Subscriber Acquisition

Yesterday, Scribd announced the launch of Scribd Originals, exclusive content from bestselling authors including Roxane Gay, Hilton Als, Peter Heller, Mark Seal, Paul Theroux and Garrett Graff, among others. In addition, Scribd Originals will include "experimental works" from different genres. Scribd describes these works as falling somewhere between magazines and full-length books, so there isn't a traditional marketplace for them. However, Scribd believes these works are ideal for ebooks and audiobooks.

ClassPass, the seven-year-old fitness and wellness marketplace, announced last week that it has raised $285 million in Series E funding. The funding round was led by L Catterton and Apax Digital and included additional investment by current investor Temasek. ClassPass said in the announcement that it would use the new funding to expand its international presence and to focus on growing its corporate wellness sales program. According to TechCrunch, ClassPass has raised close to $550 million to date and is now valued at $1 billion, giving it the coveted status of unicorn.

While most online publications don't think to employ postal direct mail marketing, it can be a savvy way to acquire new and expired online subscribers.Of course, the obvious problem is how to transition a prospect from his/her mailbox to your site. One of the better solutions is to use QR codes, which can be scanned with a smart phone, in direct mail pieces.However, QR codes need their own tech-savvy solutions. Firstly, you should only use QR…

How-to manage lapsed subscribers, how-to manage subscription customer service, how-to manage payments: these are just some of the how-to topics we covered in 2018. Here are the six most-read how-to articles from 2018.

Last week, it became official. The Disney-Fox deal is now a done deal with The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) completing its acquisition of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox for a cool $71 billion. In a news release, Disney called this the "unprecedented collection of high-quality creative content, stellar talent and cutting-edge technologies" that will allow the company to expedite its direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming strategy and expand its presence to new audiences. It's DTC offerings include ESPN+, ownership in Hulu and Disney +, its yet-to-be-launched streaming video-on-demand service coming later this year.

Nineteen years ago, psychotherapist Dr. Victor Yalom had a vision to capture the teachings of his mentor Dr. James Bugental on video for training purposes. That vision has turned into a seven-figure online subscription business that offers education and training to clinical psychotherapists across the country.

If you are tired of slow-loading websites and cookies tracking your every move online, Scroll now offers subscribers a different type of internet experience. For $4.99 a month, subscribers can access websites that load twice as fast and that have 80% fewer trackers. Subscribers can also browse and read completely ad-free on 300+ participating websites. Up to 70% of user subscription fees support partner websites, and Scroll keeps 30% to fund their operations.

Three breakfast keynotes. A grand keynote and a lunch keynote. Six breakout periods with five track sessions for each breakout. Plus networking and product demos. Event organizers made sure that attendees were plenty busy on the second day of the first-ever Subscription Show, held Nov. 4-6 at Bostons World Trade Center conference venue.

It is hard to believe today is the last Friday in April, but here we are. To help you move smoothly into May, weve got five great subscription stories to share: PYMNTS explores how subscriptions are changing the video game industry, Digital Trends reports on how 20 million Chrome users got tricked into downloading fake ad blockers, MarTech Advisor shares why it believes subscription businesses will succeed in a data-driven world, Lenfest Institute tells us how Berkeleysides direct public offering raised $1 million to fund operations, and Shopify offers advice on how to create a press kit.

Five on Friday, Mar. 20, 2020: free online concerts, free sports subscriptions and free educational tools