How Harvard Business Review increased registered users by 20 percent

Ricardo Bilton of Digiday writes about how the Harvard Business Review was able to increase its registered website users by 20 percent.

Bilton writes, “But Harvard Business Review thinks it can do both. The magazine, a favorite among buttoned-up academics and MBAs, has redesigned in November 2014 with elements for both audiences. For registered users, there’s ‘My Library,’ where people can save and organize their favorite articles, and ‘Visual Library,’ a collection of the magazine’s charts and slide decks. Meanwhile, HBR has boosted its social media presence to bring in new readers, with an emphasis on evergreen and how-to articles.

“The result: The site has grown its readership and created a more loyal core audience. Traffic nearly doubled in the past year, to 2.4 million monthly unique visitors in September, according to comScore. Most of that traffic came via social channels, which climbed 79 percent over past year to represent a third of HBR’s traffic. At the same time, registered user volume grew 20 percent, and the number of people who visit three times a month grew 30 percent.  Those registered users are then the most likely readers to turn into paying customers.

“‘You can come to us through social once or twice by accident and not know where you landed, but if you come three times, we know you did it on purpose,’ said HBR.org editor Katherine Bell.”

Read more here.