Virginia Lawyers Weekly Generates Nearly $2 Million with 3,000 Subscribers

Virginia Lawyers Weekly (VLW) has been able to stay both relevant and profitable over a 27-year period, no small feat. Find out how this

Virginia Lawyers Weekly (VLW) has been able to stay both relevant and profitable over a 27-year period, no small feat. Find out how this local B2B publication is leveraging trade show booths like no other and making both its print and Web content highly valuable to subscribers. Plus, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Paul Fletcher tells us how the site is getting a 91% retention rate with a simple practice.

Company Profile

Founded: 1986; Online in 1996.
No. of Publications: 6 Lawyers Weekly publications owned by parent company, Dolan, Co., based in Minneapolis
Employees: 10 full-time
Business Model: Hybrid — mainly subscriptions and ads
Paying Subscribers:  3,225
Location: Richmond, VA
Website: http://valawyersweekly.com

Target Market

VLW target attorneys practicing in Virginia. These professionals are usually the key decision-makers in their solo practices or law firms and are not working for the government or serving as in-house counsel for corporations. The average age is 53, and most have been practicing for 20 years or more. The typical reader has an average net worth of more than $1 million and an average household income of $220,000.

Content

VLW’s “raison d’etre is to provide the most current [legal] information to lawyers as it happens,” says Fletcher. To that end, the publication covers all opinions issued by the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Virginia Court of Appeals, in addition to hundreds of rulings from state Circuit Court judges, U.S. District Court judges, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and other state agencies.

The publication is pay-worthy because it brings together and curates news for time-pressed attorneys in one single source. Most of the editors and writers have law degrees, and the Opinion Digests are valuable to attorneys so that they’re not surprised in court by new laws or rulings that affect their cases.

Because the publication started in print and the majority of subscribers take a bundle package, VLW’s site and paper work in tandem: “We try to break news on Web first, and then can add, edit until print edition,” Fletcher says.

The site’s Opinion Digests are huge time-savers for lawyers, as Fletcher notes, “practicing lawyers don’t have time to chase different information from different source.”

Therefore, updates are added daily to the site and weekly to the print publication.

The site also provides the full-text of court opinions via PDFs, although their on-site PDF reader is very awkward, requiring in-box horizontal scrolling.

However, VLW is an indispensable resource for most practicing Virginia lawyers as it’s built up invaluable sources among the courts, judges and lawyers. “Really, its 27-years worth of schmoozing.” The editorial staff also has Google Alerts and other ticklers to make sure they’re being notified of relevant developments.

Revenues

VLW makes just under $2 million a year in revenues.

Fletcher says that it’s almost a 50/50 split between subscriptions and advertising, with some extra revenue from ancillary sales like reprints. The publication also hosts two signature events, although these serve double-duty as marketing tactics (see Marketing Tactics below).

VLW has multiple pricing options:

  • $299 a year for digital only
  • $369 a year for digital + print issues, with PDFs
  • $659 over two years for digital + print issues, with PDFs
  • $39 for 30-day digital + print access

The one-year digital + print offer is by far the most popular. Digital-only subscribers make up only 8% of total subscribers (n=260 of 3225).  This is probably because of the small price difference between digital-only and a bundled subscription ($70). This pricing structure is wise since it allows VLW to go digital while still maintaining its ad revenue stream.

Most subscribers are individuals, although 15 law firms have group subscriptions where they purchase subscriptions for every lawyer in their firms.

VLW has tested quarterly and monthly subscription plans, but the annual has always won out, so they stopped offering the others. In addition, the site’s annual price is equivalent to about one to two hours of an attorney’s time, making it a reasonable purchase for their target audience.

Marketing Tactics

Because VLW started off as a print publication 27 years ago, it is already well-known among Virginia lawyers. VLW augments its reputation and primarily gets new subscribers by attending trade shows and employing a number of other effective marketing tactics.

Trade Shows
VLW attends six to seven trade shows a year. It will not sell subscriptions at these events, but the publication does have a very honed marketing practice for leveraging their purchase of booth space. Since most of the trade shows run Thursday through Saturday, VLW will give away its previous Monday paper away on Thursday. On Friday, VLW will debut a Special Edition for the conference, which people really seem to love and gets them returning to the booth. Then on Saturday, VLW will have a “Hot Off the Press” copy of the next Monday’s paper available for conference attendees.

VLW will also give away swag like letter openers, luggage tags, mugs, etc., but special copies of their actual information product definitely works best for attracting new subscribers.

Events & Advertising
VLW sponsors two signature events each year — Leaders in the Law and Influential Women in VA. They will usually buy advertising space in Virginia Business Magazine, which is a “nice pairing of audiences.” The publication will also sometimes advertise in bar journals and sites.

Postal Direct Mail
VLW usually sends postal direct mail to prospects six times a year, and always runs a test on a drop. Drops can vary between 3,000 and 15,000, although Fletcher says that the ROI isn’t what it used to be. At the same time,  he cites CAN-SPAM laws as being an obstacle to selling digital subscriptions via email.

Social Media
VLW has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The site posts articles from its daily newsletter on Facebook and will tweet major stories, although Fletcher says it will not tweet paywalled content. “That seems like a breech of Twitter etiquette.”

SEO
VLW’s does optimize its free blog and headlines for paywalled content. The site will also open-up a paywalled story if it’s a piece that will get a lot of traffic and exposure.

Gift Campaigns
VLW tried to capitalize on the incredible word-of-mouth marketing it gets by creating a gift subscription campaign. The problem was, with their subscription price, a gift subscription ended up being a “VERY” good gift and not one individuals were likely to buy for other individuals.

Therefore, the publication has pivoted and is now trying to get law firms to buy subscriptions for younger lawyers. We’ve seen a similar tactic with Vet Visuals International, and any way for B2B publications to start a relationship with prospects early in their career is smart.

Group Subscriptions

VLW publishes an annual Largest Law Firms in Virginia list, which it uses to generate leads for its group subscription sales. Fletcher primarily takes the lead on contacting and closing group subscription sales, with help from his office manager. Most of the leads are generated through phone calls and in-person meetings.

Conversion Tactics

While VLW does not require email registration (which is a Best Practice) to view free content, the site does offer a free daily email newsletter — the VLW Daily Alert. “It’s worked wonderfully as way to build audience and bring traffic to the site and build a routine in our prospects’ day,” Fletcher says.

The email newsletter serves as the site’s primary conversion tactic. It usually links to free content. On the few occasions it links to premium content, viewers will be able to view the headline and preview text before getting a conversion offer.

However, the sites’ actual conversion page for subscriptions is a bit poorly designed (see image below). For one, there are way too many distractions, from the navigation bar to the social media shares to the ads to the commenting section at the bottom. All of these features should be deleted from conversion pages (basically, there should be no option for the prospect to press other than the Subscribe button or the back button in his/her browser). Two, the pricing is presented in an awkward format with uneven columns. And three, the buttons are not very noticeable — a brighter, more contrasting color for the buttons, not the column, should be employed. See our Paywall Optimization Toolkit on more about best practices for conversion pages.

VLW offers other incentives for conversion, from physical products (umbrellas to gym bags with the VLW logo, books, etc.) to discount pricing. One successful campaign promoted the publication’s 2010 subscription price.

The site used to offer a 3-day trial with a pop-up, “but everyone hates pop-ups,” Fletcher says, so the site discontinued it even though Fletcher says they got a “decent” conversion rate. Instead, the site decided to offer its 30-day subscription plan.

The site also tried offering PDF whitepapers in exchange for an email, but the offer was not popular with lawyers who already have enough to read.

Orders are primarily fulfilled via credit card, although VLW will invoice print subscribers, particularly if there are any who are willing to subscribe at a trade show (VLW usually has a form they can fill out, although Fletcher also doesn’t mind taking a business card to fulfill the order).

Retention Tactics

VLW’s retention rate is 91%, and while B2B publications tend to get higher retention rates than B2C, this is impressive given that the majority of subscribers are individuals, not group subscribers.

The publication will send out paper invoices for renewal, along with thank-you notes that Fletcher signs himself. “If it’s somebody that I know, I’ll try to tack-on a personal note.”

While the site doesn’t measure account lifetimes, it does offer auto-renewal and is trying to convert all of its subscribers to it.

Cross-Sells and Upsells

VLW will cross-sell subscribers on reprints, as well as plaques honoring its awards recipients.

About Paul Fletcher

Paul Fletcher got his law degree in 1985, but had been involved in law school publications and kept freelancing as a reporter and writer on the side while practicing. When VLW debuted in 1985, he says it was an “Aha!” moment. He contacted VLW and took a job as a news editor. About a year later he was promoted to Publisher/Editor-in-Chief.

His biggest surprise in that time has been how much faster news has gotten and how the company is willing to adapt. VLW used to make $90,000 faxing full-text opinions to lawyers, but then the courts started putting them online in PDFs, so VLW had to as well (access to the PDFs is part of a subscription).

He advises other publishers, both in print and online, “Don’t be afraid to hang onto the good stuff and ask for value in return. If all of us did more of that, we’d all be better off.”

Insider Analysis

VLW has done a great job of staying relevant and profitable over a 27-year period, which is impressive. We like that they’ve taken to the Web and adjusted their editorial policy to go Web-first with breaking news, but still find a way to make print valuable to their subscribers. We also really love their way of leveraging trade show booths with special editions of their paper. Most booths are ignored during trade shows, but we bet they’re getting plenty of traffic by providing information and not trying to aggressively sell anyone. And we like how they’re trying to engage younger lawyers through group subscriptions.

There is some room for improvement online. First and foremost, VLW needs to redesign its paywall pages, removing all distractions and employing the best practices detailed in our Paywall Optimization Toolkit. The site may also want to revisit a trial, but instead of using a pop-over or even an overlay, just offer a prominent button for a 3-day trial on a sidebar throughout the site (and even as part of one of their subscription offerings on their paywall). Lastly, even though its retention rate is impressive, VLW should start tracking account lifetimes, especially for digital-only subscribers.

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