I’m still distilling all I heard at the recent INMA Media Subscriptions Summit, but these lessons related to newsroom transformation resonated with me:

Create relationships with readers using newsletters

Several media organisations touched on newsletters as a key product for reaching and engaging readers. 

I loved the example of The Edinburgh Minute, the brainchild of Michael MacLeod. Launched in May 2023, it has grown to more than 20,000 subscribers because MacLeod recognised a need in the community and is meeting it. 

“It’s all word of mouth, no marketing,” he said of the newsletter’s growth. “I wanted to make it easier for people to find local news.” 

MacLeod spends his days scouring hundreds of sites looking for links to offer his readers and sends it by 7 a.m. to ensure subscribers can get the news to start their days. “In the creator economy, we can all work together,” he said. 

Younger people care more about people than brands

This quote came from Kamran Ullah, editor-in-chief of De Telegraaf, during the chief editors’ panel: “Our reporters are brands by themselves. We need to invest in new faces.” 

And build those brands, he said, by showcasing them on podcasts and daily news programmes broadcast on platforms like YouTube. 

De Telegraaf’s YouTube channel has 600K subscribers, and for many younger people, De Telegraaf isn’t a newspaper — it’s a news YouTube channel. Another sentiment from Ullah that stuck with me: “Reporters don’t write articles anymore — they tell stories.”

Archived content is a gold mine

So many news brands have rich archives of content that are essentially sitting dormant now. It’s time to leverage those to drive subscriptions, said Darya Ushakova, chief marketing officer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. 

By making a concerted effort to paywall and market the archives, the Inquirer began generating 800 new starts monthly. 

“Do it, do it now,” Ushakova told the audience. “This is basically incremental.” 

She said it’s primarily a search play but an effective one. Another piece of great advice from Ushakova: “Don’t be shy about asking people to pay. Journalism is valuable.”

Negative headlines get more clicks, but less reading time

Smartocto, an editorial analytics system, has been working with DPG Media to A/B test headlines to determine what can make them click-worthy.

What they found: Headlines with negative words tend to get more clicks than positive ones. However, those stories also tended to get less reading time. 

Another interesting finding: Adding the names of ordinary people to headlines led to more clicks. “You should always name people in the headline,” said Roy Wassink, insights manager at DPG Media.

If you’d like to subscribe to my bi-weekly newsletter, INMA members can do so here.

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