How the WSJ is examining engagement to reduce churn

Anne Powell, associate director of member engagement at Dow Jones, writes about how The Wall Street Journal reduces churn among its readers.

Powell writes, “When we looked at the data around churn, we found there was a direct correlation between engagement and churn. This discovery led us to our engagement north star: average active days. Once we were able to rally around a single metric, we developed a strategy that effectively drives habit and, in turn, increases average active days.

“Our approach centres around three components: who, what, and where.

• Who: Finding who is most impressionable (proactive) or at a high risk for churn (reactive) and focusing the majority of our resource on affecting the habits of those members.
• What: Identifying the dozens of actions that have a positive effect on member retention and prioritising those within our member messaging.
• Where: Knowing who to talk to and what to say is only meaningful if it can be seen and heard, so improving and expanding communication channels is the final, and most critical, part of the strategy.”

Read more here.