In September, INMA awarded 30 young professionals around the world with its fifth “30 Under 30” award as part of its Young Professionals Initiative. This is the 13th in a series of 30 features about the impressive rising media stars who are shaping our industry.

Using innovative approaches to subscriber engagement and retention, Jeevanand Sumesh is already becoming known for developing successful solutions. As an intern on the digital subscriptions team for The Hindu, Jeevanand focused on enhancing the company’s free trial to subscription conversion rate.

His successful revamp of the free trial onboarding process for both The Hindu and Businessline earned him a full-time position post-graduation, where he initially led the subscriber retention team and now is focused on subscriber engagement:

“Having been involved in acquisition, retention, and engagement, I possess an end-to-end understanding of a reader’s journey,” Jeevanand said. “This holistic perspective enables me to develop strategies that effectively address each stage of the subscriber lifecycle.”

Jeevanand has implemented initiatives to improve subscriber retention and engagement, such as setting up subscription plan-type based renewal flows and conducting retention experiments that increased the retention rate from 20% in September 2023 to 48% in February 2024.

Additionally, he implemented Payfail journey processes, recovering over 25% of users who left a payment midway, through regular reminders and strategic offers. When he reworked the offsite subscriber onboarding flow, e-mail open rates improved by 21% and click-through rates by 23%.

One of Jeevanand’s significant initiatives was targeting college students to reintroduce the habit of reading news. By collaborating with over 20 colleges and offering tailored value propositions, he successfully onboarded over 2,500 students, significantly enhancing The Hindu’s brand value among younger generations.

“As a Gen-Z professional, I bring a unique perspective to the industry. I am aware of the challenges in maintaining news consumption among younger generations,” he said. “My mindset, experience, and enthusiasm equip me to drive innovation and engage this demographic effectively.”

Jeevanand’s project, The Hindu Digital’s Free Trial Gamification Onboarding Journey, was recognised with an Honourable Mention in the INMA Global Media Awards 2024 in the Best New Subscriber Onboarding Experience category. This project leveraged loss aversion theory to encourage early subscriptions for free trial users.

As he looks to the future, Jeevanand said he is eager to develop a new, sustainable business model for digital news media in India: “My goal is to achieve the same level of digital news penetration as seen in Nordic countries.

“I aspire to become a leader in this field and an influential voice contributing to the industry’s advancement. I hope to make a significant impact on the future of digital news media.”

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