The document summarizes digital subscription trends and success stories from local media companies. It finds that newsletters are the top driver of converting visitors to paid subscribers. The top performers invest heavily in journalism to create content worth paying for and use sophisticated data-driven strategies to personalize the consumer experience. Companies that are winning in subscriptions, like The Seattle Times, track key metrics to optimize their approaches and incentivize growing the digital subscriber base across their organizations.

1. Digital Subscriptions – Top
Trends & Success Stories
Presented by Nancy Lane,
President, Local Media
Association
LEAP MEDIA ROUNDTABLE
VAIL, CO
AUGUST 23, 2018

2. About Local Media Association
An umbrella organization that represents
ALL local media including newspapers, TV
stations, radio stations, directories, online-
only news sites, etc.
Over 2,800 newspapers/TV stations/radio
stations, etc. are members of the
organization.

3. We Are Intensely Focused on Helping Local Media
Companies Discover New & Sustainable Business Models

4. New York Times –
Subscription
Revenue Far
Exceeds
Advertising
Revenue
Source: Recode Media

5. Paid Content Advertising

6. “What Best Describes Your Company’s Philosophy
When It Comes to Digital Subscriptions?”
Nearly 70% of Local Newspapers say it’s a Top 3 Priority
Source: Local Media Association Innovation

7. 5 Trends Are Emerging from the Leaders
in Digital Subscriptions:
1. Newsletters are their #1 source for converting digital subscribers
2. They produce content that’s worth paying for (investing heavily in journalism)
3. Data-driven strategies are key to their success (very sophisticated approach)
4. They make investments in the right technology (choosing the right R&D partners)
5. They commit to a hard paywall (readers hit the wall after 2-4 articles)

8. The Seattle Times:
It’s Everyone’s Job to Grow Digital Subscriptions
 60% of their revenue comes from audience not
advertising
 Digital paywall: started at 15; now at 4
 Newsletters drive digital subscription conversions
 Goal of newsletters – force readers to hit the
paywall (20+ links)
 25X conversion rate from newsletters vs. Facebook
 Incentivizing the newsroom for driving digital subs
 They are now #2 in the U.S.

9. The Seattle Times:
Newsletters Driving
Conversions
 9 newsletters
 175,000 subscribers
 32% open rate
 169 conversions/month

11. Newsletters – Best Conversion Tool for Many Others
 The Washington Post added 4.6 million newsletter
subscribers in the past two years and more than
tripled their traffic from newsletters.
 A registered user is 22 times more likely to subscribe
than a non-registered user with The New York Times.
Many of those users are newsletter subscribers.
 The Wall Street Journal uses 24-hour guest passes
and newsletters to convert their best prospects.
 GateHouse Media recently announced the
creation of a consumer marketing agency that will
focus on digital subscriptions. In the ramp-up
phase over the past 12-18 months, they have
launched 451 newsletters. They sent out 10x as
many emails in 2018 as they did in 2017.

12. Know LTV of every subscriber over the past 8 years (+ the lead source)
"Registration wall” to maximize sampling & conversions
Nurture prospect & customer journeys
Newsletter signups are the top leads source for new starts:
Expanded from 5 newsletters to
20
200 newsletter signups per day
on-site
Personalized newsletter testing
San Francisco Chronicle: All about the Consumer Funnel
Newsletters: top source for conversions

13. Companies That Are Winning in the Digital
Subscription Space Are Obsessed with Data.
 The Wall Street Journal assigns a
propensity score to every visitor. “When
someone has a high propensity score,
we lock down the site,” said Jon Buckley,
Director, Digital Subscriber Acquisition &
Media.
 In order to understand what drives
subscriptions, they follow 65 different
signals such as visit frequency, number of
articles per visit, zip code and device. .

14. Data-Driven
Strategies
Are Key to
Success
 The Seattle Times uses heat maps to plot digital
audience vs. content creation by day and hour. They
also believe that it’s everyone’s job in the company
to grow digital subscriptions.
 Recently, they started incentivizing newsroom
employees on digital conversions. Anyone else doing
this?
 The Financial Times segments users into seven different
groups based on RTV (recency, frequency, volume)
ranging from super fans to disengaged long tail.

15. Membership Models – Do They
Represent The Future?

16. SF Chronicle
Membership:
Paired with
Subscription

18. Are We Thinking Big Enough?
Are We Thinking Bold Enough?
What Would Amazon Do?
Final Thoughts…

19. Disruptors vs.
Media
Companies…

20. Do I Have Something Worth
Paying For?
The top performers have
invested heavily in their
newsrooms. If you don’t, this
strategy isn’t likely to be
sustainable.

21. • 93% of The Washington Post’s subscribers are outside of
the DC area. In Boston, more than 50% are outside of the
Boston DMA.
• The disruptors are developing ad-free subscription models
(check out The Athletic).
• Our industry doesn’t obsess over UX. To win in this space,
we must. “Locking down the site” is not user-friendly
language. “Forcing them to hit the paywall” isn’t either.
Things That Keep Us Up at Night…

23. Thank You!
Email me at:
Nancy.lane@localmedia.org
For a FREE copy of the LMA
report: Digital Subscriptions – Top
5 Trends