A senior audience executive working as the VP of audience and circulation at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Chris Blaser has over three decades of experience as a leader in the newspaper industry. Chris Blaser has launched a paywall and new products at the review journal, and is strongly interested in the topic of digital subscriptions among newspaper companies.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most newspaper companies saw a considerable decrease in advertising revenue, and many created digital subscriptions to survive. According to experts at the Local Media Association Accelerate Local 2021 event, newspapers have been using specific strategies to grow their digital subscriptions.
For instance, the Seattle Times made the checkout experience seamless by turning the paywall into the landing page for subscription offers. This reduced the number of steps the reader needs to take to subscribe and resulted in more conversions, especially for one-day sales with a countdown for the offer.
On the other hand, the Star Tribune in Minnesota prioritizes retention of existing readers, so it created subscriber-only emails sent out once a month. These emails are more in-depth on a new topic or initiative and also provide a behind-the-scenes spotlight.
In addition, Hearst Newspapers is expected to triple the number of subscriptions in two years by increasing promotions and optimizing its paywall. For example, Hearst extended its introductory offer, which went from 99 cents for four weeks to 99 cents for twelve weeks - only this alteration showed a two-fold increase in starts per day.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most newspaper companies saw a considerable decrease in advertising revenue, and many created digital subscriptions to survive. According to experts at the Local Media Association Accelerate Local 2021 event, newspapers have been using specific strategies to grow their digital subscriptions.
For instance, the Seattle Times made the checkout experience seamless by turning the paywall into the landing page for subscription offers. This reduced the number of steps the reader needs to take to subscribe and resulted in more conversions, especially for one-day sales with a countdown for the offer.
On the other hand, the Star Tribune in Minnesota prioritizes retention of existing readers, so it created subscriber-only emails sent out once a month. These emails are more in-depth on a new topic or initiative and also provide a behind-the-scenes spotlight.
In addition, Hearst Newspapers is expected to triple the number of subscriptions in two years by increasing promotions and optimizing its paywall. For example, Hearst extended its introductory offer, which went from 99 cents for four weeks to 99 cents for twelve weeks - only this alteration showed a two-fold increase in starts per day.
