Quick Overview
Christianity Today is a 55-year-old nonprofit publisher that understands paid online content better than most. See how they operate a network of paywall sites that address specific challenges for church leaders, such as writing sermons, leading bible-study courses, and handling tax and legal issues. Cory Whitehead, Director of Brand and Digital Marketing, tells Insider why all sites offer pay-per-download options in addition to subscriptions. He also describes how a simple change to a site’s Facebook page generated 5% of the brand’s revenues in January, and how an overlay free trial offer screen is responsible for 20% of new trial takers.
Company Snapshot
Founded: 1956
No. of Employees: 100
Print Publications: 6
Paid Content Sites: 8
Online Business Model: Hybrid (50% subscriptions/content sales, 50% advertising)
Total monthly audience: 2.5 million
Headquarters: Carol Stream, Ill.
http://www.christianitytoday.com
Target Audience
Christianity Today’s primary audience is ministers and other officials or leaders in a church organization, such as administrators, bible study teachers, and small group leaders. Different paid content sites address the specific needs of those audiences — such as PreachingToday.com’s sermon ideas for preachers and ChurchLawandTax.com’s legal, financial and risk management information for church administrators.
The company also operates a consumer-oriented subscription site called Kyria.com, aimed at Christian women’s spirituality.
Content Model
Christianity Today’s network of paid content sites (either subscription-based or pay-per-download) supplement their core print publications, such as Christianity Today, Leadership Journal, Church Law & Tax Report, and Church Finance Today.
In some cases, the sites are direct brand extensions to deliver content that’s not suited for print. For example, PreachingToday.com is an extension of Leadership Journal, and hosts a searchable database of 10,000 stories, illustrations, and quotes to help preachers prepare their weekly sermons.
BuildingChurchLeaders.com is another extension of Leadership Journal, which provides downloadable leadership training materials, such as guidebooks, handouts, forms and checklists. ChurchLawandTax.com is an online companion to Church Law & Tax Report that provides a library of tax and legal resources, weekly lessons, seminars, and expert Q&A for church administrators.
Other sites address specific tasks or roles within a church organization, such as:
- ChristianBibleStudies.com, which provides more than 1,000 downloadable study guides for bible study leaders
- SmallGroups.com, which provides resources for starting and running small group ministries
- ChurchSafety.com, which provides safety education and assessment tools for church leaders
And in some cases, the team has shut down print magazines, such as Kyria, and migrated the brands to subscription sites (Kyria.com).
Most content is produced by in-house editorial staff, or with freelance contributors. The team also repurposes its decades of print archives into new online content. For example, editors look for specific, practical advice from old Leadership Journal articles to develop short training guides or checklists for BuildingChurchLeaders.com
Each paid content site also features a mix free content, including open-access articles, free email newsletters, social networking, discussion forums, and more. “We produce a whole lot of content,” says Whitehead.
But the team uses partnerships to help fill in content gaps: Strategic relationships with major churches and church parent organizations allow the sites to repurpose bible study lessons, leadership training, sermons and other materials. And deals with Christian publishers such as InterVarsity Press and Tyndale provide book excerpts.
Revenue Streams
Roughly 40% of Christianity Today’s total revenue comes from online publishing — a big jump from 2000, when only 20% of revenue came from online sources. Online revenues are split roughly 50-50 between subscriptions/pay-per-download content and advertising.
#1. Subscriptions
Subscription rates vary by product. BuildingChurchLeaders.com is the most expensive subscription, at $149.95/year. SmallGroups.com and ChurchSafety.com subscriptions cost $99.95/year. ChurchLawandTax.com subscriptions cost $78-$99/year, depending on whether subscribers choose a print newsletter companion. PreachingToday.com subscriptions cost $69.95/year or $9.95/month. Kyria.com, the company’s consumer-oriented site, sells an annual subscription only for $14.95.
Each site’s marketing manager is responsible for pricing decisions. For example, the PreachingToday.com team recently lowered the site’s annual subscription fee from $79.95 to $69.95 after a test of the lower price delivered better free trial conversions and renewal rates.
Other sites have found improvements by adding a group subscription option, such as SmallGroups.com’s $199/year subscription for up to 12 church leaders, or ChurchLawandTax.com’s group pricing options of $25-$50 per user.
#2. Pay-per-download content
All subscription sites also offer pay-per-download content. One-off content sales are a way to introduce new customers to the site’s content and generate leads for subscription sales, says Whitehead. For example, downloading an individual sermon from PreachingToday.com might cost $4.95, while specific training resources from BuildingChurchLeaders.com range from $9.95-$24.95.
Sites that typically attract regular repeat visits, such as PreachingToday.com or SmallGroups.com, generate most of their revenues from subscriptions. But sites that tend to attract more occasional visitors with a specific content need, such as BuildingChurchLeaders.com and Kyria, generate most of their revenues from individual content downloads.
“We find it’s an important revenue stream for us, and that’s why we wouldn’t want to drop the pay-per-download option,” says Whitehead.
ChristianBibleStudies.com offers pay-per-download content only, with lessons ranging from $4.95 to $50 per download, depending on the length and format of the content. A recent price test found that lowering the price of the least-expensive studies from $5.95 to $4.95 increased the site’s revenues.
The team decided against offering a subscription option for this site because they felt they’d have to price it far beyond what the audience was willing to spend in order to cover the potential value of the content members might download in a year.
#3. Advertising
All Christianity Today paid content sites also include advertising, which means the teams have to provide enough free content to generate traffic and pageviews.
Each site does its own testing and balancing to determine where to put the paywall. But typically, the teams provide basic articles for free while putting downloadable tools and resources, such as training manuals, checklists, assessments, etc., behind the paywall.
Marketing Tactics
PPC search advertising
On average, 30%-40% of traffic to Christianity Today’s sites comes from search.
Each team spends roughly 50%-75% of their marketing budgets on PPC advertising to generate direct sales. They pick targeted keywords to drive visitors to a landing page, where they can purchase a content download or sign up for a membership.
For example, the PreachingToday.com team buys PPC ads for phrases that include a specific preacher’s name, a topic, and the word “sermon” to attract visitors likely to be shopping for a sermon sample.
The ROI from these PPC campaigns has been declining, however. In the past, the teams’ typical keyword bids were as cheap as 5-10 cents per click, allowing them to earn twice what they spent on their ad campaigns.
Today, those same keywords are typically 75 cents to $1.00, and PPC campaigns only breakeven. But they continue with paid search marketing to help introduce the various sites’ brands to new visitors.
Social media
Each brand maintains its own Twitter and Facebook accounts, and those two sites are among the top five referrers for each of the paid content sites.
The teams use their social media channels for content distribution, posting links to free articles and other resources to attract traffic. They also use social media to distribute press releases, which include calls-to-action and links to paid resources and subscription sign-up pages.
The teams also use tabs on their Facebook pages to promote paid content. For example, in January they created a tab on the ChristianBibleStudies.com Facebook page to highlight the 10 most popular bible studies downloaded in the previous year — with links to purchase each of those resources.
Thanks to that tab, sales from Facebook made up 6.4% of the site’s monthly download revenue in January and 4.8% in February.
Free trials
Most Christianity Today sites include a free-trial (with credit card required) offer for new members.
The standard trial term is 14 days, but the PreachingToday.com team found through testing that a 30-day free trial converted more members — most likely because preachers were only coming to the site about once a week or so to help prepare their Sunday sermons. Allowing prospects to trial the site for one month gives them enough time to navigate the site’s sermon assistance options and preview enough content.
Overlay screen with trial offer
Each site regularly uses overlay offer screens to promote free email newsletter signups or print subscriptions. But recently, the teams began placing free-trial offers in an overlay screen served to first-time visitors to a site.
Because many of these first-time visitors arrive from a search, the team wrote short, bulleted copy introducing the brand, describing key features and benefits, and sometimes including subscriber testimonials. A large button on the lower left of the screen took visitors to a trial sign-up page.
Those overlay screens are generating 20% of new free trial signups for the sites that use them.
Technology and Vendors Used
Christianity Today built a custom content management system to manage all its websites. But here are two third-party vendors and resources they use to help manage their operations.
Lyris: The company’s email service provider
http://www.lyris.com
Google Analytics: The site’s web analytics platform
http://www.google.com/analytics
About Cory Whitehead
Whitehead joined Christianity Today in 2000 just as the publisher was making its push into online content. PreachingToday.com had launched in 1999, and Whitehead was tapped to handle the testing and launch of subsequent paid content sites over the next several years.
He describes their experience as one of trial and error. But he’s grateful they went through the transition a decade ago, before the economics of the publishing industry made it even more critical — and more challenging — to find the right mix of print vs. online and free vs. paid content. “That’s where a lot of publishers are now — trying to figure out what works,” says Whitehead. “In some ways that early start saved us because now we’re so far ahead.”
Subscription Site Insider’s Analysis
Christianity Today is incredibly smart about identifying paid content opportunities. Instead of trying to emulate print content in a subscription or pay-per-download site, they focus on solving particular problems for a specific niche audience through practical, actionable resources — an approach that traditional publishers still struggling with their own paywall sites should study carefully. Their success with Facebook tabs and the overlay free trial offer also show how continual testing of new tactics is paying off.
Although the hybrid model is working for Christianity Today’s sites, we wonder if they could boost online revenues even further by focusing their online marketing even more directly on subscriptions and paid-content downloads. Visitors to the sites currently see multiple offers — for free newsletters, print magazine subscriptions, online subscriptions or content purchases, etc. It’s little confusing — which offer should I take? The success of the free trial offer overlay screen for first-time visitors shows that there’s a lot of potential in clearly telling visitors that they have landed on a paywall site and drawing them into a subscription marketing funnel.
