Audience Engagement
It’s no secret that for some news organizations, reader revenue has been a hit. The New York Times topped 7 million subscribers in 2020, earning more revenue from digital subscribers than from print subscribers for the first time in the company’s history. The Seattle Times now has over 65,000 digital subscribers. These changes have allowed news organizations to expand their editorial ambitions and decrease their reliance on advertising revenue.
But these outlets have big budgets and big traffic numbers. So, what are the takeaways for small, local news websites? How do they increase their digital audience revenue? Is a paywall realistic? What about a different membership model? How would this work with pre-existing subscription offerings? And, oh yeah, who has the time and money to even set this up?
Audience Loyalty
Regardless of the size of your organization, one thing is vital to the success of any reader revenue initiative: audience loyalty. You need to have an audience willing to support you.
To determine whether this is the case for you, dig into your email analytics. How many readers open multiple emails from you every month? These active readers are the ones that will likely pay to support your organization. Do you have enough loyal readers to support the reader revenue strategy you want? (Note: If you don’t have an email list, start building one! You’ll need a strong email list for any successful reader revenue program. In the meantime, get a sense of your audience’s loyalty by looking at how much of your monthly traffic comes from return visitors. Returning visitors are more likely to support your mission than visitors who found themselves on your site via that one viral post.)
Next, articulate your value. What sets your content apart from your competitors? What can’t your audience get anywhere else? Maybe it’s your investigative reports. Your comprehensive guides. Your presence at every city council meeting. Your dining editor’s wit. What are your loyal readers engaging with and responding to the most?
Then, evaluate if your team is ready. It can be difficult to switch from having conversations about pageviews and advertiser needs to content quality and reader needs. Make sure your team is on board and aware of long term goals and internal changes.
Ideas to Steal
Once you’ve confirmed that you have the returning visitors, unique value, and team buy-in needed to increase reader revenue, you’re ready to craft the strategy that fits your organization’s needs. Thankfully, you can learn from a range of initiatives that other local news outlets have already launched.
The Shawnee Mission Post, a Kansas City-based news site, put up a paywall as a last-ditch effort when their advertising revenue decreased. In a surprise to everyone, including the website’s own staff, readers paid. The site has since expanded their team of reporters and doubled down on civic journalism. Some of the site’s readers are paying up to $72 per year for access to the site. “I am surprised and incredibly heartened by the fact that we've been able to figure out how to make this work here. But it's kind of like we're, you know, a sapling sticking out of the ashes of a forest fire,” said editor Jay Senter in an interview with NPR.
INDY Week, an alternative weekly based in Durham, launched the INDY Press Club in 2019. The INDY Week team didn’t want a paywall, since being a free and accessible resource was a big part of the publication’s brand and mission. So, instead they opted for a membership model where readers could sign up to support the paper, but also receive a variety of perks—discounts to local restaurants, access to exclusive contests, members-only events, and more—depending on the membership tier.
The American Prospect rolled their pre-existing magazine into a new membership program they launched in 2020, which also offered readers “guilt-free access to Prospect.org,” an exclusive editor newsletter, early bird event registration, and, at the highest membership tier, an invitation to editorial meetings. Like INDY Week, The American Prospect requests, but doesn’t require, that all non-members visiting their site register their email for free to continue browsing. They then send registered users free newsletters or other promotional offers via email to, hopefully, convert them to paying members.
The Devil Strip, a free monthly arts-and-culture print magazine and website based in Akron, Ohio, went even further. In 2019, The Devil Strip launched a cooperative ownership model that offered readers an actual stake in the publication. Readers can choose from a range of tiered payment options, but when they reach $330, they become lifetime shareholders. Shareholders vote on a variety of issues, including the selection of new board members and editorial projects. Joining the co-op also provides members print and digital issues of the publication along with access to members-only groups and events.
Tech Support
If you are a Metro Publisher client, setting up the technology needed to support your new reader revenue strategy is just a few clicks away. Metro Publisher has an integration with Pico, which has low setup costs and instead takes a portion of all transaction revenue. You can see Pico in action on INDY Week’s site. Interested in learning more? Contact Metro Publisher’s support team for details.
