Quick Overview
In 2008, facing declining circulation and revenues, the Christian Science Monitor announced plans to stop publishing its century-old daily newspaper. In its place came a free daily news website, a subscription-based weekly magazine, and a premium daily email newsletter that combined have boosted circulation 60% and lifted key website metrics like pageviews and unique visitors. Insider’s case study describes how the team mapped core elements of the daily newspaper brand to the new content model, and how they got 90% of daily newspaper subscribers to accept the new weekly magazine.
Target Market
Highly educated readers (almost 50% have masters degrees) interested in world news and analysis. Print subscribers tend to be aged 50-60, with slightly more women than men. Online readers are aged 30-40, with slightly more men than women.
Content Model
In 2009, the team replaced its daily newspaper with a three-pronged publishing model that combines print, Web, and email. Those pieces retained the hallmarks of the newspaper’s editorial approach: A focus on international news, and inclusion of analysis/context alongside just-the-facts reporting.
The website, CSMonitor.com, reports daily news with a strong global focus –posting shorter stories with frequent updates. It is ad-supported and all content is available to all visitors. The site also offers free email newsletters, including a daily news digest and weekly, topical newsletters on politics, money, books, and more.
A new, weekly print magazine replaced the daily newspaper. The subscription-based newsmagazine features photos, infographics, and longer articles that offer more space for analysis than was available in the print newspaper.
“We have a very core, loyal audience who value our journalism and will pay a premium for it,” says Hackney. “Maintaining what was the strongest element of our brand in print made the most sense.”
Finally, the team added a new, premium email newsletter, the Daily News Briefing. Delivered at 5 a.m., the briefing offers a concise overview of the day’s important news through four abridged versions of print or online articles, a column of news briefs, and daily commentary/news analysis from the editor.
Each Briefing is a three-page PDF designed to be downloaded and printed — because some former newspaper subscribers still wanted some kind of daily, print product to read.
Revenue Streams
Subscriptions to the weekly magazine and daily news briefing make up about 80% of the company’s revenue.
Subscriptions to the weekly magazine currently are being sold under a “charter offer” of $13 per year — a 71% discount off the regular price. Circulation for the weekly has grown to nearly 75,000 subscribers, up from 43,000 subscribers for the daily newspaper.
Daily News Briefing email subscriptions are priced at $5.75 a month, and offered with a 30-day free trial. Hackney says it’s still a small subscriber base, but a profitable product.
Marketing Tactics
Changing the publishing model required a special research and marketing effort with current subscribers and the broader community.
The team spent roughly a year planning the new products, and included current subscribers in the process through online surveys, print surveys and focus groups.
In October 2008, the paper announced it would cease publishing the daily newspaper, and hired a public relations firm to explain the transition to the broader community. Outreach included media interviews and an in-person forum with journalists and students from the Boston area to discuss publishing trends and the paper’s new model.
Around the beginning of 2009, the team began sending dedicated mailings and running ads in the newspaper asking subscribers to transition their existing daily subscriptions to the new, weekly magazine. Subscribers that accepted the new product had their terms extended based on a pro-rated balance of their daily subscription.
In the end, just over 90% of daily subscribers accepted the weekly print product.
Since the change, the team has used several different marketing tactics to grow its subscriber base:
Direct mail
Traditional mailers drive the majority of print subscriptions. The team uses large mailers that mimic the look of the magazine itself. They also routinely test elements of those mailers, such as the sample cover images displayed.
“Testing covers has been very effective for us.”
Website offers
The team includes offers for both the print and premium email products throughout the website.
Tactics include: placing banner ads for the print and premium daily email on the homepage; placing text-only magazine offers at the end of free website articles that, when clicked, take visitors to the subscription page; presenting a print subscription offer on the thank-you screen for free email newsletter signups.
Email marketing
New subscribers to the free email newsletters receive an upsell offer for the premium newsletter. After that, the team only sends about 3-4 additional, strictly promotional emails to the house list each year.
Instead, they include in the free email newsletter banner and text ads promoting the premium Daily News Briefing option.
Technology and Vendors Used
CDS Global: Billing and fulfillment
http://www.cds-global.com/
eZ Publish: Content management system
http://ez.no/
Silverpop: Email service provider
http://www.silverpop.com/
About Susan Hackney
Hackney has had two stints with the monitor — first in the mid 1980s, and again starting about four years ago. As much as the publishing industry has changed in the intervening years, she still sees similarities in the environment.
In particular, she says, publishers have always had to understand and adapt to industry trends, and find new paths that will sustain them for the long-term. “In the 80s there was a lot of growth in media, with TV, radio, newspapers, and monthly magazines. It was a period of testing and trying a lot of new things,” she says. “When you think about it, this is a period of testing and trying a lot of new things, too.”
Subscription Site Insider’s Analysis
There’s no single premium content model that will work for every publication. But the team at the monitor did an excellent job designing a premium product around the brand/content elements that were unique and most valuable to subscribers (in-depth analysis, international news). At the same time, they have plenty of free options that can attract visitors and email subscribers who create a pool of prospects for subscription upselling.
Although the team is using the great tactic of including sample issues on the sign-up forms for the free and premium email newsletters, we think they could do a little more work on the print subscription to sign-up page. A virtual “look inside” a magazine, for example, could help show prospects why to pay for the weekly rather than just reading daily news on the website. Other small tests also could lift conversion, such as testing alternatives to the current button copy on the form: “Submit Your Order.” Nobody likes being told to “submit.”
http://www.csmonitor.com
