$
Awareness
Decision to buy or other
longer-term relationship
Subscription or other
commitment.
• Related stories
• Specific topics
• Newsletters
• Mobile Apps
• Coupons
• Video
Return visit with intent
not just a blind referral

17. Improve Your Metrics
• Page Views
• Unique Visitors
• Visits

18. New Goals, New Metrics
• Local Page Views
• New Visitors
• Visits with Conversions
• Churn & Retention Rates
• Lifetime Value

19. • What is your annual revenue per user?
• What is your annual revenue per subscriber?
• Does that calculation include advertising as well as
print or digital subscriptions revenues?
• How many people must be consulted to gather these
answers?
• How long does it take to collect that data?
Make Data-Informed Decisions

20. • Fix page performance
• Understand what drives engagement
• Customize entry points into the funnel
• Target readers based on propensity to pay
Improve Your (on-site) Marketing

21. Study Propensity to Pay
6 Points
Very Likely
4 Points
Possibly
1 Point
Unlikely

22. Develop Profiles of Likely Subscribers
Matt Skibinski, Lenfest https://centerforcooperativemedia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/04/Skibinski-Lenfest-MSU-Presentation.pdf

23. • Local voices are heard and valued
• Organizational changes encourage collaboration
• UX and design improvements are strategic assets
• Teams prioritize positive not negative digital
interactions
• Newsroom goals prioritize reader loyalty
• The business model aligns with the editorial mission
What Winning Looks Like