This week we speak to The Telegraph’s Head of Newsletters Maire Bonheim, and Deputy Head of Newsletters David Alexander, about the publisher’s newsletter portfolio. We talk about why The Telegraph and others are prioritising newsletters, how newsletters can be used at different stages of the subscriber funnel, and what they’ve learned from a community-focused approach to their Politics newsletter.
Maire and David also discuss building a live event from a newsletter brand, and the value of newsletters as a retention tool for the subscriptions-focused publisher.
In the news roundup we have a good chat about The Atlantic’s announcement that it is profitable and has hit the 1m subscriber milestone. We discuss the extent to which investing in high-quality content (longreads, mostly) creates a virtuous circle when it comes to growing subscriptions.
Here are some highlights, lightly edited for clarity:
The Telegraph’s growing newsletter portfolio
Maire: We have expanded, and that’s a result of The Telegraph investing in people and products. But I think it’s also testament to the growth of newsletters as a product. That’s not just at The Telegraph, but on a global level with publishers across the board. It seems that people are investing more in newsletters, which is brilliant to see.
We have 35 newsletters in the portfolio currently, but that is constantly under review. We’re constantly assessing performance in terms of growth numbers, engagement, open and click rates, and what people are reading when they click through.
We have newsletters that fulfil different goals. Some might be specifically aimed at retaining our existing subscribers. Some might specifically be aimed at providing a short window to registrants who aren’t sure yet and are dipping their toes in. They do different things and we assess them using different metrics.
We also do pop-ups for events, and newsletter series. We do initiatives such as, during the coronation last year, for the Royal Appointment newsletter, we did a free trial for registrants. We did a special edition daily send over that time, journalists from around the newsroom contributed amazing segments. Our registrants were able to sign up and receive a free trial for the duration. At the end of it, we did convert quite a substantial number of those to becoming follow-on subscribers as a result.
Building a community through journalist-led newsletters
David: With the Politics newsletter, every month Dominic [Penna] does an interview with a politician and asks them questions that he takes from the newsletter readers. They email their questions, hundreds or often thousands of questions personally addressed to him, he puts them to the politician.
Often the answers from those questions which come from the readers will generate newslines, and become stories. So his personality facilitates this great community which ends up with user-generated journalism. He’s the connective tissue of where he is; I don’t think there would be the same response if it was just an anonymous call-out for questions from readers.
We’re doing a live event in a few weeks; a live version of these interviews, because they’ve been such a success. It’s just a great opportunity for our readers to physically meet this guy who they talk to every day.
Newsletters are – especially the daily ones – readers spend so much time with them that they should almost be like friends who you want to hang out with. You’re giving people a lot of stuff, and you’re asking them to commit a lot of time to you. So you should want to enjoy their company, it shouldn’t be a chore.
Newsletters and retention
Maire: If people become a subscriber to The Telegraph after clicking on a link in a newsletter, they’re 50% more likely to still be a subscriber a year later. So we definitely see that being engaged with newsletters, and subscribing on the basis of a newsletter, really creates a high-quality reader who is likely to remain engaged with The Telegraph long-term.
It’s push rather than pull media. So you’re not waiting for someone to come to you, but you’re pushing something out to them. Even if someone hadn’t planned to engage with your publication that day, if you produce a subject line that’s interesting enough, you can create that interaction.
It’s a curated shop window. It says who we are, and it’s also finite and curated in an infinite scroll world. You can read something that feels like it’s created by a real person, and you can finish it, and feel that you’ve gained all the necessary knowledge on that topic you’re interested in.
The news round-up
The Atlantic has topped 1 million subscriptions and is profitable, according to an announcement from the company.
- 3 years ago it had a $20 million deficit and had laid off 17% of its newsroom – mostly from video and events teams.
- From the WSJ: “A core part of [Nick] Thompson’s strategy was to figure out how much readers would be willing to pay for a subscription. He ended up raising subscription prices by more than 50%, and made it harder for people to read stories without paying … Subscriptions now account for two-thirds of revenue, compared with a little less than half when Thompson took the helm.”
- In an email to staff sharing the news, editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and CEO Nicholas Thompson wrote, “The key to continued success is to be constructively dissatisfied with the present, and so both of us believe very strongly that our 1 million subscriptions represent merely the foundation of future excellence and growth. Profitability is also perilous in the media industry, and we are going to continue to be highly disciplined in how we run our operations.”
- Revenue rose 10% last year to nearly $100 million, with two-thirds coming from subscriptions (up from half in 2021). 56% of the subscriptions are digital, and 44% are print/digital bundles.
- The Atlantic also shifted its editorial strategy to cover large issues more deeply; a similar strategy to what A Media Operator’s Jacob Donnelly had suggested when he argued that publishers need to be doing regular content audits.
- The publisher is seeing some success with Apple News+. It has around 100,000 users who read the magazine through Apple News+, with Thompson saying that the Atlantic gets roughly the same amount of revenue from everybody Apple counts as an Atlantic subscriber as it gets per direct subscriber.
Lessons for publishers:
- If you’ve got a strong brand and have laid the groundwork for payments, you can afford to be strict about your paywalls, because enough people will convert. Simple on paper, but…;
- Experimentation with pricing isn’t a one-and-done solution;
- Deeper, less replicable pieces help demonstrate value;
- If even a profitable media company says “profitability is perilous” then it’s seriously bad for others.
Maire and David will be appearing at this year’s Publisher Newsletter Summit; a day-long conference in London on June 12th dedicated to all things newsletters. More info and tickets here.
