Biz publications reports strong subscription sales

The Wall Street Journal and Wired both recorded the biggest single day of subscription sales in their histories on Cyber Monday while Barron’s experienced the same on Black Friday, reports Max Willens of Digiday.

Willens reports, “But even though Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) discounts are available to any consumer, most of the publishers that offered them made sure to target prospects who had shown engagement ahead of the offer launch. Some publishers credited their gains on the work that they did ahead of the two mega shopping days.

“Karl Wells, the Journal’s gm of membership, subscription sales and marketing, pointed to his publication’s brand campaign that ran at the beginning of November, as well as a three-day ‘open house,’ when the Journal dropped its paywall entirely.

“Those two elements, he said, brought in a large number of new readers and enabled the Journal’s data science team to identify a large pool of prospects who might be amenable to a Black Friday deal. ‘Suddenly, four weeks out, you’re going, ‘We’ve got a big pool of people who aren’t ready to pay for us yet but who are interested,’’ Wells said. ‘On the Wednesday of Black Friday week, we knew we were going to have a really good weekend.'”

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