Why Business Insider is offering a free trial to AmEx users

Kayleigh Barber of Digiday writes about how Business Insider is offering a trial subscription to American Express credit card users.

Barber writes, “The goal is to bring in subscribers that publications have identified as crossover target audiences beyond their traditional reach.

“Business Insider, which has more than doubled its subscriber base since the beginning of 2020, is looking at its new partnership with American Express to continue on its growth path, according to Selma Stern, BI’s svp of consumer subscriptions. She declined to disclose the total number of BI’s subscribers and those associated with the American Express relationship.

“Last week, BI started offering American Express credit card holders free six- or 12-month trials to the digital publication, depending on the type of credit card they use. This was the first brand-focused partnership specifically designed to drive subscriptions for BI and Stern said that American Express agreement had potential because its card holders have a high population density of small- and medium-sized business owners as well as others in the high-end business segment.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.