The Economist is using email newsletters to reduce subscriber churn

Lucinda Southern of Digiday writes about how The Economist is using its email newsletters to improve subscriber retention.

Southern writes, “n recent months, the publisher has changed the daily newsletter to align with the content of its subscriber app to show the breadth of content while still chosen by editors. Making these changes led to an increase in newsletter referrals of 41%.

“‘I see individual newsletters as puzzle pieces,’ said Sunnie Huang, newsletters editor at The Economist. ‘Not only does each puzzle have to be useful, but it also has to fit with other pieces, other newsletters and products like our website, our apps and weekly print edition.’

“The weekly newsletter has also been revamped. At the end of 2018, the team made changes so that the content guides the reader through the print edition, rather than a selection of stories from the site. It also made the magazine covers more prominent to build excitement for the latest edition while adding a longer introduction to highlight the story behind the cover. Another change was expanding the editor’s picks from four stories to seven to show the range of content.”

Read more here.