Paywall Podcast - Subscription strategies for news and magazine publishers

Pete (00:00)
Hey Tyler, how's it going? Welcome to the Paywall Podcast. I I am I am just dandy. absolutely kind of blown away by this publication we're gonna talk to to next because they have no paywall, everything's free, but the reader is still paying. So how's that even possible for a

Tyler (00:01)
Good. Good, good, good. How are you?

Pete (00:21)
nonprofit model of publisher? Yeah.

Tyler (00:25)
interesting.

Pete (00:55)
So, and if you're listening to this, I just want to say we're this this publisher is asked to be incognito. So we're we're we're gonna not mention any names, but this is a publisher that Tyler, I know you've worked with for a little while now. And we're gonna we're gonna dive in because we're seeing a lot of success here and we're we're we're we're seeing the use case of like

Tyler (01:02)
Ha

Mm-hmm.

Pete (01:20)
registration wall philosophy and other things, but it's different. There's there's there's something different at work here. So so let's get into it. the other thing I'm gonna say is that this particular publisher we're talking about has about sixty thousand visitors per month. And now I pull that number off a similar web. So you can kind of take that with a grain of salt, but anytime I look and quote numbers, I just quote what similar web says to try try to stay consistent in terms of

Tyler (01:36)
Mm-hmm.

Pete (01:48)
in terms of traffic. So all right. So Tyler, tell me a little bit. You you started with this publisher a few months ago and you've had early success with email list growth, with registrations, I mean that registrations and email list growth and revenue.

Tyler (01:49)
Yeah.

That's right, that's right.

Yeah, so this is in a high density location. So there's lots of lots of people, lots of lots of eyeballs, but they're in a very niche space in this high density location. No, no physical paywall, no requirements anywhere to pay for content. The only thing they're doing at this point is they're offering the free registration after three free views. So you get three, you get three free views off the street.

Pete (02:29)
Okay.

Tyler (02:33)
you come to their site and on that fourth view you're getting hit with a free registration which in turn gives you unlimited access to their site. So you might be thinking how on earth does that ever translate to revenue for them? Yeah, one would think because we often

Pete (02:48)
That's exactly what I was thinking. How how does it translate to revenue? Yeah.

Tyler (02:55)
on this podcast about kind of cranking down that meter to one free for those who come to your site and one free after they register. giving away two, three is very generous on the front end and then unlimited on the back end is kind of crazy if you ask me, if you're trying to generate revenue, right? So what they're doing is after they register for free,

There's a number of things that they can unlock as part of a paid option. So one thing that they're doing is on their site, if you want

to participate in comments, you want to be part of the discussion on their site, you have to donate or upgrade to a membership plan. It's not required. You can still read all the, that's right. Yeah. So that's, that's sort of their key lever.

Pete (03:41)
Commenting, commenting, got it.

Tyler (03:48)
And then also they're they're big into They offer like merchandise like a hat or like a bag or some kind of branding If you sign up a welcome gift, right? So that's the second thing and then I think a third thing is they do have events in their their area from time to time So maybe twice per year three times per year. They have I don't know what kind of event it is, but

Pete (03:50)
Mm.

yeah.

Tyler (04:18)
If you're a part of this community, you get special discounts, special access to those events. So there's a lot going on here in order to kind of break down what they're doing, but it is working quite well for them.

Pete (04:34)
Mm, that's awesome.

Pete (04:34)
So I'm what I'm sharing here is there is the pricing page. You can't tell who it is, but it's it's their pricing cards and so just to kind of review so you can see that they comments. So you get to comment. and then looks like and you get you get a I don't know what you get, hat or pen or something.

And then you also get if you level up, you get some event discounts, I think, like if they do okay. So there's some

Tyler (05:03)
You do. Yeah, so there

you're kind of starting on like commenting privileges in the beginning, like the lower, the lower tier, along with a members only newsletter, opportunities to share feedback and all that, all that jazz and a small welcome gift. I think it's a bag or something. and then you kind of level your way up to an ad free experience, discounted tickets to their events that they have. I believe it's

Pete (05:22)
Okay.

Mm.

Tyler (05:31)
up to three times per year, I'm not entirely sure. So it's really more like a membership, you know, versus a transactional, you pay and you read the content kind of thing.

Pete (05:39)
Gotcha.

Pete (05:43)
Let's talk a little bit about the comments because you mentioned that this was sort of a primary hook for readers. Are readers commenting on the site? Are is there interaction there? And how are they handling it?

Tyler (05:49)
Uh-huh.

there is.

Yeah, there's certainly people who are paying are indeed commenting on on their their site. As far as how they're moderating

I think the payment itself does a pretty good job at and that seems to be the case across all the publishers that we work with if you're requiring a in order to comment. that keeps it pretty clean but I don't think they're doing you know, they they they approve them it's not not a huge so

Pete (06:07)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah. If you've given a credit card for payment, you're probably not gonna be a total nightmare in the comments.

Tyler (06:27)
Yeah. Yeah. I and

the same kinda goes for the free registration if you do have commenting available for free registration. It's like if they have their and, you know, other, you know, attributes that personally identify who they you're more you're a lot less likely to to see nastiness break out on a on a on a site. And publishers are always kinda nervous about turning comments and

Pete (06:33)
Mm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tyler (06:50)
we always recommend to them that you should disable your comments on Facebook and then allow the commenting to happen your site, not on on the land of social media, which is a lot generally a lot more friendly and easier to manage and you get the eyeballs on your site and there's a lot of benefits to it that outweigh I think the negativity that can you know, that can develop but often doesn't. Yeah.

Pete (06:56)
Mm.

that's a hot take and I love it. So

turn off let me just dive down that a little bit. So your Facebook page, turn off the comments, direct everybody to your page, and then set up at the very minimum set up the registration wall. And if you do register, then yes, you can comment. But better yet, if you're brave enough, you turn on commenting for only paid paid subscribers.

Tyler (07:34)
That's right.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you'll you'll certainly see a drop in like the number of people that comment with that, but but for sure, like you should you should be taking ad taking advantage of the eyeballs, the You know, you y you're the you're the publisher keep that comment world off of Facebook.

Pete (07:58)
Hm, I bet there's an AI solution for for commenting these days. It's it's gotta be, right?

Tyler (08:00)
There is. There's several. There's several

that are out there. We've I've yet to test any of them, but it's certain it's certainly something that exists and probably, you know, would be useful. But most of the publishers, like probably that are listening to this podcast, like unless you've got like millions and millions of page views every it's probably not gonna be a huge lift to moderate the the comments that come through. So

Pete (08:06)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So that's very cool. yeah, get the comments on the site, off the social. I like that. okay, so let's go I'm gonna share some some numbers. So if you're we'll we'll talk through what's going on. but before we do that, I just wanted to back and say something. So when I was doing the research on this particular publisher, I realized that this is

This publisher is running a nonprofit model, but they're not officially a nonprofit. So they can they can take money really any way they want. but they're they're this they're still mission oriented where it's like, hey, you know, support us we're you know, we need your your reader revenue, we need your payments in order really thrive. They do have some advertising on the site and and ad, and I noticed on the previous card that ad free.

Tyler (08:51)
That's true.

Pete (09:10)
was another lever. So comments, event discounts, product discounts, free product, ad free plan. So bunch of levers to to pull on. Yeah.

Tyler (09:16)
That's right. Yeah. A bunch of a bunch of lovers and and

Pete (09:18)
Let me let me rectify Okay. So this is this is again I've st I've blurred out and stripped out any identifying things on here, but essentially you're saying on the third article or fourth article this wall shows up? Fourth article. So contrary to what we generally suggest,

Tyler (09:21)
we go.

for sure.

Pete (09:21)
I like that.

I like that. Okay. So here if you're looking at can you see the registration wall?

Tyler (09:38)
on the fourth article, so

Pete (09:46)
They've been running three free articles and then this registration wall comes up but which says basically create a free account or log in to gain access to the story and then unlimited access afterwards. so that's essentially the the pitch and this this works really well.

Did we crash again? Okay. All right. It's telling me camera disconnected. So I don't know what's happening. All right, we'll keep going here. so anyway, and I think when we talked about this publisher a while back, you mentioned to me that this was kind of the starting point for the registration wall in order to get comfortable. And then maybe maybe this wall would be tightened to two free articles or one free article down the road. Is that do you know if that's still the plan?

Tyler (10:25)
That that certainly is still the plan, yeah.

Pete (10:27)
Okay. All right. And one thing I I will wanna say that when it comes to putting up any kind of wall, whether it's a registration wall or if you're if you're gonna turn on paid subscriptions for the first time, is a very terrifying experience for some of the publishers we work with. And I totally get it. You're going from free and open to all of a sudden this wall comes up and and the fear is real, the nervousness is real. But what's happening here I think is a really great

A really great example of a publisher that's saying, Yeah, I need to start capturing email addresses and requiring that the emails come in to get to content, which the po the superpower of the publisher. It's like, I have great content, here's the wall, you get past the wall, you get the content. It's a fair trade, right? But you don't have to start with zero or one article. You could start generously. So in this case, it's three free articles and then you register, and then you get everything else.

So really, really generous setup. And then so if you're if you're thinking about doing this for the first time, I would suggest take this model, right? Set up the registration wall, go five free articles. Don't do it for too long, but go to five. The average session, if you look at your Google or whatever analytics you're using, is about 1.7 article views per per session that a visitor lands on your site, which means that ideally

You really want the registration wall to pop up on article number two. Cause at 1.7 articles per session, you want most people to see this. And the ones that are going to engage with you will drop off the email. These are the people that you want on your list. So start generous and then you can tighten over time. Okay. I'll get off my soapbox for a little bit now. Sorry, I've I've been working on this study, 62 page study that's

Pretty much done now. And there's a lot of data in here. And this was this was part of it. It's like building confidence is a whole section in the in the study. okay, so that's the registration wall. if you're not running one, this is your moment. Do it, set one up. okay, so let me go back here and we're not gonna talk about that. Yeah, we talked about that.

Tyler (12:25)
wow.

Yeah.

Pete (12:41)
Then there's kind of a small level, which I notice I I don't know if you have any any intel on this, but essentially it's like below all the pricing cards. They have this like, by the way, if you like if you can't afford, you know, the sort of the regular pricing, you can, you know, get get some benefits for just a small donation. Is it any take do you do you know if they're getting any takers on that? This?

Tyler (13:02)
For sure, there's been

there's been a measurable amount of people that have taken them up on that on that offer who w you know, would have otherwise not have spent the twelve dollars or whatever, and spent spent five dollars, eight dollars, nine dollars, you know. So

Pete (13:09)
Okay.

Okay. Okay, cool.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, cool. Yeah, I like it. I like it. all right, and then before we get to the numbers, this was the this was the top of the card page, support local journalism. I just thought it was a nice layout if you're watching this on YouTube. I know I've blurred out everything, but the idea is you have a nice simple title, you have a little bit of, you know, like information above the the pricing cards, and then then off you go. It's just a a good clean

Tyler (13:20)
Yeah.

Pete (13:46)
layout. Okay. All right. Now you're looking at that now you're looking at this. If you're watching this on YouTube, you're looking at this thing, what the heck is Pete smoking? Because this is yeah, this is right. Exactly. Okay, so what are we looking at? So this publisher is sending out their newsletter in a format that I really, really I've been thinking about. I really like it. It's it's unusual and that's probably why I like it.

Tyler (13:50)
Ha ha

Looks like a redacted legal document.

Pete (14:15)
Essentially it's instead of like the regular newsletter where you get like a featured image and then the teaser and then the next featured image and then the teaser and the next featured image and then the teaser. This is like no, no, no images. And the instead of having like standard teasers, this is in the publisher's voice. So it's it's written like, hey, so-and-so, today this is what's happening here, and then there's the link to the article. And then this is really interesting that happened here for this reason.

And then the link to the next article. And then so it's written as like like a just a f I don't know, two, three, four paragraphs, like a personal conversation from the editor, and then woven into the words are links to the articles, and that's it. Not one image in here. Yeah. And I my guess, you tell me, my guess is this works really, really well. It's person I love the fact it's personal, it's very

Tyler (15:03)
Mm. Yep.

Pete (15:13)
very fast to scan. You can kind of read it quickly and it's friendly because it's in the voice of the of the publication. And then the links are very obvious that pop out. So if you want to read something, you just look at the link text and you click on it. And I bet this is pretty well received. I don't know if you have any intel on this.

Tyler (15:31)
Yeah.

Yeah, I don't have any data on it, but I also had the same kind of reaction from from seeing their their newsletter. It's it's very compact, you know, concise and kind of straight to the point and here's some links to various items and it's like no images really, nothing nothing flashy. It's just here's here's what's happening. And and as you as you said from the tone of of the editor, so

Pete (15:52)
Yeah. And

Yeah. And it's the this is the this is the bulk of the the newsletter. It's just it's these nice paragraphs. And then I think if I remember correctly, at the bottom of this email there was a big button that said contribute or something like that or support us. I can't I don't remember what it what it said. But there was a there was a a call to action, a CTA at the bottom that that flagged, hey, you know, please please support our mission. So I thought of one thing that we talked talked about five levers. There's a sixth I remember.

Tyler (16:09)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

Pete (16:24)
There's a there's a subscriber only newsletter that goes out as well. Forgot to mention that. Yeah. So for a for a donation based publication, we have we have comments, we have you get you get a nice piece of gear, you get discounts on events, you get a subscriber only newsletter, and something else I forgot. But there's a lot, yeah. My point is

Tyler (16:27)
That's right. Yeah.

Pete (16:54)
There's a lot you can do even when you're not walling up all your content. and you can still use a registration wall to really build your list.

Tyler (17:04)
Yeah, these are more membership oriented benefits versus of a tr a transactional you pay, you get access to content. Like the content still has enormous value for them for sure. It's how they're how they're generating emails, that's why people are are signing up. but they're using other other elements to to get people to actually put money in and become part of their community.

Pete (17:10)
Mm. Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And

one other thing I saw, because I these I was going through this earlier, was that you they welcomes questions to the editorial staff if you're a paid subscriber. So that's another benefit you get is you can you can and I love this sort of letters to the editor kind of thing. I've I'm starting to see this happen a little more and more. and I think it's something that publishers really need to lean into.

is having having a dialogue with your readers and encouraging them to literally hit the reply button in the email. Like don't don't have a no reply email. Have you know have this email go to a person and when Google and email you know service providers see replies to emails it signals engagement it signals quality content. So you know Gmail will, you know, if there's a lot of engagement through replies,

Tyler (17:54)
Yeah, for sure.

Pete (18:21)
via email then then Gmail will be like, well we won't bury your newsletter. We'll we'll put it up in your in your mailbox because you're engaging with this this source. Yeah. Okay. Last thing. Let's look at some numbers, shall we? Boom. Okay. So we only have a few months worth of data, but these numbers look really healthy. You have a what I would say 5.7% conversion rate.

Tyler (18:30)
Very true. Yep.

Pete (18:51)
as far as the number of times that the registration wall has has been seen. And that's you know, when the study f does come out, that's like square in the middle. Like looking at I think it's two point seven to six six point five percent or three point two to six point seven percent. It's right in the middle of that, which is right. Yeah. Right.

Tyler (19:14)
Yeah, and this is with a v with a very generous, you know, option here. So they're they're

giving away a lot of free free content before they're even asking people. So to be able to get to almost six percent is pretty remarkable.

Pete (19:23)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah. So well, clearly their contents in demand and I would argue if you do a good job with local news, you're gonna be in demand. People you're gonna have a monopoly, potential monopoly on your your area and and your your neighbors, your your residents want this information. So

Tyler (19:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And

I think they've done a really good job at sort of cultivating this like fan club around their publication. It's like people know them in the community, they've been around for for quite a while. They're a digital only operation, but they have events, they engage w with the community, and so all of those elements I think help kind of drive that conversion rate that we're seeing despite having, you know, three free views before even, you know, prompting someone to to sign up for free.

Pete (20:17)
Right. Right.

Right. Yeah, this is pretty great. I mean we're I'm looking at April first here or some sometime in early April where things started rolling and that's you know, April, May, June, maybe three months. Yeah, twenty two hundred free registered readers came in in that time frame. That's pr

Tyler (20:34)
Yeah. It's far beyond

anything that they had seen prior using a widget on the side of their site for email collection, as you can imagine, as we know, as we've seen, you know, dozens, hundreds of times at this point. So

Pete (20:40)
Hm, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd say that I'd say that the you know, the number one thing that a publisher that you as a publisher can do today, I mean the one thing is to set up a registration wall. And finally, just don't don't don't ask people to join your newsletter, require it. With the registration wall, you're drawing a line in the sand, you're saying, Hey, you want access to my content? I need your email.

Like I it I it's required and it's a fair trade and you can be as generous as you want, just like these guys, right? Three three free articles to start, then you then you then you get the wall. So you can start very generously, and then as you gain confidence, tighten and tighten tighten. And at some point, I know that this publisher will be at one free article, and then this conversion rate's gonna be higher. Way, way higher. Yeah.

Tyler (21:32)
for sure.

Yeah, it might even be double based on what we're seeing.

Pete (21:41)
Yeah.

So it's a it's amazing what a registration wall can do. And it's you know, we work closely with a lot of publishers and we get them to turn on the registration walls and it and it changes the game for them completely. Right. All of a sudden, you know, traffic, they're doubling their traffic in a year, their paid subscriptions are growing faster than they ever like by a chunk, a big chunk, faster than maybe double or more. because they're they're get they're building their list of engaged readers.

Sending that traffic back, it's becomes the flywheel. We call this the publisher flywheel. It works, but it's it's seems to be something that publishers really need to take their time on to think on because it is a big change when you're requiring you know, an email trade for content. Okay.

Tyler (22:29)
Yeah, I don't

I don't know how many publishers we've worked with, you know, who come on board knowing that they're putting up this paywall system, subscription system, we get to the end of the process and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I I didn't really want to put a put up a paywall Right. So yeah, these things these things take time and as you said, kind of using the levers available to you to gain confidence that this will work and does work and

Pete (22:37)
Right.

Right. Right. Yeah.

Yep.

Yep. Yep, exactly. All right, Tyler. This was great. Awesome. That thanks for sharing. Appreciate it very much. And yeah, if you have any if you have any questions what we're talking about here, just email us, reach out to us. info at leakypaywall.com will do the trick. or you can hit Tyler up at Paywall Project and we're always always happy to chat. So till next time.

Tyler (22:58)
Yep. Yeah, thank you.