In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, we look at the new newsroom role of membership editor, offer tips for making your paywall work for your subscription company and share email marketing campaign ideas to engage and retain customers. Also this week, Reuters tells us that the Department of Justice is looking closely at Google and its online ad dominance, and we cherry pick some top subscription jobs from LinkedIn and Business Insider.

Top Subscription Jobs

Britbox PR Lead
ITV
London, UK

We are looking for a PR Lead to join our collaborative Britbox team. The role is responsible for building awareness for and driving subscription to Britbox through pro-actively publicising and promoting the service and to ensure consumers do not view BritBox simply as a paid for catch up service. The post will work closely with the teams to ensure an aligned strategy and manage any reactive press and crisis management. PR support for milestone announcements on new partners and original commissions. Emphasise the quality and curation of the unrivalled content on BritBox. Read more.

Senior Content Marketing Manager
Cratejoy
Austin, Texas

Cratejoy is looking for a creative Senior Content Marketing Manager to oversee our content strategy across the organization & will be responsible for our brand voice as well as production & distribution of all content. This role is key to our success as it ties directly to our organic growth initiatives which is the cornerstone of Cratejoy’s growth going forward. The ideal candidate possesses an entrepreneurial spirit who will think of creative ways scale our content creating machine & optimizing ROI on all the efforts put into content creation & distribution. Read more.

CRM Manager
Ring Europe
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ring is looking for a highly creative, data-driven, customer-obsessed CRM manager to own our customer engagement and retention programs across Europe. Our ideal candidate has a passion for leveraging data insights into creative campaigns, communications, and features that delight and retain customers. This position is based in Amsterdam. This person will ensure that every Ring customer is properly nurtured throughout their member lifecycle, and will be responsible for customer on-boarding, retention, subscriptions, loyalty and referral programs. Read more.

Growth Marketer
Alignable
Boston, Massachusetts

You’ll work closely with product, engineering, data science and content teams to drive new user adoption and engagement. You will be responsible for the development of engagement models and execution of tests that drive users to value realization. You’ll focus on increasing customer engagement to deliver value, which yields platform monetization. The ideal candidate will thrive in a data-rich and results-oriented environment. We have over 3 million members already on the platform with and a massive amount of data against which you can build models and tests. This is a rare opportunity to create a very active SMB subscription base at scale. Read more.

Director of Subscription Lifecycle Marketing
Business Insider

Insider Inc. is hiring a Director of Subscription Lifecycle Marketing to lead our marketing initiatives to generate and retain subscribers. As Director, Subscription Lifecycle Marketing, you will lead a digital marketing team and be the driving force behind marketing campaigns that will grow the audience of our premium subscription products; Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider Prime, and free editorial newsletters. You will manage the campaign cycle from creative ideation to final execution. This role will report to the VP of Subscription Marketing. Read more.

The Role of Membership Editors, Managers and Coordinators 

As business models evolve, publishers like The Guardian are moving away from subscription models to a membership model, or a hybrid that includes a membership component. As they do, it is critical for those organizations to have a strong leader overseeing their membership programs to develop and adapt them to benefit the organization while also serving the membership. To support that critical function, some are hiring membership editors, reports Digiday. Other companies use different titles but the goal is the same.

Depending on the organization, functions vary and can including any of the following:

• Creating engagement strategies and messaging to attract and retain members
• Developing compelling editorial approaches for membership content
• Identifying and implementing ways to market membership programs and products
• Curating and developing premium content appropriate for members

What can be difficult to navigate in these new roles is where it should live. Should a membership manager, coordinator or editor live on the editorial side of the house, or does it belong on the back end/business side/administrative side? Jim Brady, the founder of Spirited Media, shared his opinion with Digiday.

“Membership is going to be so important to media organizations going forward, that pieces are going to sit in multiple departments. I think when you put an entire function in one part of an organization, it becomes easier to ignore,” Brady said.

Regardless of where the role “lives,” it is clear that it must be a collaborative role that works with the editorial and business sides of a publisher. To be successful, it cannot operate in a silo.

Read more on this topic in “The Latest Key Newsroom Job: Membership Editor” by Max Willens for Digiday.

Tips for Making Your Paywall Work 

Whether your subscription company uses a freemium model or a metered or hard paywall, there are best practices, tips and tricks for making your paywall work for you. In “Are You Developing Your Paywall Strategy for Acquisition of Retention?” for Twipe, Mary-Katherine Phillips shares some great tips to ensure you get the most out of your paywall. Here are a few nuggets of wisdom to consider:

• Freemium models work well for brands that offer unique content. Decisions for what should be offered for free and what should go behind a paywall should be based on data. What types of articles are most likely to convert a reader into a subscriber? Those articles should be behind the paywall.
• Metered paywalls work well for publishers who have a strong brand and a lot of content. While conversion rates are lower, retention is higher because readers are familiar with the content available. One caution is not to set the meter too high. Experiment with different levels to find the sweet spot.
• Dynamic paywalls are an emerging model in which the experience is tailored to a reader’s specific reading behavior and likelihood to pay. Publishers are already experimenting with this and Phillips said she expects more publishers to try the dynamic model as best practices evolve.

For more paywall success insights, read Phillips’ original article on Twipe.

DOJ to Investigate Google’s Online Ad Dominance

Google has long controlled the online ad market, hurting smaller companies who rely on Google’s search functions and ad tools to grow revenue. That makes smaller companies vulnerable and puts a lot of power in Google’s hands. The U.S. Department of Justice says, “Not so fast, Google.” According to sources who talked to Reuters, the DOJ is investigating possible antitrust violations. Google isn’t talking, but it has said before that it acts in the best interests of its users.

The DOJ will also be examining Amazon, Apple and Facebook as part of its digital advertising investigation. These statistics from eMarketer shows the dominance these tech giants have on online advertising. Google, in the #1 spot, generates 31.1% of global ad spending.

*This is estimated global ad revenue. Source: eMarketer 

In the U.S., Google is estimated to hold the top spot with 37% market share, compared to 22% for Facebook and 10% for Amazon. Read more about the DOJ’s investigation at Reuters.com.

3 Email Marketing Campaign Ideas to Attract and Keep Customers 

Email campaigns are a great way to attract and retain subscribers. With the right goals and strategies in place, there are limitless opportunities for success. Here are three email campaign ideas from Shopify:

1. New customer onboarding: You want each and every customer to believe they are special and that their experience is important to you. Send a welcome email, check in a few days later to see how things are going, send additional promotional offers to peak their interest, and follow-up on those offers.
2. Abandoned carts: There is a reason shoppers abandon their carts in your online store. Maybe price is an issue, the interface is wonky or perhaps they just aren’t ready to make a commitment. Set up an email campaign to remind them their cart was abandoned, tell them what they are missing by not completing the sale, try to overcome objections and/or offer an incentive or promotion to get them to come back.
3. Email receipts: This is an interesting concept. Conversio says that the average open rate of receipts is just over 70%, compared to the ecommerce average open rate of 17.9%. That makes your receipt email a great opportunity to entice your customers with another offer. Thank your customers for their business and include a discount code for use on their next purchase or maybe add product recommendations for their consideration.

For more tips like these, read “7 Automated Email Campaigns That Win Customers and Keep Them Coming Back” by John McIntyre for Shopify.