Chief marketing officer Miki King explored The Washington Post’s reader revenue strategy at Digiday’s Publishing Summit Worldwide. The Post also recorded growth in its subscription business by more than 40 percent over the years.
Also, its global subscriptions have increased more than 60 percent over the years.
And the majority of the news publisher’s international traffic comes from countries that have large populations of English speakers, including the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, she said. Because of that, most of her team’s growth efforts have been targeted in those areas.
To date, that’s been done through newsletters and paid social media marketing that uses global content at its center. King said that 90% of the publication’s marketing uses article excerpts or graphics as its hook and in international locations, her team found it beneficial to include global perspectives while marketing outside of the U.S.
Additionally, King said she wanted to remove any friction from the signing up process, such as making sure the currency on the page matches the country the user is in. This was a change that was implemented within the first couple months of this year.
