Education Week Generates $13M With Strong Online and Offline Business Model

Education Week has had a thriving print magazine since 1981, and established an ad-supported online model in 1996. In 2005, the site transitioned to

Education Week has had a thriving print magazine since 1981, and established an ad-supported online model in 1996. In 2005, the site transitioned to a hybrid revenue model, combining subscriptions, advertising, one-off sales, and offline events, helping them rake in $13M in revenues a year. Michele Givens and Stefanie Hemmingson spoke to the Insider about how they managed all this. Keep readings for lots of great tips, including testing results and some unique strategies for group sales and meeting the never-ending demand for more online content.

Company Profile

Founded: In print since 1981, online since 1996, paywall established 2005. Parent company Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) founded 1958.
No. of Publications: 4 subscription publications — Education Week, Teacher, Digital Directions, and Top School Jobs — along with many print publications like special and annual reports.
Employees: Parent company has 72 people total.
Business Model:  Mixed, including subscriptions, advertising, one-off sales, and grant funding.
Subscribers: More than 1 million free; 45,000 paid, of which 10% are digital-only.
Location: Bethesda, MD
Websites: www.edweek.org
www.edweek.org/tm/
http://www.edweek.org/dd
http://www.topschooljobs.org

Target Market

Education Week is a national publication that primarily targets policy-makers in the education sector, such as superintendents, directors of curriculum and technology, school administrators, principals, assistant principals, congressmen, and staff members in the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice. These people have access to and responsibility for budgets and need to be on top of federal and state education news.

Education Week’s secondary market consists of teachers across the country looking for either policy news or professional development information.

Content Types

Education Week’s content consists mainly of news, information, and analysis on the K-12 American education sector, and includes articles, blogs, and Webinars. The site also offers a host of free multimedia content, including videos, infographics, and live chats.

Education Week’s content has to support advertising as well as subscription-only content. Free content that is supported by advertising includes:

  • Daily Top Stories, including articles from the Associated Press and McClatchy-Tribune
  • News and Opinion blogs
  • Editor’s Picks
  • Ad-sponsored Webinars
  • Multimedia Segments, including video, audio and infographics
  • Education Week Teacher PD [professional development] Sourcebook
  • Digital Directions
  • Education Week Teacher
  • Forums
  • Live Chats
  • Access to a community of education policy-makers and specialists

The subscription-only content includes:

  • Education Week Articles (some are made available free for a limited time)
  • 30+ years of archived material
  • Benchmark Reports
  • Special Reports

Content is added throughout the day to the site.

Education Week’s sponsored and non-sponsored Webinars are all produced in house. The non-sponsored Webinars, which contain Professional Development content for educators, are sold on a one-off basis or part of a series. The site produces more than 50 a year, adding them on an irregular basis, says Hemmingson.

Content Strategy

Most content on Education Week’s site is original reporting, either from on-staff reporters or an increasing number of freelance contributors, and thus, represents much more than what is published in Education Week in print. The organization has also grown its content base and traffic through:

  • Syndicated content from the AP and McClacthy
  • A growing number of content partnerships

In regards to the second point, Education Week recently collaborated with 15 different organizations to track and report on a national education story that also affected local school districts (see Related Links for more on how this story was produced).

Revenues

Education Week generated $13 million in revenues in 2011. Givens and Hemmingson said that 80-85% of that came from “publishing activities” that include subscriptions, advertising, one-off sales and offline events, while 15-20% was from grant funding from organizations like the Gates Foundation and PEW.

They have two types of subscription plans:

  1. Print + Online Bundle: Subscribers get a print magazine and access online. There are two bundled options:
    • Yearly for $89, which includes 37 print issues and a year of online access
    • 20 issues and online access for $49. Because the print magazine is issued 3-4 times a month but only once a month during the summer, this option can vary between five to eight months of online access.
  2. Online only. There are three options within this plan:
    • Yearly for $74
    • Six months for $39
    • A free trial followed by a monthly subscription at $9.95/month.

Hemmingson and Givens say subscribers still heavily favor print, with only 10% taking the online-only plans.

The site ran a sale in January offering the 20-issue print bundle and 6-month online-only plans at a reduced rate of $39 and $29, respectively. Hemmingson says the sale resulted in a 41% more sales than the prior year when they didn’t have a sale.

Group Subscription Plans
Education Week has close to 100 group sales accounts, or site licenses. The price of a site license can range from $400 to $25,000 a year.

As Givens states, “This is a highly sensitive price market. And there’s a lot of free content floating around, so it’s hard to command prices.”

Education Week has two types of site licenses:

  • User-based: The organization gets usernames and passwords for all of its users
  • I.P.-based: Organizations give Education Week their IP addresses, and users gain access as long as the computer they are using is within the specified IP range.

The licensee gets to choose which plan works best for his/her organization.

Marketing Tactics

SEO + Direct Traffic
Most of the site traffic to Education Week is driven through SEO and direct traffic. Givens and Hemmingson informed me that the organization spends a lot of time on SEO, ranking first for their title and key terms like “American education news of record.” In order to support their advertising revenues, almost half of their free content is viewable without an email sign-up (click here for an exact breakdown).

Social Media
Another 7% of site traffic is driven by social media, including the following platforms:

  • Facebook: 13,373 likes, and heavy use of polls to engage visitors.
  • Twitter: 88,900 followers while only following a little over 2,000 others, helping to establish them as a leading and credible news authority for their niche.
  • Google+: More than 2,000 people have been added to their circle.
  • RSS feeds: Education Week has created more than 100 customized RSS feeds, such as a feed for every state and topical ones like “Budget & Finance,” “Diversity,” and “Federal Policy.” They also have feeds for each publication they produce.

Direct Mail
Education Week sends about 1.5 million direct mail pieces a year, most of them for their Print + Online bundle. They do not send direct mail for their Online-only plan, although respondents are told they can go online to sign up if they choose. They use rented and in-house lists to mail prospects. They also mailed expired accounts.

Hemmingson recommends testing across lists and across mailings. For example, Education Week reserves 20% of any mailing for testing. So if they mail 500,000 names, 100,000 will be sent either a test sample or the control offer.

PR and Word-of-Mouth
Although Education Week does not actively pitch other news organizations to cover their stories, they do hold press briefings and teleconferences for their special reports, which generate some buzz. Their editors also speak at some niche trade shows from time to time, although these appearances have been more productive for getting advertisers rather than subscribers.

Education Week has found that it has tremendous word-of-mouth in the industry, with high pass-along rates of both its print publication and e-newsletters. They have no formal program at this time.

Content Partnerships
Education Week also gets site traffic through its content partnerships, described in the Content section above, as partnering sites will often link back to Education Week. They also make their headlines and links available to content partners like Smart Brief, which sends e-newsletters by industry topic.

Conversion Tactics

Along with registration-required Webinars, the following free content requires an email address:

  • Editor’s Picks
  • Education Week Teacher
  • Forums
  • Associated Press stories
  • McClatchy-Tribune stories

When a visitor registers an email address (or buys a subscription), they are automatically opted-in to seven different types of e-newsletters (that they can opt-out of, if they choose). Those newsletters include topical newsletters, usually by publication type, as well as the option to receive marketing information. In addition, each newsletter title can be clicked on to preview in a new window. Click here to see for yourself.

The email registration also gathers marketing data through an extensive registration form, asking readers to provide a physical address, title, and connection to education.

The site is currently A/B testing its landing pages for the yearly v. shorter-term plans. So far, the yearly subscription plans are slightly favored.

In order to convert registered users to paying subscribers, the site offers a 2-week free trial with credit card required, which is followed by the monthly, online-only subscription plan. Only 25-30% of their readers cancel when their trial is over.  

Group Sales

Group sales leads are generated by placing ads on the Website and in the publication about availability of site licenses. These leads are put into SalesForce, which are forwarded to an in-house group salesperson. Education Week is also in the process of analyzing its registered user database to look for clumps of users by domain and I.P address in order to identify site license opportunities.

They’re also using direct mail and email marketing, and running a series of surveys to understand the types on content groups users are excited about. And they’re in the process of getting testimonials and case studies to demonstrate how customers are using site licenses. They have tried exhibiting at a few trade shows, but have had limited success selling site licenses at these events.

Retention Tactics

Education Week has a retention rate of about 75% for individual subscriptions. Givens and Hemmingson say they employ all the retention tactics for online subscriptions that they do for print, including having an auto-renew feature and sending a letter letting readers know they’re going to be renewed. If the subscriber does not have a credit card on file or the card is declined, they send them a bill.

Cross-Sells & Upsells

Education Week has a variety of products that it tries to upsell its customers, including individual “digital shorts,” books, offline events and Webinars. They mostly reach out to prospective sales by email, but also use direct mail and the phone at times.

The biggest seller is the professional development Webinars, which are priced at $49 for one, $89 for two, or $129 for three.

About Stefanie Hemmingson and Michele Givens

Stefanie Hemmingson started off as a direct marketer and “stumbled” her way into publishing, first at US News & World Report, then Equifax. She then worked for American Greetings just as the site was transitioning from free to a paid, subscription-based model.

She believes high-quality content is the hallmark of success, stating: “A lot of people are of the opinion that content should be free, but there are some things worth paying for. Our claim to advertisers is that we have subscribers and they’re paying more. Education Week is considered to be the Wall Street Journal of the education world. It comes with a sense of trust.”

Michele Givens started in circulation-driven, niche, B2B publishing with McGraw-Hill’s Avaiation Week group, and also believes high-quality content is what separates successful publishing companies from the rest.

But she also advises: “Anyone in this industry has to be all over their analytics and understanding the actionable information that comes out of there and make sure it gets distributed throughout the organization. We have a monthly reporting package that gets shared throughout the organization.”

“For us, the secret of our success has been our willingness to keep experimenting. Publishing success has been about having the right people on board and giving them the latitude to let them excel. More than anything, this is a human capital business.”

Vendors and Technology

Subscription fulfillment and payment processing — ICN
www.icnfull.com

Email management — Blue Hornet
www.bluehornet.com

Content management –Bricolage (Open Source)
http://bricolagecms.org

Webinars — On24
http://www.on24.com/

Offline Events — RegOnline for registration.
http://www.regonline.com/

Web Analytics — Omniture Site Catalyst
http://www.omniture.com/en/

Subscription Site Insider Analysis

Education Week has done a stellar job of juggling the high readership and high page view rates they need for ad-supported content with a subscription-offering. We love how they have multiple revenue streams, from site licenses to offline events to one-off sales, all of which contribute to a strong business model.

We also like how they’ve met the heavy demands for more online content through some savvy content strategies. And slicing the breadth of their content into seven different newsletters and 100+ RSS feeds allows them to engage niche audiences while remaining a national publication of record.

They also employ some great best practices for free trials, retention and direct mail. And we love how much they’re willing to test — from pricing to offer pages to direct mail campaigns.

Given their reputation and reader trust in their brand, we think they could promote their free trial offer more heavily, especially since they are able to retain 70-75% of sign-ups. And if they’re not upselling their print subscription bundle to their free trial registrants, they should be.

Education Week could probably afford to run a meter on their non-paid email registration, allowing visitors to view all of their free content, but asking for an email after a certain number of views. And lastly, we’d like to see them have more clear-cut rules about what goes behind their paywall. The editors seems to have a lot of discretion, but people who buy online want to know they’re getting their money’s worth and should have a good feeling of what’s premium.

But overall, we’re confident that their openness to experimentation and their reliance on testing will help them continue to support the business model that works best for them.

Related Links

CASE STUDY:  B2C Boating Enthusiast Site Combines Magazine-Style Articles with Multimedia Content to Attract Subs and Ad Revenues

CASE STUDY: RFID Journal Makes 7 Figures By Mixing Paid Subscriptions, Live Events and Advertising

A lesson in collaboration: How 15 news orgs worked together to tell a single education story.” By Adrienne LaFrance on the Neiman Journalism Lab blog (May 1, 2012).

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