Driving Digital Subscription Growth

Newspaper companies are finding models to sustain the so-called ‘Trump Bump’

Earlier in the year, there was considerable talk about the so-called “Trump Bump” — the idea that the unpredictable events of the past year have driven growth in news audience. Now, many newspaper companies’ second-quarter results confirm that this bump may signal the successful acceleration of efforts to grow—and sustain—digital subscription revenue.

Growth has continued throughout the year, with several individual newspapers—both national publications and large regional dailies—breaking the six-figure digital subscription mark, according to published accounts.

Among the numbers cited by publicly-held newspaper companies in their second-quarter results:

– Gannett Co.: Reported 59.5 percent year-over-year growth in digital-only subscriber volumes, now totaling nearly 290,000.

– McClatchy: Grew digital-only subscribers to 91,000, up 13.8 percent from 1Q 2016.

– New York Times Co.: Added 93,000 net digital-only subscriptions, a 69 percent increase in growth compared to 2Q 2016. Digital-only Times subscriptions now exceed 2.33 million.

– tronc, Inc.: Reported 220,000 digital-only subscribers in 2Q 2017, up 89 percent year-over-year. The company attributes its 2 percent increase in circulation revenue in part to digital-only subscribers.

– The Washington Post: Disclosed in late September that it had more than 1 million paying digital-only subscribers.

“Recent success appears to be a mix of increasingly compelling news content and a growing acceptance among consumers to pay for news content, along with the well-publicized post-election growth in demand for trusted, credible news brands,” says John Murray, News Media Alliance’s vice president for audience development. “We also believe that increased expertise at marketing digital subscriptions has contributed to this success. This, along with content that engages readers, are areas where newspaper publishers can have a direct impact in continuing the recent momentum.”

Matt Lindsay President of Mather Economics, agrees.  “The product offerings have evolved,” he says. “More publishers are moving away from intrusive advertising models and investing in the user experience, particularly on mobile devices, in a bid to improve engagement, and indirectly, conversion rates.”

Newspaper publishers also are deploying increasingly sophisticated strategies to target potential digital subscribers. Along with running conversion campaigns on their sites promoting the importance of local news (“It’s worth knowing what’s going on,” “Support quality journalism” and “Knowledge is eye-opening” are among the slogans now found in newspaper campaigns), more publishers are beginning to divide their digital audiences into segments and target subscription offers based on their interests.

To help document the essential elements for success with digital subscription revenue, the Alliance recently conducted a webinar  describing efforts by two publishers to grow—and sustain—paid digital subscriptions.  The Alliance will publish a paper detailing these strategies in more detail later this fall. Two of the key strategies include:

– Identifying—and segmenting—audience. Publishers are finding ways to identify different types of readers, such as sports enthusiasts, snowbirds, or local news junkies, and target offers and premium products to them based on those specific interests.

First, it’s important to realize that digital-only users don’t always look like the current subscriber base. “Our current subscription base is mostly print subscribers, which is a very different audience from digital,” says Kelli Dakake, senior manager of digital subscription sales for Cox Media Group. “Targeting lookalikes doesn’t work as well when switching from one medium to another.”

Existing analytics solutions are generally “designed to track advertising audiences and not reading audiences,” says Lindsay. While more sophisticated tools are entering the market, publishers can begin with simple data-collection objectives, such as encouraging online users to subscribe to newsletters and enabling features if they register, “to get in the mindset of collecting data about their audience and making them known,” Lindsay says.

– Minimizing churn. As on the print side, reducing the number of stops is crucial to sustaining digital revenue. While the physical delivery problems that can exacerbate print non-renewals are less of an issue online, shifting from a low introductory offer to higher price points can contribute to digital churn. Some publishers are experimenting with different pricing points to address this issue. Numerous publishers also have introduced loyalty programs that offer premium subscribers access to exclusive content or other offerings to foster engagement over time. The goal, says Dakake, is to “surprise and delight our loyal subscribers to keep them happy and make sure they’re getting what they pay for and what they want.”

To view the News Media Alliance webinar, Driving Digital Subscriptions, click here.

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Thurs., August 31 – this event has passed

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Description:
The American Press Institute debuted new research insights about who subscribes to news and what the opportunities are to convert more readers to subscribers. Jeff Sonderman explored findings from a nationwide survey of Americans that probes their reasons for being a news subscriber. Also, new ethnographic research shows that people fall into one of three different groups regarding their attitudes and behaviors about paying for news — learn the three types of people and the marketing strategies and opportunities for reaching each group.

Speaker: Jeff Sonderman,
Deputy Director, American Press Institute

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Thurs., Aug. 17

2:00-3:00 PM EDT

Description:
This session digs into the strategies enabling news media companies to allocate marketing investments toward those high-value households that are more likely to respond and which are much more likely to retain relative to the overall market. This data-driven approach results in improvements in the costs to acquire an annual unit of circulation, and a substantial increase in the overall rate of retention among new starts.

The discussion will then turn to an equally essential part of the overall strategy to further reduce subscriber attrition through better execution and quantitatively proven tactics to build the brand and reader loyalty.

The presenters will share how they acquire and apply the data and execute the action plan. This combines into overall strategy that is working to retain print and digital subscribers across markets for publications of all sizes.

Speakers:
Todd Peterson, VP of Circulation, Albany Times Union and Publisher, Capital Region Weekly Newspapers
Phil Schroder, Head of Brand and Buzz, Group Audience VP, McClatchy
Moderator: John Murray, VP, Audience Development, News Media Alliance

Register today

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Thurs., August 3 – this event has passed

2:00-3:00 PM EDT

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Speakers:
Gerard Brancato, VP, Digital Subscription Marketing, tronc, Inc.
Kelli Dakake, Senior Manager, Digital Subscription Sales, Cox Media Group

Description:
News Media companies are experiencing renewed success building digital audiences and revenue marketing paid digital access. Reader revenues from paid content is a key ingredient in building a sustainable business model and this past year audience executives have had remarkable success in acquiring and retaining digital exclusive subscribers.  In the last year the LA Times tripled its digital exclusive subscriber base to more than 60,000 paid subscriptions.  The Cox Media Group is up 35% compared to last year across their four markets. This session will demonstrate  tactics and strategies that are transferable and scalable to most markets. This team of presenters have successfully managed double digit growth in paid digital audiences across markets of various sizes.  They will share the essential elements of their strategies and tactics in direct messaging, targeting direct response and social media along with the pricing formulas that are getting results.

About the Speakers

Gerard Brancato is VP, Digital Subscription Marketing for tronc, Inc. Gerard currently oversees digital subscriber acquisition and retention efforts for tronc’s portfolio of newspaper and website brands, which includes the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and more. Prior to joining tronc, Gerard spent five years growing Australia’s first subscription movie and TV subscription streaming service. He’s also held marketing and media-focused roles with a News Corp newspaper and a leading Australian internet service and content provider.

Kelli Dakake is Senior Manager, Digital Subscription Sales at Cox Media Group Inc. Kelli is responsible for driving digital only acquisition through emerging technologies and channels for CMG newspapers, including Atlanta Journal Constitution, Austin American Statesman, Palm Beach Post and Dayton Daily News. Prior to joining Cox, Kelli was the Director of Product Innovation Programs at the American Cancer Society along with other leadership roles in the areas of Revenue, Marketing and Communications.  Kelli started her career at General Electric, working various manufacturing and operations roles. She holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and a M.B.A. from Union College.

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WEBINAR #2 IN THE AUDIENCE & REVENUE SUMMER SERIES: RETAINING READERS THROUGH COST-EFFECTIVE SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS

Thursday, July 20 – this event has passed

2:00-3:00 pm

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Moderator:
Bill Nagel, Vice President, Shared Audience/Print Products, Cox Media Group, Inc.

Speakers:
Michael Otero, Director, National Home Delivery, The New York Times
Bill Reynolds, Senior Vice President, Circulation & Operations, Denver Post

Description:
Bill Nagel will lead the newspaper operational and audience executives in a discussion of the proven cost-effective tactics necessary to maintain a relationship with readers, a look at how the distribution business needs to evolve to build a sustainable distribution system and the steps necessary to get there.

Providing superb service retains print and digital subscribers. Adopting the strategy of “owning our streets” has been an imperative that has secured important revenue streams for many newspapers and a distribution business that has facilitated the launch of profitable niche products.

The session will include a look at how the distribution business needs to evolve and the steps necessary to get there and address key challenges such as effective recruitment, how the service model has evolved and the essential elements when considering a conversion to a distributor model.

Michael Otero, Director, National Home Delivery, New York Times will share his unique perspective from a nationally distributed publication identifying characteristics of newspapers that are achieving higher levels of service and the metrics that are most insightful in measuring success.

Bill Reynolds will focus the discussion on the decision-making process in converting to a distributor model, the profile of a successful distributor, the recruiting process and the nuances of managing this different relationship.

The discussion will address key challenges and tactics such as:

– Shared services among newspapers
– Service Metrics that make a difference
– Recruiting agents and identifying potential recruits such as retires
– Effective recruitment techniques from social media to the more traditional advertising
– A profile of successful contracted carriers and distributors and how to contribute to their success.

About the Speakers:

Bill Nagel is Vice President, Shared Audience/Print Products at Cox Media Group (CMG). Bill joined CMG in 2016 and is responsible for growing the print audience business at its four newspaper markets.  Nagel is responsible for subscription sales, customer service, distribution, audience marketing and its commercial delivery business.

Michael Otero is Director, National Home Delivery at The New York Times. Michael began his career at The Times as a summer intern and has held various home delivery, single copy, and back office positions during the course of his career.  He is excited to engage members across our industry in discussing how we can best share and coordinate ways to achieve our mutual goal of improving home delivery service to print subscribers and increase retention.

Bill Reynolds is Senior Vice President, Circulation and Operations at The Denver Post.

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WEBINAR #2 IN A SERIES: PREPARING FOR LAUNCH: THE NUTS & BOLTS OF AAM BRAND VIEW

Thurs., July 13 – this event has passed

2:00-3:00 p.m. EDT

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There are fundamental changes underway at the Alliance for Audited Media, and this webinar series is designed to help members understand and optimize AAM’s marketing tools and data to better position their audiences and portfolio of products with advertisers.

AAM Brand View, the new way that buyers see data in AAM’s Media Intelligence Center, is available to all AAM news media companies for free and has a flexible interface that gives your marketing teams the power to position your company’s audience data with media buyers.

Join us to learn how your media company can use Brand View to present your audience data to advertisers. During the session we will share best practices for creating Brand View profiles in part two of this summer webinar series with the Alliance for Audited Media.

Speakers:
Jerry K. Hill, Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing Operations, Gannett Co, USA TODAY NETWORK

Kevin Rehberg, AAM Director of Client Development

Description:
This session will include a walk-through of the steps of creating a Brand View profile, tips that worked well for some of our major news media companies, and the nuts and bolts of how to take your company listing in the Media Intelligence Center to the next level.

*This session is free and limited to members of the News Media Alliance and/or Alliance of Audited Media.

About the Speakers

Jerry Hill is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alliance of Audited media representing news media publishers and is Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing Operations for Gannett Co., USA TODAY NETWORK. His responsibilities include all 109 Gannett Domestic Newspapers and USA TODAY.  In his current role, he is responsible for all consumer sales, customer service, revenue and pricing optimization, national single copy and hotel sales, growth of strategic segments and process improvements supporting national advertising sales, inbound and outbound sales and retention, and reporting and revenue analysis.

Kevin Rehberg has over 15 years of experience auditing newspapers media, including verifying readership and demographic research. In his current role as director of client development for AAM, Kevin works to help news media organizations understand how to use their audited information to tell their quality story to advertisers, agencies and community members alike.

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When: Thursday, June 22, 2017

2:00-3:00 PM EDT

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Presenters:
John Murray, VP, Audience Development, News Media Alliance
Special Guests include the audience executives that developed and executed many of the best ideas featured in this session, including:
– Rich Handloff, Director of Consumer Marketing, The Washington Post
– Amy Roessner, Director, National Product Sales, USA TODAY NETWORK
– Diane McAndrew, Audience Development Manager, Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, SC)
– Sara J. Bass, Circulation Operations Manager, The Hutchinson News
– Angie Lyons, Corporate Digital Marketing Manager, GateHouse Media
– Bernie Gitt, Director, Circulation Consumer Relations, The Denver Post

Join us for this free webinar for Alliance members as we present more than three dozen ideas to build audience and revenue in a fast paced session rich in creative thinking.

During this hour-long webinar we will share proven tactical ideas and programs that have yielded success. Get three dozen ideas, all submitted by Alliance members, all with documented results. Get a little bit of everything from increasing revenue through events to acquiring new subscribers and keeping them – print and digital. These are all proven ideas to build audience and engage readers, including details of a dozen effective single copy promotions, along with some of the most effective direct response programs that are essential for achieving today’s goals of building audience and revenue.

Register today!*

*Log-in required. Please contact member services (membership@newsmediaalliance.org) if you need your login information sent to you.

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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

2:00-3:00 PM EDT

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The News Media Alliance is launching a webinar series to support audience executives and their revenue colleagues. The strategy is to recruit leaders from around the industry to address the issues facing publishers and share success stories of what they can do to can stand out with advertisers. There are fundamental changes underway at the Alliance for Audited Media, and this series is designed to help members understand and optimize AAM’s marketing tools and data to better position their audiences and portfolio of products with advertisers.

This first session will examine how news media companies can optimize the Alliance for Audited Media’s (AAM’s) Brand View interface that will replace current reporting formats and provide companies new flexibility in reporting their entire portfolio of products and total audience to advertisers.

AAM Newspaper Director and McClatchy’s Corporate Director of Audience Development Dan Schaub will open the session to address the need and opportunities associated with these changes. Shannon Wagner, NSA’s president of account service, will provide the advertiser point of view and address how buyers currently use AAM data in their buying decisions.  Rounding out the webinar, Kevin Rehberg, AAM’s director of client development, and a representative from the Kansas City Star, will share how they decided to capitalize on AAM Brand View to present and position their portfolio of products to buyers.

This session is a prelude to a “nuts and bolts” session in July with AAM staff support on how to build your company’s Brand View interface.

*This session is free and limited to members of the News Media Alliance and/or Alliance of Audited Media.

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This program is another opportunity for publishers to reinforce an effective positioning statement for their news media companies: Quality.

Quality and accuracy are themes for our industry in an environment of “fake” news. Our audience puts trust in what we produce in print and online.  In a recent survey conducted for BuzzFeed News, newspaper media ranked first in trust, with 74 percent of the public stating they “mostly / always” trust print newspapers.  Newspaper websites were ranked second at 69 percent. Compare this with “online-only news publications” at 55 percent and only 27 percent stated they trusted what they read on Facebook.

This degree of trust among readers in our news content also applies to advertisers who rely on the extra scrutiny newspaper publishers provide through AAM audits and consistent reporting.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is backing AAM’s Quality Certification for publishers. In AAM’s press release, on the launch of the program, ANA CEO Bob Liodice states, “Last year the ANA asked what AAM could do to help minimize digital advertising fraud. As we worked toward a solution, we realized that while reliable technology and measurement are critical, there is no substitute for independent third party verification. AAM has given us a long-term solution to minimize digital advertising fraud. So today the ANA is calling for marketers to demand AAM Quality Certification of publishers.” Expect other organizations to follow.

Additional changes are scheduled to replace the traditional annual AAM Audit Report with a simple statement and there is a serious proposal for the industry to move a “continuing assurance” approach for all platforms.  There will be more to come on that in the months ahead.

According to the AAM release, the Quality Certification program is “focused on minimizing digital advertising fraud by linking advertisers with Quality Certified publishers. The process verifies publishers’ business processes, website analytics and website audiences. The verification of these three components is necessary to ensure that a publisher’s commitment to quality runs throughout their entire operation.”

The News Media Alliance has been working with AAM in recent months to refine and ultimately endorse AAM’s plan for adapting to changes in the media marketplace.

Dan Schaub, corporate director of audience development at McClatchy and one of our industry’s most respected audience executives, serves on the AAM Board and is chairman of AAM’s newspaper committee. Referring to the partnership that has been forged between AAM, the Alliance and leading advertisers, he has stated, “Over the last few years the AAM and the News Media Alliance have worked together with media buyers to find new ways to empower news media companies in a changing media environment.”  The AAM Quality Certification program is the latest product of that partnership.

Offering an advertising community perspective, Christina Meringolo, vice president of Integrated Marketing Solutions at Bayer Consumer Care, stated, “AAM Quality Certification is what the industry needs right now to bring more transparency to the entire media supply chain. To combat fraud today, we need an independent third party to verify that media’s business processes and technologies are performing as expected. AAM is the correct organization to connect agencies and their clients to verified publishers who can drive results.”

The program is gaining momentum. There are more than 50 publisher websites, including major local, national and international news sources that have been involved in the development process for AAM Quality Certification.  AAM expects to issue the first official certifications later this year. As they emerge from the ongoing process, these news media sites are expected to be the first ones included in the AAM Quality Certified whitelist.  This list of “premium” or “preferred” sites will be used by advertisers and their agencies in direct buys, private networks and open exchanges.

“This new certification program benefits all sides of the industry,” said Ted Boyd, CEO of Brandworks International and AAM chairman. “AAM Quality Certification will drive revenue for premium publishers and increase assurance for advertisers. This is a win for the good guys in the industry.”

This rollout comes at a time when news media companies are preparing to move to AAM’s new Brand View platform.   This new interface will be the door that advertisers and more than 3,200 active users of AAM’s Media Intelligence Center database encounter in search of media data.  Through the tool, news media companies will have the opportunity to present their verified offerings.  The two dozen news publishers that are working on prototypes are including their print metrics, websites, apps, newsletters, events and more.

Now is the time for AAM newspaper company clients to contact AAM for assistance in creating an AAM Brand View profile. Starting with the quarter ending June 2017, Brand View will be the standard reporting tool, replacing the consolidated media reports. The move is part of a larger strategy from AAM and the Alliance to help newspapers meet buyer demand for more frequent, verified newspaper data, and has been a part of the plan since 2015 when newspapers began reporting all circulation data quarterly.

In addition to Brand View, other key components of this initiative include creating an abbreviated newspaper audit report and expanding AAM’s news media client base.  These are all platforms that should be included in the effort to tell the “quality” story and position news media companies as premium players in the media marketplace.

AAM is continuing to work with industry groups, including the News Media Alliance and AAM’s Newspaper Buyers’ Advisory Committee, to move forward in how AAM data is distributed to the marketplace. Veteran advertisers are already aware of the credibility of news media companies and the quality of the audience.  The younger players in advertising placement may not; and therein lies the challenge. It’s a story of quality and credibility across platforms both in terms of delivering the audience you promised and a trusted environment.

Now is the time for news media companies to differentiate themselves from the confusing clutter of the media marketplace.  Investigate the new AAM offerings and you will find the additional tools you need to reinforce your positioning statement of quality and credibility.

To learn more about AAM Quality Certification program, visit AAM’s website.

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