Politico Pro is proving that politics-oriented publications can flourish behind a subscription-based business model. With a large editorial team covering 14 public policy verticals, quality journalism and attention to detail has driven their growth into a successful subscription public policy news outlet in just three short years. We spoke with Bobby Moran, Vice President, Strategy & Business Development and Marty Kady, Editor, Politico Pro, about how subscribers are paying thousands of dollars for the convenience of email updates. Plus, find out how the site is getting a 96% retention rate and optimizing email for engagement via smartphones!
Summary
Founded: Politico launched in January 2007. Pro launched in February 2011.
Employees: Politico in total: 330; Politico Pro only: 160
Business Model: 100% subscription based.
Subscribers: 15,000 subscribers across 1,600 organizations.
Location: Washington, DC
Website: https://www.politicopro.com/login/
Target Market
While Politico.com caters to a large audience across the country, Politico Pro readers are primarily executive-level professionals, government affairs executives, senior lobbyists, policy directors on Capitol Hill, as well as executives at law firms, PR firms, nonprofits, and government agencies. These professionals all read Pro for different types of information, but they all depend on being informed on policy information to do their jobs. While it is a smaller audience compared to the millions that visit the free website, the Pro audience values deep, real-time analysis on politics that isn’t covered in the mainstream news media and has large implications on business.
Content
Politico Pro covers 14 crucial policy verticals down to a granular level. The site takes a more specific, targeted approach that appeals to those whose job and livelihood rely on knowing exactly what a new regulation or piece of legislation says.
Content is delivered daily to the reader through email newsletters, which is customized by topic by both subscribers and smart tagging by editors. Since most of the site’s subscribers are on the go, the emails are optimized for mobile delivery and viewing. Of particular note is the fact that the emails are dynamic, so that when readers tap “read more” the email opens to give the reader the full article text without opening a browser on their smartphone. This is the type of UX that all subscription content sites should be considering when trying to optimize email campaigns and engagement.
There are basically three email formats:
- Morning newsletter – Delivered in a consistent format that’s guaranteed to be in the inbox by 6 or 6:30AM, like the morning newspaper.
- Whiteboard – Short bursts of no more than 250 words describing breaking news, what it means for the reader, and offering a link to source documents and legislation if applicable.
- Regular articles – Original and high bar articles of 800-1000 words without a lot of tedious background.
The editorial staff of 90-95 people tries to dig into specific topics the subscribers are willing to pay for and expand into state legislative coverage when applicable. For instance, subscribers in the defense lobby get to see all the amendments in defense bills so they know exactly what’s coming.
Updates and new content pieces are added multiple times a day. After the newsletter is sent out in the morning, writers in just one vertical could produce up to a dozen whiteboards, two stories, an afternoon newsletter, and the story for the next day. Pro as a whole can produce 150 pieces of content across all 14 verticals. If this sounds like a lot, it is; that’s why the tagging and customization is key to delivering just the right content that each specific reader is interested in.
There’s also a fast, around-the-clock production team that signs in at 4am and signs off at 10pm. Working 16-18 hours a day, the production team does most of the tagging, though editors and reporters will add tags too. And if a reporter is on the road, they can email their story to the editor, who will then get it into the production system.
Politico Pro has also added “Documents Troll,” a searchable database of all documents. Each vertical is building or launching some sort of tracking operation. The healthcare vertical team was an innovator in this, building a 50-state tracker so that subscribers could know what each state was doing, updated each time there was news to report.
Revenue Streams
100% of Politico Pro’s revenue comes from subscriptions. The non-Pro site does have diversified revenues in advertising and events, and Pro subscribers receive free access to events as part of their subscription.
Subscription pricing ranges from $5,000/per vertical/per person/per year, to low six figures for larger site licenses.
The average license is for 5-10 seats, which averages $10,000 – $15,000 a year.
Pricing rates are based on three categories:
- Government agencies
- Non-profits
- General public
Prices do not vary based on verticals.
Marketing
Politico Pro acquires most of its new subscribers through its free site, Politico.com. Pro launched after Politico had acquired a number of newsletter subscribers, thus making targeted acquisition easier. There’s also a tab on the free site and ads for “Campaign Pro” and “eHealth Pro” that lead to the main Pro conversion page. However, SEO is limited to Politico.com; Pro articles are not optimized for search or social media sharing.
Postal Direct Mail
The free Politico print magazine helps with Pro by lending credibility to the brand. It has a separate staff with no overlap to Pro. It’s another great editorial and branding venture as well as another revenue opportunity due to the ads found within.
Word of Mouth
There is no formal word of mouth program, but each time a new product is launched, they first have an advisor’s breakfast, where they meet key people in that policy area to walk them through what they’re thinking and to get their feedback.
Conversion Tactics
Homepage
While there is an opportunity for free users to check out Pro’s homepage, all of the articles are behind a paywall. Clicking on one of them initiates an overlay asking for an email address:
This is a definite best practice for hard paywalled sites. Despite this, the site doesn’t really take advantage of the login area up top. If a user enters and email and password when they’re not an actual subscriber, they get an error alert:
A better tactic would be to also use this common user behavior as a lead generation tactic. Tell the user, “You don’t seem to have a PRO account. Would you like to join?” and then ask for an email or take them to a conversion page.
Newsletter
To attempt to convert nonmembers to Pro, a free version of the morning Pro newsletter is offered at 10am, with Pro stories partially available as a three-paragraph quote that links to the paywall. As we mentioned above, if a reader opens the newsletter on their iPhone or desktop, it will open up to the full content within the newsletter without creating a new tab or browser, so they won’t have to leave their email client to read the entire story.
Sales
The Pro sales cycle for group subscriptions varies in length. It can be as short as 24 hours or less when they’re launching new products, or can be as long as 30-45 days. Potential Pro subscriber leads are qualified to make sure the person isn’t just interested in one article or sound bite. Prospects are only put in the funnel once a phone call or meeting with an account executive has taken place. The account executives are trained to try and identify decision makers, give them a trial access, and then ask them to find 4-5 additional colleagues who may be interested in a Pro subscription. The standard time frame for a trial is two weeks but that can be, and often is, increased for various reasons. According to Moran, “Once they try it, they are hooked.”
Retention marketing
The most crucial element to keeping a subscription retention rate of 96% is making sure the content produced is indispensible to the reader, says Moran. “If over the first 90 days, 10 out of 10 people within a subscription are using Pro, the chance of non-renewal the next year is minimal. But if customer has only 5 out of 10 people using Pro and the other 5 aren’t up and using, it’s likely they won’t renew.” This is why Pro puts an emphasis on onboarding, even reaching out in person if the group is large enough and within the DC area.
The Pro staff also maintains constant contact with Pro readers through an active account management team. The team doesn’t just reach out to make sure subscribers are getting the most value, they also gather feedback on the content as well. Moran says responsiveness is paramount, so, when a customer reaches out to them, they try to place a return email or phone call as quickly as possible.
Cross-sells & Upsells
Organizations who buy one vertical are cross-sold on another vertical. The Pro staff is always looking to sell new products that are not just content-related but encourage subscribers to take advantage of tools and resources. They focus on “teasing” the tools and resources they plan to launch, keeping people within the Pro ecosystem, and making it easier to do their jobs.
Pro identifies its best prospects through the account management team, which has pre-existing relationships with subscribers within an organization. “It’s a mix of internal data mining, looking at the tags they request and being very careful not to bombard them with tons of marketing requests or phone calls,” says Moran.
About Bobby Moran
Bobby Moran came into the paid content business quite “randomly,” as he puts it. After working in politics in his 20s, he left to go work for The Advisory Board. An encounter while out for karaoke with a former co-worker brought him to Politico. He was taken by the combination of business and politics that this job offered – it was the best of both worlds. He loves getting to monetize political and policy analysis and insight.
His biggest lesson learned is that the hard part of this business is getting potential subscribers through the door, but once you do, your quality journalism has to do the talking. Politico Pro knows their audience, and they invest in a large editorial team to ensure that their content is both the quality and quantity their professional audience demands. This is why they have experienced success in just the three short years since they launched.
INSIDER Analysis
Politico Pro is proving that a subscription editorial site can flourish when it correctly gauges its audience and subsequently invests in quality journalism. The reputation of the free politico.com website, combined with the attrition of journalists covering major public policy stories at traditional news publications, left a void that Politico Pro could fill easily, something they have succeeded at in just three short years. Not only does their relevance come from covering 14 policy verticals, but the way in which they present content daily to their subscribers. The complex system of “tags” utilized to present subscribers with the most appropriate stories goes a long way in establishing and maintaining a need for their business. And the site’s dynamic emails that are optimized for mobile viewing is a critical UX feature that makes the subscription more valuable to their target audience.
In order to raise subscriptions and revenue, Politico Pro could improve upon conversion of the visitors to the free politico.com website. We advise redesigning the login space on Pro to help serve as a lead generation device for non-subscribers who try (and fail) to log in. Instead of doing nothing when this action is taken, the site should redirect the visitor to a page offering a subscription. We also think Pro should explore diversifying its revenue stream, particularly with events, which can be highly profitable for B2B sites. Since Pro subscribers are definitely using Pro information to do their job, they’re also more likely to pay to attend an event than the general Politico reader. And B2B events can be priced higher than consumer events, giving Pro a bigger profit margin.
But overall, Politico Pro remains an admirable subscription site, with a clear understanding of the role free and premium content can play in building both audiences and revenue.
