Our subs retention strategy: Newsquest

Q: What are the key pillars of your retention strategy?

A: At Newsquest, our retention strategy is categorised into active churn prevention and passive churn prevention initiatives.

Passive churn accounts for a significant proportion of subscriber loss. So, one of our big projects this year includes plans to improve our payment failure rates. We’ll do this through making system changes and enhancing subscriber comms.

To address active churn prevention, we look at the full subscriber lifecycle from conversion, onboarding, in-life and cancellation. We regularly review surveys and analyse usage data from both current and lapsed subscribers to reveal key insights for improving retention.

A successful example of improving retention products is our exclusive competitions for subscribers. Initially, this idea was tested manually but received encouraging responses. Over two years, it evolved into a dedicated tool: we began by measuring subscriber participation, then built an automated solution into our CRM system, and scaled its use to 117 brand sites. Since July last year, 21% of subscribers have participated in monthly competitions. Data indicates that they are particularly useful for retaining subscribers who consume a lower volume of articles than average. The project demonstrated that identifying valuable perks and scaling those can make a difference.

Our brands engage subscribers through a variety of platforms and channels, including our apps, websites, newsletters, digital newspapers, competitions, puzzles, comment sections, archives, and marketing initiatives. Top level insights tell us that the mix is key, but we are currently working to benchmark the importance of each touchpoint for overall subscriber retention. Identifying and addressing areas of poor subscriber experience is also crucial. We will then look at each touchpoint to make improvements. One such area on our roadmap is our puzzles pages, making them more accessible and attractive.

While added benefits does help, the main factor for subscriber longevity for us is maintaining healthy interaction with our news content. It’s a well-known fact that engaged subscribers stay for longer. This is where our digital subscriptions team relies on strong collaboration with our editorial colleagues. Newsquest’s central editorial team have developed a project which focuses on growing our group of most loyal readers. The loyal reader segment drives much of our advertising revenue via pageviews, only a small portion of which are subscribers. But from our side, 70% of subscribers are included in the loyal segment – so you can clearly see where our worlds overlap. The loyalty project tracks our readers’ habits by article topic and shows data on what they most like to read. Started over a year ago, the project now influences daily newsroom strategies and content creation. Writing more of the right content can only help to keep subscribers engaged.

At present, we also leverage a third-party platform to help us with our retention marketing. With their help, we create audience segments, identify high-risk groups, and conduct A/B testing of marketing campaigns designed to improve retention rates.

Q: How do you see this evolving over the next few years?

A: As our subscription model evolves, we aim to enhance customer personalisation. By continually learning about subscriber behaviour and preferences for subscription benefits, we can better understand the factors that contribute to long-term retention. Empowering subscribers by offering greater flexibility to customise their experience, will also feature. It will be very important going forward to leave the door open for lapsed subscribers to return, which will be achieved through an overall positive experience.

As we go forward, we are excited to look for more advanced machine learning tools. We want to deliver more sophisticated ways of targeting content and marketing. We’ve already started on several projects along these lines that I’m sure will expand and develop over the next few years. These include tidying up our article comments with automated and human-moderation tools; using AI expansion to free up reporter’s time for more impactful local journalism – key to our core subscriber proposition; and testing various recommended content tools on our sites.

Three top tips

1. Know your audience and their needs. Focus on your core, loyal readership by identifying what attracts them most to your product. Use data to uncover these preferences, then enhance, scale, and repeat successful strategies. Ensure your tracking is reliable so you can measure progress.

2. Create tangible benefits and communicate them well. It takes time and experimentation to develop the ideal package around your core product. While it’s useful to steal ideas from other publishers, you still need to refine your approach to suit your own audience. Don’t assume your subscribers will just know about them either. It’s always a good idea to regularly review and improve your various comms.

3. Repair any cracks. While it’s important to examine positive subscriber behaviours, it’s equally crucial to identify what is letting you down. Review churn statistics and exit surveys to spot noticeable gaps that need attention. These might be painful to fix but can also be your biggest wins.