“INMA Knows” is a content surfacing project designed to personally curate all association resources on a single subject of high interest to INMA members
INMA Researcher-in-Residence Greg Piechota is spending a lot of time focused on the smart pricing of subscriptions these days. And if Greg is interested in a topic, the media industry should be, too. “A lot of publishers built volume of subscribers in the COVID year because of the COVID bump. But now actually is the time to make it a real business,” he says. Pricing is the fastest and most effective way for media businesses to increase profits. In the COVID year, pricing policy proved to be one of the most debated issues in the news industry, starting with decisions on whether to lift paywalls early in the pandemic, moving to different approaches to free and paid trials, and ending with the urgency to raise ARPU to make up for the lost ad revenue. Here is our curated selection of what INMA members saw as the most profitable approaches to pricing in the short and long term, as well as the best practices in introducing price increases.
— Dawn McMullan, INMA
Svenska Dagbladet recently released a podcast — starting with two free episodes and followed by a few paid ones — that was its most successful product ever. Here are some thoughts from its editor-in-chief and CEO on how it plans to keep that subscription momentum going.
08 March 2023
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Will Page, former chief economist for Spotify and author of the book Tarzan Economics, spoke to attendees at the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Stockhholm on Thursday about why media companies have far fewer subscribers than music subscription platforms.
09 March 2023
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The average digital-only subscription revenue per paid customer has grown 9% in the past 12 months.
08 August 2021
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Will Page, former chief economist of Spotify in the UK and author of Tarzan Economics; Robert Skrob, author of Retention Point; and Angelica Velati, head of news, partnerships, and ecosystem strategy EMEA at Google, shared their often different views of current news media priorities.
09 March 2023
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A tenured, high-rate subscriber who responds to a price increase notification by calling customer service to obtain a lower rate may cost the publisher more than the cancellation of a lower-rate subscriber.
12 January 2022
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Researcher-in-Residence Grzegorz Piechota shares his most recent research on targeted paywalls, churn benchmarks, and cross-regional news bundles.
02 June 2020
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Subscription yield management, which includes pricing strategy as well as tactics related to audience revenue growth, is a field of analysis that has very high ROI for publishers. Here’s why.
12 April 2021
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The FT grants access to all registered team members or employees but charges only “core readers” who read nine or more articles a month.
31 May 2020
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Reducing the volume of advertising and increasing customer lifetime value (CLTV) were key to Funke Mediengruppe’s successful digital strategy, creating a business model to pay for local journalism.
28 March 2021
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During the fourth of five modules of the INMA Media Subscriptions Summit 4.0, three news media companies shared their pricing journeys — explaining what has and has not worked along the way.
23 February 2021
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Recent case study examples show extending promotional terms, increasing the amount of premium content, and reducing friction during the checkout process are a few ways media companies can break through and advance their digital subscription goals.
01 July 2020
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Less free content and longer promotional periods are two noteworthy trends in the digital subscription space.
27 January 2020
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As the coronavirus pandemic makes its way across Europe and into the United States, here is a statistical look at what publishers are doing with paywalls, discounted trials, and how much COVID-19 content audiences are reading.
31 March 2020
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A Webinar with The Hindu led INMA members through the seven fundamentals that have helped bring it digital subscriptions success — from pricing to embracing failure to prioritising journalism.
25 August 2020
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Audience testing allowed The Daily Memphian teams to deploy and manage offers, pricing, and messaging as they worked toward their launch. One year in, the company was able to increase its paywall rate by 30% and reach digital subscription goals.
29 March 2021
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The relationship between digital engagement, longevity, and price increases were the focus of an INMA Readers First meet-up, featuring case studies from Dennik N, Piano, and Mather Economics.
09 January 2020
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Knowing whether a reader is a high or low churn risk or has high or low price elasticity will help news media companies determine how to price and present products to them.
08 June 2020
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Schibsted is fine-tuning a model to reduce repeat purchase behaviour in subscribers who jump around trial periods and promotional campaigns. This long-term goal is working to evolve away from the discount mindset.
20 January 2020
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As digital subscribers continue to grow as a share of total circulation volume, the need to monetise these audiences will become increasingly important.
29 September 2020
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Research studying 157 news outlets shows subscribers place much value on the non-editorial benefits of their news subscriptions, meaning the user experience likely is more important than premium perks.
15 July 2020
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Researcher-in-Residence Grzegorz Piechota shares how a Slovakian news site discovered its most valuable subscribers read little and didn’t care much about benefits. What can research teach us about this phenomenon?
15 July 2020
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Alan Hunter of The Times of London shared with INMA members paywall success lessons like committing to an initiative, creating a reader habit, and not giving away your content.
08 July 2020
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A Webinar for INMA members questioned what the media landscape would look like without advertising revenue and looked at potential transformation strategies to replace that revenue and grow more successfully.
09 September 2020
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Researcher-in-Residence Grzegorz Piechota reports on the state of paywalls in February and March, the ethics of charging readers who aren’t reading, and Financial Times’ engagement-based pricing model.
25 May 2020
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INMA Researcher-in-Residence Grzegorz Piechota digs into a new initiative among local publishers in the United States called The Matchup, as well as how The Athletic has doubled its subscriber base amid the pandemic. Also, news of the COVID bump coming to an end has been greatly exaggerated.
17 September 2020
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Subscribers who converted during the pandemic are churning less than usual, quite likely because of the engaging news cycle. Another change during the crisis is a creativity of loyalty club programmes.
15 June 2020
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Leaders from Le Devoir, Condé Nast, and News Corp Australia share how their companies are driving subscriptions by maximising the potential of their content and reaching readers where they are.
24 November 2024
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A subscriber’s decision to churn is influenced by various publisher-driven and external factors, so news publishers must carefully monitor results when changing subscription pricing models during a shift to mail delivery.
14 August 2024
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During INMA’s Media Subscriptions Summit on Thursday, industry leaders talked about the shift toward an audience-first approach, the strategic importance of bundling products and services, and the critical need for cross-functional collaboration.
29 February 2024
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INMA Presentation File
18 October 2022
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INMA Presentation File
11 October 2022
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INMA Presentation File
10 February 2022
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INMA Presentation File
10 February 2022
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INMA Presentation File
25 February 2021
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INMA Presentation File
23 February 2021
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INMA Presentation File
23 February 2021
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INMA Presentation File
23 February 2021
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The Weather Channel has found success in charging for premium tools and content by identifying its power users and finding out what they want.
20 August 2020
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There is no data or content out there more readily available for free than the weather. But The Weather Channel has created a strategy that allows it to monetise a small percentage of its audience that is willing to pay a premium for better information and more powerful tools.
13 August 2020
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INMA Presentation File
28 February 2020
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