Lara O’Reilly of Digiday interviewed The Economist president Bob Cohn about how the magazine has increased its subscription retention.
O’Reilly writes, “Subscriptions and circulation made up around two-thirds (£204 million ($265 million) of the £326 million ($423 million) The Economist Group generated in revenue in the year to Mar. 31 2020. In recent months, pre-pandemic, the company had already shifted its subscription strategy from focusing on acquisition to more of a retention push. The surge in subscribers during the coronavirus crisis created ‘a kind of urgency’ to keep the newly acquired users.
“‘We were an acquisition machine; we were not focused as diligently as we could on retention,’ prior to Cohn’s arrival, he said. ‘We came into this year with a determination to be better at that and embrace best practice and go beyond best practice.’
“Some of the new efforts have involved the creation of subscriber-only digital events (some 27,000 subscribers tuned in to watch a Bill Gates interview), increasing the price of its introductory offers and exclusive subscriber newsletters. The number of subscribers in The Economist’s ‘highly engaged’ category increased 21% last year, Cohn said.”
Read more here.
