Boosting Subscription Acquisition and Retention for News Publishers with IoT
Technology Category
- Networks & Connectivity - NFC
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Cement
Applicable Functions
- Quality Assurance
- Sales & Marketing
Use Cases
- Experimentation Automation
- Time Sensitive Networking
Services
- Testing & Certification
- Training
About The Customer
The customers in this case study are various news organizations across the U.S. that participated in the Accelerator Program with the Facebook Journalism Project. These include the Omaha World-Herald, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Media Network, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Denver Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, the Tennessean, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday and Advance Local for Syracuse.com, among others. These news organizations were looking to enhance their digital subscription businesses, with a particular emphasis on subscriber engagement and retention.
The Challenge
In early March, news organizations across the U.S. initiated an Accelerator Program with the Facebook Journalism Project. The primary objective was to collaboratively enhance their digital subscription businesses, with a particular emphasis on subscriber engagement and retention. This initiative was a follow-up to the Accelerator’s pilot program in 2018, which focused on acquiring digital subscribers. The challenge was to improve subscription retention and engage the newsroom to help keep subscribers engaged. The participating publishers, including the Omaha World-Herald, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Media Network, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Denver Post, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, the Tennessean, the San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday and Advance Local for Syracuse.com, among others, were tasked with building on these learnings over the next nine months.
The Solution
The solution involved a two-day, in-person session covering topics like each news publisher’s results strengthening their subscriptions business since the 2018 Subscriptions Accelerator, prioritizing the metrics that matter when measuring subscriber retention, and engaging the newsroom to help keep subscribers engaged. For instance, the Chicago Tribune focused on increasing newsroom engagement with straightforward metrics ‘scorecards’ for each market, as well as individual dashboards for editors and reports. They also engaged subscribers through paid campaigns and customized content recommendations in Zaius email platform to drive digital subscriber growth and retention. The Seattle Times, on the other hand, made a serious push into rigorous A/B testing, testing price, payment options, newsletter signups and recirculation of related stories, among others.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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