Section: Retaining Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A national, born-digital publication focused on policy analysis and investigative journalism that has branched out into lifestyle, sports, and business coverage
Location
Cape Town, South Africa
Founded
2009
Membership program launched
2018
Monthly unique visitors
10 million+
Number of members
19,356
Percentage of revenue from membership
30 to 35 percent

With 19,356 active members as of November 2022, Maverick Insider, the Daily Maverick’s membership program, is one of the largest in the world. In the last couple years, membership revenue has allowed it to launch a weekend print edition, publish books, and more than double its staff. 

But at any point in time, the Daily Maverick has thousands of lapsed members with credit cards on hold, many due to high rates of credit card fraud and a lack of quality payment processors in the market – something out of their control. 

That’s why Maverick Insider Retention Manager Tinashe Munyuki has been focused almost exclusively on winning back on-hold members, reinstating about 10,000 since 2020. For context, the Daily Maverick has had an average of 1,100 members on hold at any point in time.

“Had that work not been done, we wouldn’t have had the growth we’ve had… and we certainly wouldn’t be feeling so confident,” said General Manager Fran Beighton. 

This case study will walk you through the tactics Munyuki has employed to bring those members back. What this case study won’t cover is member retention tactics such as a thorough onboarding, stewardship, and member engagement. You can find advice on that in the handbook. (Jump to “Retaining your members”)

Why this is important

Growth is comparatively easy in the early years of a membership program. But as a program approaches maturity, like Maverick Insider’s program, growth can get challenging – especially if you are losing a substantial number of members along the way.

As Beighton said, “Retention is everything. It’s easier to retain than to acquire.” 

A combination of economic hardship, credit card fraud, and subpar payment gateways means that at any point in time the Daily Maverick is looking at thousands of credit cards on hold every year – and thousands in lost revenue.

The research team has heard similar challenges from newsrooms all over the world. Retention advice tends to focus on how to keep members from intentionally canceling membership. But winning back on-hold members requires a different strategy – several, actually. As you’ll see, there’s no single slam-dunk tactic that wins back hundreds of on-hold members at a time. Instead, it requires near-daily effort, resulting in a drip-drip of small wins.  

What they did

There are four prongs to the Daily Maverick’s strategy for winning back on-hold members.

  1. They send frequent emails asking people to update their credit card.

Most newsrooms do this (called dunning), but the Daily Maverick is more aggressive than most. Munyuki sometimes sends as many as three reminder emails a week. They constantly test subject lines, length of emails, sender name, incentives, and more to increase open rates. The key is to keep these emails fresh in tone and content so they don’t become background noise. 

Occasionally they add conditional modules to their newsletters letting recipients know their membership is on hold. This yields three to seven conversions each time it’s included. 

A screenshot of a lapsed membership message in First Thing, their flagship newsletter
  1. They process transactions again.

Sometimes credit cards fail because of insufficient funds or a bank connection issue. This captures those errors. 

  1. They get on the phone.

In August 2022, they spent two hours calling and WhatsApping 194 on-hold members, reaching 93 of them. The call team included two Maverick Insider staff and three reporters. 

Any reader with an account, not just members, can opt to follow certain journalists and receive an email when that journalist publishes a story. This feature helped the team identify journalists with big followings who could call members and might have a higher chance of nudging on-hold members to take action.

Maverick Insider Manager Julia Harris wrote a script that everyone could follow, but after just a couple calls, they shifted to a more natural, 1:1 conversation. 

Munyuki emailed everyone on the call list just before the calls started so if a lapsed member said they wanted to renew, the instructions were already in their inbox and no payment details would have to be taken over the phone. Most calls were over after just 30 or 40 seconds, but occasionally they lasted 10 minutes. 

The call team used burner phones but one journalist started WhatsApping people from his personal phone, Beighton said. It became a challenge he wanted to win and he ended up taking the rest of his list home with the goal of getting them all “across the line.” 

  1. They show them grace. 

The Daily Maverick allows people to pause their membership if they can’t afford it for a time. They send regular reminders that can be summarized as, “If you still can’t pay, that’s no problem, but if you’re able to pay again, please update your account.”

The results

Regular emails asking people to update their payment information remain their most successful tactic. Overall, dunning emails have won back the vast majority of their lapsed members in 2022. 

From the multitude of tests they’ve run, the team has learned: 

  • Short, to-the-point emails are most successful, as are direct subject lines like “Your membership is overdue”.
  • Sends from Munyuki make a difference. His emails had lower open rates but higher conversions. People who no longer wanted to be a member wouldn’t open it; people who had lapsed accidentally knew immediately what the email was about and would open.
  • Sending dunning emails from journalists can backfire. One sent from a well-known journalist had higher open rates but also a much higher unsubscribe rate when people realized what it was about.
  • Incentives don’t convert on-hold members. Munyuki experimented with offering on-hold members discount vouchers for products in Daily Maverick’s online store, which includes not just branded swag but books. Conversion rates are “significantly low”, Munyuki said. In June 2022 they made this offer to 909 on-hold members and won back 70 of them. In October 2022 they made this offer to 799 on-hold members and regained 54 of them. These conversion rates are comparable to their win-back efforts that don’t involve any incentives, but more costly due to the discounts offered.  Once a quarter Daily Maverick also offers voluntarily paused members an opportunity to resume payments at a lower membership tier price with the full benefits of the higher tier, but these discounted memberships don’t show meaningful conversion either. 

The tactic of processing credit cards again yields an 8 to 10 percent success rate, Munyuki said. From December 2021 to November 2022, they’ve retried credit cards 3,700 times, winning back close to 300 members. 

Their phone banking day taught them a lot – not just about that tactic, but about others that might work. They called 194 people and reached 93. Of those 93 people they reached, 78 said they would update and 11 actually updated their credit card details. They weren’t able to track the WhatsApp conversion as precisely, but they found the people they reached there to be friendlier and more engaged. Because the phone banking turned out to have comparable results to other lower effort win-back tactics, they’re investing more resources in that WhatsApp strategy now. 

They’re planning on getting WhatsApp for business, and in October 2022, they used WhatsApp to let people know about home delivery for DM 168, their weekend newspaper. Harris hypothesizes that this works because people are more likely to ignore a phone call from a number they don’t recognize than a WhatsApp message – but the thing they’re paying the most attention to is how much more responsive people are via WhatsApp than email. 

Harris said they used WhatsApp soon after to notify people who receive their weekend print edition at home that there were delivery issues and their newspaper would be delayed. People saw and responded to the texts promptly.

Up next: on-screen notifications for lapsed members. 

The Daily Maverick doesn’t have a paywall, and that’s not going to change. But that complicates retention efforts. If someone’s membership lapses, they might not realize it because their ability to access stories doesn’t change.

But they recently launched a registration wall, which means people have to be logged in to read and can receive regular renewal reminders in another place that’s not a crowded email inbox. They’ll soon start experimenting with ribbons at the top of a page notifying people of expirations and with a link to a payment page.

An early demo of the ribbon. Courtesy of the Daily Maverick.

What they learned

Incentives don’t convert. Benefits and discounts have never played a major role in their membership growth, and it turns out they don’t do much for winning back lapsed members either. Incentives to rejoin had little impact. Those who update their information do it because they want to support the Daily Maverick, Munyuki said. It’s the same with member conversion. 

Emails don’t last as long as phone numbers. Phone banking showed that many lapsed members were lapsed because they changed jobs and lost access to their former email address. But people tend to give their personal phone numbers, which last much longer than email addresses.

Eventually, you have to stop trying. After a year, they’re unlikely to get someone back. They stop investing any resources at that stage, letting on-hold members go with a final email that says, “We still need you, but we don’t think you’re coming back.” 

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

You can be more aggressive with the frequency of email reminders than you think. If someone wants to be a member, you’ll get their attention. If they don’t want to be members, they might unsubscribe – but you were unlikely to win them back anyways. 

Winning back members happens through routine. You can’t win back hundreds of members with one or two pushes a year. Winning back lapsed members takes several different tactics, all executed regularly and with a close eye on the data. 

Email is efficient, but that means inboxes are crowded. It can take dozens of dunning emails to accomplish what one push on WhatsApp accomplishes because of how quickly member renewal emails can get buried in people’s inboxes. A successful dunning strategy requires constant experimentation to make those emails stand out. 

Other resources 

Disclosure: Membership Puzzle Project supported the Daily Maverick’s membership program in 2019 with a grant from the Membership in News Fund.

National Investigative Digital native Daily Maverick Retaining our Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A digital magazine based in Berlin that focuses on explanatory journalism and collaborations with readers
Location
Berlin, Germany
Founded
2014
Launched membership
2015
Monthly unique visitors
474,755
Number of members
13,676
Percentage of revenue from membership
86 percent

Krautreporter launched in 2014 with a bang. It raised $1.38 million from 17,000 individuals via a crowdfunding campaign. They considered those supporters its first members. 

But after that exciting launch came reality: In order for its business to succeed, Krautreporter needed to keep those supporters for a second year – but it lost 70 percent of them when that time came around. The team chalked that up to two things: not asking crowdfunding contributors to become recurring members from the start, and a gap between what crowdfund supporters thought Krautreporter would be and what they got once it started publishing.  

“That turned out to be a big problem one year later… we had to come up with a new value proposition, and that’s the one that works for us [now],” said Sebastian Esser, the founding publisher who now leads the membership platform Steady. 

In its second year, Krautreporter revamped its strategy to prioritize retention over growth, introducing a paywall and refining its focus on engagement. It’s continued to make retention a priority since by adding features to encourage sharing, and prioritizing annual renewals.

Today, the organization has 13,676 members and a rolling annual retention rate of 54.8 percent. 

Why this is important

It is less labor intensive and more cost effective to retain members than to gain new ones – and the longer someone is a member, the more value they bring as a financial contributor and brand ambassador. 

This is especially true at organizations like Krautreporter that provide a distinct news experience. But when you offer something a bit different than people are used to, you also have to be incredibly clear about your value proposition. That gap between expectations and reality can make retention a challenge, especially in a newsroom’s first year.

“Some of the things we’ve been doing in the membership with regards to community work and engagement are not things that people are used to if they have a subscription to The New York Times or the German newspaper Der Spiegel,” said Krautreporter publisher Leon Fryszer. “You expect a transactional (approach) — money for text. We don’t know what to expect if suddenly we have this community driven journalism approach where we engage you in our reporting. Fundamentally, that is not something they know what it means. We always say that engagement doesn’t sell because people don’t know what it is.”

What they did

As Krautreporter entered its second year, 70 percent of its initial supporters chose not to sign on as members.

Some of that was because members who joined through the crowdfunding campaign only made one-time contribution. Without automated recurring payments in place, one of the most foundational ways to support retention, Krautreporter struggled to encourage renewals.

They also had a hard time telling their story.

“People weren’t really sure what we were. They could tell we were different, but before us telling them and being very explicit about this is what we do and this is what you get, they were a little bit confused. Just putting our stories out there in the different formats didn’t explain what we do,” Esser said. 

As Krautreporter moved through its second year — and beyond — it made a couple key changes to improve its retention:

  • It refined its value proposition so there was less of a chance of new members canceling because of misplaced expectations
  • It introduced a paywall and a benefit that allowed members to share their membership with others
  • It studied the link between survey participation and retention (surveys are at the core of Krautreporter’s engagement model)
  • It made annual payments the default membership option and implemented small nudges to incentivize people to renew annually

Krautreporter began to emphasize the explainer nature of its coverage. It doesn’t publish a ton of stories, instead focusing on helping its members better make sense of the world. The team worked on making that value proposition clear to both members and potential members. 

Krautreporter also introduced its paywall, as well as a shared login benefit that allows members to extend their membership to others. “I don’t think we would have survived without adding that paywall,” Esser said.  

The paywall is key to that because it is what makes the membership sharing benefit viable, and Krautreporter learned through user research that members are less likely to cancel if they know that others are dependent on them for access. (This is also one of the reasons that Netflix has not worked hard to crack down on password sharing.)

Krautreporter was heavily invested in surveying its audience members regularly from the beginning, but it wasn’t until the second year that the team began paying close attention to how participation affected retention. Krautrerporter learned that on average, readers who participate in at least one survey remain members for roughly four months longer than a non-survey taker. 

Krautreporter also decided to prioritize annual memberships after realizing that many of their monthly members joined just to read a specific article or articles and soon canceled. They did so by making annual the default option — with increasing price tiers that allow for members to add additional accounts. Krautreporter offers monthly subscriptions, but users need to take an extra click to sign up for them and they cost more over the course of a year.

Krautreporter’s membership landing page, with the annual default (Courtesy of Krautreporter)

In recent months Krautreporter has also introduced new email newsletters and other features, such as categorizing articles by length and telling readers how long it’ll take them to finish a story. They launched these time management features after hearing through audience research that members found Krautreporter “time expensive.”

“By giving Krautreporter some money in 2014 meant you’re on the team of the progressive journalism crowd,” Esser said. “So I mean, that makes you feel better. Also, it’s a statement to your community… But it’s completely different today. I mean, we had to build a product that works. But now people have no idea that we are crowdfunded and what the backstory is and all that. Actually, we start telling people now because we can’t take it for granted that they know this stuff.”

The results

Encouraging annual recurring payments has helped. Sixty percent of its new annual members stay on for the second year, but retention among monthly members only reaches 60 percent retention after their third month of membership. In others words, a significant portion drop off after only a couple months. (This is one of the challenges that organizations with paywalls face – sometimes people pay to be able to access a set of stories for a certain period of time.)

“The conclusion from this was that, of course, for us business-wise it makes sense for us to make annual memberships cheaper, but it’s also a fair move to tell people that we see this is a long-term commitment for you, and you’ll be [spending] more money with us anyway, so we make the annual memberships cheaper because it’s a commitment on your side,” Fryszer said. 

The membership renewals — both annual and monthly — are processed through Steady, the membership platform that Krautreporter founder Esser co-founded, and which it uses for the business end of membership. And they are automatically renewed, which is essential for retention. Members are also reminded that their membership is going to renew just before they are charged again. 

“That’s one of the key things to keep in mind when you start off with membership: You want that long-term commitment in the sense of automatic renewal from the start,” Fryszer said. “What you don’t really want to happen is that a year later you have to ask everyone for their credit card again because that’s basically another crowdfunding, and that’s probably going to break your neck.”

What they learned

Doing something new requires a lot of explanation. It takes time for members to fully understand what they’re getting from Krautreporter and its engagement-heavy style of journalism. That’s one of the reasons why the site prefers annual memberships — it affords it the opportunity to introduce readers to its surveys and its journalism. 

“Annual membership gives yourself more time to actually show them the work that you do,” Fryszer said. “Frankly, people probably won’t engage with the first things that you do. After a while, they’ll realize how things work…The longer you’re a member, the more likely you are to at some point see something that you’re super interested in and to pick up the engagement offers that we give you. I think that’s also why you want to give yourself some time with a membership model.”

Onboarding helps with that. One way Krautreporter has tried to nudge members along is via a four-email onboarding series that introduces them to its survey-based engagement strategy, asks members to share information such as their expertise, and more. 

Retention starts early. Krautreporter offers non-members some articles and surveys for free so readers can sample its approach to engagement. This helps the site identify potential candidates for membership. “It filters out people who are not engaged and would not stay on longer,” said Fryszer.

Time is money. The most common reason Krautreporter members cancel their membership is because they say they don’t have enough time. Fryszer said that feedback has made the site realize that it needs to give members more structure to help them fit Krautreporter’s journalism into their lives. 

It already started adjusting with new features mentioned above, including telling readers how long it will take them to read a story and another feature that is still under development that groups stories by length. Krautreporter also plans to develop new products that are more finite and give readers an experience they can finish and feel caught up to the news. 

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Showing what you’re about is hard work, especially in the beginning. Newsrooms need to be regularly reminding members of the value proposition they’re offering their audiences. This is especially important upon launching from scratch, when readers will have all sorts of preconceptions about what the newsroom is offering.

“Disappointing lots of people along the way, is probably the most stressful phase of my life,” Esser said. “And I never want to do it again. But you should definitely be aware when you start something like that, that this is coming your way. Because it happens to every project that I know that starts from zero. You first have to find out within your team and you know, coworkers and all that, what you actually want to do. And then of course, you need a business model and an audience and members while you do that.. And that creates all kinds of misunderstandings, disappointments, and membership is always emotional, it’s about relationships. For me, that created a lot of stress.” 

Pay attention to why your readers are canceling. Krautreporter was able to identify two common reasons and it came up with potential solutions to both. The first, that many people who joined monthly did so to access a specific article, they attempted to address by making annual memberships more valuable and making them the default.

The second, that engaging with Krautreporter was too time consuming, they are focusing now on providing products that are finishable and don’t take as long to read. 

Consider taking advantage of canceling members’ attention one last time by including a one-sentence survey on your cancellation page asking why they are canceling, or following up personally. Keep track of the answers you receive, and think about how you can make changes that could solve some of those pain points.

Disclosure: Membership Puzzle Project supported a separate Krautreporter project in 2019 through the Membership in News Fund.

Other resources

National Digital native Discovering our Value Proposition Designing our Membership Program Launching Membership Krautreporter Retaining our Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A Dutch member-driven news organization that brings context to the news by rejecting the daily news cycle and collaborating with their readers.
Location
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Founded
2013
Membership program launched
2013
Monthly unique visitors
550,000
Number of members
69,340
Percentage of revenue coming from members
53.8 percent*

De Correspondent built a member-financed newsroom from the ground up. Building a company that retains members is something they’ve long practiced across internal teams. But they’ve of course encountered challenges, including in scaling the model globally. The organization has demonstrated the importance of intentionality and organization-wide methods for meeting members where they are at.

The research team explored the daily newsroom routines and external member engagement activities that they’ve found most powerful for keeping members front of mind. Mayke Blok, membership strategist at De Correspondent and The Correspondent, told MPP that “the fact that we started off as a member focused organization really, really helps. So it’s in the DNA. But I think we did stray a bit from what our members thought and wanted for a while and resolved that by getting more in touch with them.” See how they’re doing this now.

*95 percent of De Correspondent’s revenue came from readers in 2019. The remainder came from book sales and donations.

Why this is important

De Correspondent Managing Editor Maaike Goslinga and Conversation Editor Gwen Martèl have both worked at the publication since its early days. In reflecting on what has worked in collaborating with members, they noted, “The most important lesson throughout the years to build a membership-focused newsroom is: don’t consider members as an afterthought, but include them in your daily thinking.”

Editorially, this entails taking the suggestions of members seriously and increasingly responding to member requests for specific information. But that becomes a huge task when your membership program approaches almost 70,000 members.

In its seven years of publishing, De Correspondent has found that it isn’t enough to chase competitors in the Netherlands and around the world and relentlessly publish stories. Among their core principles are “we are your antidote to the daily news grind” and “we collaborate with you, our knowledgeable members.”

The two principles are closely tied. Articles need to reflect correspondents’ unique vantage points and offer members new ways of understanding contemporary problems, often including their expertise. Strategically, this combination helps De Correspondent focus on member retention (as opposed to acquiring new members), with a current organizational goal of maintaining 70,000 De Correspondent members.

What they did

In practice, editorial and membership teams realize the “don’t consider members as an afterthought” goal in a number of forms, starting with strategic staffing or identifying appropriate point people internally. De Correspondent co-founder and CEO Ernst Pfauth identified a trend that’s common in many newsrooms: for organizations with relatively flat hierarchies, it’s easy for responsibilities that seem like everyone’s shared concern to not move forward in the shuffle of day-to-day work.

In response they created a conversation editor role held by Gwen Martèl. Members tell staff that De Correspondent actually feels more personal than when there were fewer members on the platform, thanks in part to the introduction of this role. 

As detailed in this post, the conversation editor role involves coaching staff on how to work with members, including:

Efforts to build a member-focused culture from inside the newsroom, such as:

  • Transforming lessons learned about member participation into new features for a “member rolodex” and the wider platform.
  • Helping correspondents enrich their reporting with members’ knowledge and experiences. Martèl said that for each article or new pitch, “We ask: how can we involve members? It all boils down to the simple realization that members have a lot of knowledge and experience that can be useful for our journalism.”

Improving conversations with members, and their experiences overall, by:

  • Bringing more diverse voices to the on-platform comments section
  • Inviting members to take part in discussions they’re knowledgeable about
  • Organizing dissent

Martèl works closely with Pfauth, who is serving as product owner for De Correspondent’s site and new mobile app. They’re working to ensure that their design and development of features don’t deliver on only a small group of members’ requests. They’re stepping back to see which member voices they’re taking into account when making decisions (and recently have begun other staff projects focused on improving service for specific groups of members, including new members and people whose engagement on the platform have waned). 

This is all part of more direct communication practices between staff and members as part of developing “a continuing story with them,” said chief engagement and campaign leader Lena Bril. In the past members have shared their experiences on De Correspondent podcasts and in articles on the platform too, and they’re asked to pose their questions to correspondents and podcast guests in advance of interviews.

More recently, one frequent member request for an audio app with stories read by correspondents crossed the threshold of being potentially useful to many members. The request was included in development of the audio app and the conversation between members and correspondents will feature prominently.

In September 2020 members were notified of the new audio app via email: “The world’s a busy place, but independent journalism that cuts through the noise is more important than ever.”

The results

In order to stay member-focused while scaling, De Correspondent has

  • Created substantive routines for keeping members in mind throughout a story’s life cycle.
  • Started surveying members regularly about their experiences and ideas.
  • Added a full time conversation editor whose job it is to enrich the site’s journalism with the knowledge and experience of members (including ensuring that the online comments section is an open and safe space).
  • Created a weekly membership metrics and engagement report for all staff and more broadly published member sentiments through all-company Slack channels.

Initiatives that are keeping De Correspondent member-centered are highly grounded in listening to members and reporting insights to colleagues. Bril said the organization is in the habit of talking directly to individual members whenever that feels logical. In general, members are the first to know when there is important organizational news, including new features and correspondents. For the latter, the daily newsletter to members will include a note explaining that the staff would like to introduce members to their new correspondent. Members are regularly thanked in that newsletter for their support and contribution to De Correspondent’s journalism, and they’re encouraged to respond with their feedback. 

As detailed in this case study on how De Correspondent refreshed its member insights, De Correspondent surveys its members quarterly in addition to soliciting their thoughts at the beginning and renewal phases of their memberships. The membership team then shares updates on what members have told them, which ultimately helps the rest of the organization understand what is preoccupying their membership at any given time. 

Internally, the membership team’s introduction of a weekly membership metrics and engagement report for all staff has been successful. In a monthly presentation to staff the membership team presents the most insightful information from traffic data (pageviews, growth, engagement, requests, and more). The information is also helpful for story sourcing. Recently De Correspondent received many member questions about the workings of 5G connections that resulted in publication of a “super explainer” about the technology. The report was useful in helping identify member interest in 5G that led to the explainer, and when the story was published, members were informed that their request was heard and acted on. 

Instead of forwarding individual pieces of member communication only to the most relevant correspondent, engagement staff are now sharing more broadly on relevant general Slack channels. To improve transparency and visibility into members’ reasons for cancelling their memberships, there’s also now a real-time “cancel channel” that’s available to the wider company to watch.

What they learned

The portion of members who care about on-site comments doesn’t represent all readership. Pfauth said that early in De Correspondent’s operations, he was highly focused on the communications that staff, members, and non-members could see: their on-site comments. (The comments sections below correspondents’ articles are accessible for posting by members only, though all readers can see the comments.)

Pfauth has since learned through member research how little many of the organization’s members cared about those comments. Because only a percentage of members said they valued comments on their own, the team now serves a curatorial role in directing members’ attention to those individual comments that are especially meaningful, including through emails to members. Today the engagement team regularly organizes Q&As with relevant invited guests whose contributions may have otherwise been buried deep within the comments.

The team has also learned the value in being flexible around hosting live gatherings. One form of listening that De Correspondent regularly practiced — meeting its members live at in-person events — started to change even before the 2020 coronavirus pandemic kept members at home. The organization previously hosted large live events several times annually, partially to remind staff that they exist because of their members’ financial support and participation. While it created goodwill and community between members and staff, it wasn’t financially viable to keep ticket costs low and host events without sponsorship.

They’ve since had experts join smaller groups of members for 40 or 50 person gatherings (sometimes taking the form of small events and panels at the newsroom) and hosted smaller hackathons that are more focused around De Correspondent’s journalism itself. Pfauth said that with the changing strategy around live events, members see less of staff in real life but that the decision helped the organization be more resource considerate, particularly around use of staff time.

Key takeaways and cautionary tales

Keep members top of mind takes work in a mature member-driven newsroom. When your membership program reaches the size of De Correspondent’s, it can be easy to let it run on autopilot. Instead, De Correspondent hired a conversation editor and implemented several new newsroom processes, including a real time “cancel channel,” to ensure the whole newsroom continues to keep members on their mind.

Other resources

Disclosure: De Correspondent is a founding partner of Membership Puzzle Project.

National Digital native Developing Memberful Routines Staffing our Membership Strategy De Correspondent Retaining our Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A Danish member-driven newsroom that seeks to add complexity and curiosity to the news
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Founded
2016
Membership program launched
2016
Number of members
17,000+
Percentage of revenue from membership
83 percent

Within a month of Denmark’s coronavirus lockdown beginning,  Zetland could see that this was going to be a tough moment for many of their members – Zetland was hearing from members about losing jobs, having their hours cut, or being unable to work. Zetland wanted to find a way to keep these members through the tough times. At the same time, they knew other members were in more fortunate positions and might want to help during this time of crisis. 

So Zetland rolled out a series of pricing adjustments and doubled down on their retention efforts. They offered price flexibility to those who asked to cancel their membership, asked those who could afford to pay more to do so, and experimented with a new feature to make membership more valuable. 

Why this is important

It is important to invest in retaining your members, especially during a recession. Recruiting and signing up a new member is a costly endeavor, likely more costly than giving your existing members some flexibility on payment for a little while. Focus on retaining the people who already know and like what you do. 

But offering discounts or price breaks for membership is a delicate balance. If you discount it too much or message the discount poorly, you risk devaluing membership. Zetland has been careful to send the message that it’s not becoming a “pay what you want” company – instead, they want to be known as a company with a set value that is empathetic and willing to be flexible with their members. 

While the coronavirus pandemic is (hopefully) an extreme example of sudden economic hardship, Zetland’s approach to keeping its members is instructive for any newsroom in a community facing economic hardship, whether caused by a virus, a natural disaster, or a market crisis.

What they did

Zetland knew that most members were facing one of two scenarios during the coronavirus pandemic: either Zetland was suddenly a luxury good for those hit hard by the recession, or they were financially stable and wanted to do their part to ensure Zetland survived. 

So, starting April 15, Zetland added a new feature to their unsubscribe page: a note next to the unsubscribe button that says, essentially, “If you’ve been negatively impacted by all of this, don’t leave us for good. Tell us what your situation is, and we’ll reduce the price of membership for you.”

The page invited those who were about to unsubscribe to pay what they could instead. They informed members of the change via email. In the same email, they wrote, “If you find yourself in the lucky situation of not being hit by this pandemic, please consider paying more.”  

As the coronavirus pandemic dragged on, they doubled down on their efforts to retain the members they had.

During Zetland’s 2019 ambassador campaign and during their February roadshow (a series of stops the newsroom made to five cities in Denmark to meet their members there), they heard that members wanted a better way to express the value of Zetland and what the newsroom meant to them personally. Above all, they heard that members wanted to communicate this value with Zetland’s articles. 

Previously, Zetland (which has a paywall) had given ambassadors – or anyone who has recruited a new Zetland member – the opportunity to send their contacts a set of Zetland articles as a way to entice them to join. Zetland decided to try making this package of articles a perk for any new member, and moved it from being a sales pitch to a key part of the new-member onboarding welcome package. They launched this new feature on Aug. 24, 2020. 

Courtesy of Zetland, August 2020

Here’s how it works: Current members and ambassadors create a “package” containing their three favorite Zetland articles (see image to the left for what this web page looks like). Then, current members are encouraged to share their personal URL link with their friends and family. When their friend or family members joins Zetland, they are then immediately presented with a personalized onboarding package from their referring contact that includes the three “must read” articles. (Note: Zetland members are still able to share individual Zetland articles with friends apart from this “onboarding package,” but the team sees this process as an intentional way to greet new members.)

The Zetland team let members choose the package of stories, rather than making suggestions, because they knew the pull of a friend recommending an article would be stronger than the pull of anything recommended by an algorithm. 

The results

As of September, 283 members had taken Zetland up on the pay-what-you-want offer on their cancellation page. These members are now, on average, paying 45DKK, or about $7 a month. This is a little more than a third of the average general price of 113DKK, or about $18 per month. 

On the other hand, 233 members decided to donate an average of 65DKK extra a month, or about $10 a month. What this means is that those 233 members are largely offsetting the cost to Zetland of those 283 members who asked to pay less for their membership.

Zetland also began studying its analytics for broader retention insights around this time. They noticed that when a member stops reading Zetland at least once a week, that’s a strong indicator that they’re likely to cancel their membership. A key part of retention is building habits, so the flip side of that is also true: when someone’s habit begins to wane, you’re more likely to lose them.  

The new onboarding package had just been launched at the time of publication, so MPP does not have results on that yet. Zetland plans on comparing the difference in retention in the first few weeks after someone becomes a member since implementing this new feature, as well as long-term retention a year or two into membership. 

What they learned

Maintain empathy with your members beyond the initial crisis. Zetland only removed the new language next to their unsubscribe button on Aug. 18. They decided to keep it up beyond the spring to give this explicit option to folks who might be hit with financial hardship throughout the summer. Even though they’ve now removed this specific language, Zetland still allows members to pause their membership payments from 7 day and up to 90 day increments. This allows Zetland to stick with the price they’ve defined for their membership program, while letting people take breaks as they need it. 

Leverage your most loyal readers and members for ideas on how to improve your membership program. The roadshow the Zetland team went on in February to speak to readers and members across five cities in Denmark allowed the team to talk to what CEO Tav Klitgaard calls the “hot onion” – the small and mighty segment of Zetland members who are the newsroom’s most loyal fans

This segment of members is largely composed of Zetland’s ambassadors, who have their own email list and Facebook group, and have opted into additional communication from the Zetland team. Conversations with the ~200 or so folks in the “hot onion” group during the roadshow planted the idea for the story package feature. After the roadshow, Zetland sent a survey to all of their members (not just the super-fans) to double check that this feature was something other members wanted. They ended up receiving 1,600 survey responses that validated what they heard in-person. 

Key takeaways and cautionary notes 

Keep your value proposition clear when you make changes to your payment structures and discounts. Zetland makes it clear with their members that they are a newsroom that expects members to pay a set price per month (129DKK, or about $20 USD per month.) Zetland does not want to be or want to be known as a “pay what you want” company – instead, they want to be known as a company with a set value that is empathetic and willing to be flexible with their members. This distinction is key, and Zetland is careful to emphasize this point in their marketing with members and in the language on sign-up forms on their site.

Other resources 

National Digital native Conducting Audience Research Making the Business Case for Membership Adopting a Product Mindset Retaining our Members Zetland

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A Dutch member-driven news organization that brings context to the news by rejecting the daily news cycle and collaborating with their readers.
Location
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Founded
2013
Launched membership
2013
Monthly unique visitors
550,000
Number of members
69,340
Percentage of revenue from membership
53.8 percent*

In summer 2017, members of the Membership Puzzle Project team traveled to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht to interview De Correspondent’s members. They interviewed 30 members with varied occupations, membership tenure, and reasons for supporting the organization, with the goal of gathering insights to iterate on De Correspondent’s membership program. In the process, they helped inform the membership program for what would become English-language publication The Correspondent. 

De Correspondent staff participated in the interviews and were the stakeholders for the resulting synthesis. Three years later, MPP asked the membership and editorial staff what insights from that exercise have “stuck.”

*95 percent of De Correspondent’s revenue came from readers in 2019. The remainder came from book sales and donations.

Why this is important

What works for your members during Year One of your membership program may no longer work quite as well a few years later. The most successful member-driven organizations have a strong capacity to flex, and are continually gathering formal and informal feedback on how they should adapt as their membership base grows and changes. 

Many organizations undertake a rigorous audience research process before launching their membership program, then “set it and forget it.” The process undertaken by De Correspondent offers a blueprint for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your membership program when it’s no longer brand new. 

What they did

De Correspondent published a call for member research participants (language here) and, together with the Membership Puzzle Project team, selected 30 people from those who submitted information about themselves. The teams worked to be thorough in engaging the voices of people who:

  • Represented a range of involvement with DC, including readers, commenters, and experts who had offered story help to correspondents.
  • Were diverse in terms of age, gender, profession, and level of interaction with other media sites. 

Participating members then scheduled time based on their availability and location. All responded to the same questions (included at the end of this document) whether they were interviewed individually or in longer-running sessions with groups of eight members.

Immediately following each conversation, staff who facilitated and observed the sessions from MPP and De Correspondent listed what they’d learned that was a confirmation or a surprise for them, an exercise that is detailed in step #14 of this Poytner article. The MPP team then undertook a deeper note review and theme mapping that culminated in an end-of-listening-week presentation to De Correspondent staff.

The results

Through the interviews, De Correspondent gained the following insights:

Members want to support De Correspondent, not just use the product. Chief Engagement & Campaign Leader Lena Bril, who took part in the original 2017 member interviews, said, “Overall it was a fantastic way to hear that our ideals resonated with our members… Almost all insights have become part of our DNA. The insight that members want to support us, not just use the product, is important.” 

Constantly communicate what your organization stands for. Mayke Blok, Membership Strategist at De Correspondent and its English language sister publication The Correspondent, said, “I think what we learned from conducting those interviews was how well informed our Dutch members are about the principles and our mission and how important it is to continuously communicate what we stand for to our members.”

Members’ voices need specific representation. Starting in 2019 De Correspondent created a full-time membership team, including Blok as strategist, Daphne van der Kroft as membership director, and Daan Aerts as data analyst to attempt to implement the members’ voice into the organization more.

“We do this by looking at our member data, conducting more surveys and trying to communicate the wishes and desires of our members to the rest of the organization. I think this helped to make all parts of the organization, ranging from editorial to development, more aware of how our members view our journalism and what they like and dislike” beyond the initial interview research, Blok said. (Jump to MPP’s case study on their commitment to collecting minimal data for more on that.)

The research insights weren’t all positive, but Blok said the process of gathering insights was useful: “It showed how perfectly members could pinpoint flaws within the organization and how valuable their opinion is to avoid blind spots in how we operate.” 

What they learned

Show different approaches to correspondents’ beats: “One of the most useful lessons was that our members really appreciate it when we show that we disagree with each other. Since the interviews we highlight that more often on our platform and in our newsletters,” Bril said.

In recent practice this has involved publishing the different perspectives of two climate correspondents, Eric Holthaus (who is somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of what can be done about climate change) and Jelmer Mommers (who often writes about how humans can incite change while there is still hope for the planet), and the conversations between them. Other examples include De Correspondent’s economics correspondent Jesse Frederik and education correspondent Johannes Visser discussing whether market forces have an influence on education and Frederik debating economics correspondent Rutger Bregman about lazy argumentation on this podcast.

Invite members to pay more than membership costs: Bril said the insight that many members would be open to and feel validated in paying more for De Correspondent’s journalism has been and continues to be useful. One example of how they’ve made it actionable is in setting up a new foundation to make it easy for individuals and institutions to donate beyond the annual membership fee. When staff shared the idea of creating this new Correspondent Foundation with members, they did so by inviting members to “think along” with staff about the shape such an organization might take and encouraged members to consider applying for a volunteer position at the nascent foundation.

Make surveying members a part of regular engagement: Sending digital surveys to members is now a regular, albeit time-consuming, activity. New members are sent surveys about their expectations within 30 days of joining De Correspondent, then surveyed about their experiences approximately quarterly (with questions requesting reactions to editorial style and what changes they would want to see on the platform) and again as their annual renewal date approaches. Beyond those inputs, “it would be advantageous to go through the process with a moderator or external researcher again,” said Bril about embarking on a larger listening tour.

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Through active listening, your organization can learn what your current and prospective members value most. Members don’t pay De Correspondent for digital access. They pay to contribute to what they consider to be a public good. De Correspondent cofounder and CEO Ernst Pfauth said that, following the 2017 member interviews, he’s found himself repeating the insight about what makes a De Correspondent membership most worth retaining to those who have them. “They appreciate the constructive aspect of what we’re doing,” Pfauth. He says the process of getting to know members better has been “like therapy” for the organization. 

Other resources

Disclosure: De Correspondent is a founding partner of Membership Puzzle Project.

National Digital native Conducting Audience Research De Correspondent Designing our Membership Program Retaining our Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A digital magazine based in Berlin that focuses on explanatory journalism and collaborations with readers
Location
Berlin, Germany
Founded
2014
Launched membership
2015
Monthly unique visitors
474,755
Number of members
13,676
Percentage of revenue from membership
86 percent

Krautreporter editor-in-chief Rico Grimm and publisher Leon Fryszer are often called “the survey guys.” That’s because surveys are baked into almost everything the newsroom does, from asking for story ideas, to gathering feedback on a product, to sourcing the crowd’s knowledge and finding experts on certain topics. Everyone in the newsroom is responsible for writing and using surveys, and has been trained in basic synthesis and segmentation to inform their editorial work. 

In 2019, Grimm and Fryszer mapped out their entire surveying framework, from what types of surveys they do to what kind of outcomes each achieves. They’ve probed how surveys can be used as a growth tactic, and even identified what surveys can’t do for them. And then they put all of that into a playbook, which MPP discusses here.

Why this is important

Krautreporter has taken the guesswork out of designing surveys.

When done well, surveys provide an abundance of knowledge and resources, including leads on stories, expertise from members, and feedback on products.

But incorporating audience member feedback as extensively as Krautreporter has can quickly overwhelm a newsroom if the process isn’t templated. Krautreporter’s survey practices are notable not just for the quality of the information they provide to the reporters, but how systematically and regularly they are done. As MPP has found, what gets routinized is what becomes culture – and if you want to become member-centric, you need a process for regularly serving them.

From the members’ perspective, filling out a survey is one of the simplest forms of participation by members. It’s valuable on its own, but it might also be the first step on a path to greater participation. You always need people to help you out by taking a survey or sitting for an interview. If someone asks you, “What can I do other than give money?”, the easiest answer is usually “Tell us what you think about this” or “Fill out this survey.”

What they did

At any point in time, Krautreporter might be running 3 to 5 surveys to collect everything from feedback on products to their members’ expertise on a specific topic. With eight reporters on payroll, this means half the newsroom is asking their audiences questions at any given time. They keep it simple, using survey templates they created in Typeform. In 2019, they took a step back and mapped out every type of survey they conduct, identifying why and how of each. 

The result was the Engaged Journalism Playbook, supported by the European Journalism Centre, which shares how they do everything from designing their surveys to evaluating the results. Krautreporter’s preferred surveying tool is Typeform mainly because it can be easily completed on mobile and integrates well with their other tools like Airtable. MPP has pulled some of the highlights below.

Vote on topics: Use surveys to ask your audience to vote on the topic they are most interested in. The results of this survey will help guide editorial coverage and the ensuring engagement tactics around the most-popular topic. A Krautreporter “topic vote” survey includes five options for topics that they could cover, and invites audience members to tell Krautreporter which they’re most interested in. When Krautreporter publishes a story on the most popular topic, there’s a built in engagement cycle: We asked, here’s how you responded, and here’s how we delivered. 

Example: Reporter Susan Mücke writes a column “A Manual For Everyday Life.” For each piece, she creates two surveys: one where she collects questions that readers want answered, and the second where she lets readers vote on the questions she collected.

Ask about the spin: Sometimes, staff will simply ask readers: what questions do you have about topic X? The answers can help them figure out what angle to take on a broad topic.

Example: Grimm did this when researching Bitcoin. He received several specific questions from audiences, but also comments like, “I don’t even know where to start,” which showed Grimm that audiences felt overwhelmed and confused by cryptocurrency as a topic generally. This feedback showed him he should first write a piece explaining Bitcoin. 

Ask about experiences and knowledge: Reporters often struggle to identify people who can humanize a story. Kautreporter asks members if they’ve had any experiences with a topic they are covering. 

Example: In response to a post in the Krautreporter Facebook group soliciting story ideas, a member wrote, “I want to understand why people eat meat even if they know animals are suffering.” Theresa Bäuerlein, the editor-in-chief, asked her newsletter subscribers (each Krautreporter journalist has their own newsletter) that question with a Typeform survey.  Bäuerlein received about 200 responses, and categorized them, which is how Krautreporter typically synthesizes survey responses. She noticed five answers come up repeatedly, so she focused on those five reasons for eating meat in her article. (Read more about this particular story in Nieman Lab.) 

Source the crowd’s knowledge: Your audience might reach out to your newsroom and ask for advice on the best way to do something, such as finding a job or studying for a test. Krautreporter will solicit their members for answers to other members’ questions, and then round up a fact-checked list of the best responses. 

Example: Their member-curated list of female authors

Ask what matters. Krautreporter is honest that they don’t always know what the most relevant information is for their readers. Sometimes they survey members to find out if they care about a particular topic. 

Example: Before the 2019 European Union election, they surveyed members about which five policy areas they wanted to learn candidates’ stances on. The results gave them a clear roadmap for their election coverage: analyze each party’s position on the five top topics. They disclosed this process to readers.

The results

In addition to answering story-specific questions and informing immediate editorial decisions, surveys also help Krautreporter develop a general sense on their members’ interests and why they read or support the newsroom, which helps them understand them as segments, rather than a monolith. 

In an interview with the research team, Grimm and Fryszer described the audience segments like this: 

Very engaged: The top 1 percent, the power members who “comment on the article, fill out every survey… we know them by name.”

Somewhat engaged: About 9 percent of their audience; the people who “join a conversation when they have something to say.” Grimm said these readers rarely comment online because “they don’t want their names out there… they have no interest in fighting.” But when they find themselves in a safe space, like a survey, and they know something about the topic, they will engage. 

The rest: The remaining 90 percent of their audience; the people who have an attachment to the brand, but are members mostly to get access to the journalism (Krautreporter has a paywall). There’s also a group of members who rarely read and “just want to be around.” 

What they learned

Surveys lead to an engagement boost with members. Krautreporter found that in the four weeks after a survey was conducted, members who participated in a survey tended to increase their reading frequency. This outperformed the newsroom’s other engagement efforts. 

Surveys are a retention tactic. Krautrerporter found that readers who participate in at least 1 survey stay on as a member for roughly four months longer than a non-survey taker. Other touchpoints show similar, but weaker, patterns. 

Surveying can fill in gaps in analytics. As many online publishers know, it’s difficult to develop a holistic sense of your audiences using metrics and analytics alone. Surveys allow the team to fill in their understanding of their different audience segments, while also allowing the reporters to test assumptions about what those segments of readers want. 

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Surveys can be incorporated across all stages of an editorial process. At Krautreporter, reporters are asked about their plans to conduct surveys with members before they even start working on a piece. 

Surveys are great for engaging shier audience members. Most audience members don’t want to engage in comments or in public forums, but would welcome opportunities to be a part of the process less prominently. Remember to design for the less vocal audience segments, too. 

Assume you’re not reaching non-engaged members with surveys. It’s hard to get surveys in front of people who aren’t already engaged, at least through your own channels. Krautreporter acknowledges that this is a major information gap. To do that, you’ll need to get creative about your distribution, perhaps by asking another organization to share the survey or posting it to other public forums, such as a neighborhood group. 

Other resources 

Disclosure: Membership Puzzle Project supported a separate Krautreporter project in 2019 through the Membership in News Fund.

National Digital native Conducting Audience Research Developing Memberful Routines Adopting a Product Mindset Growing our Membership Krautreporter Retaining our Members

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A nonprofit, statewide newsroom that does watchdog reporting on state government, politics, consumer affairs, business and public policy
Location
Vermont, U.S.
Founded
2009
Launched membership
2016
Monthly unique visitors
725,000
Number of members
8,400
Percentage of revenue from membership
22 percent

VTDigger is known for its strong, investigative journalism and its diversified business model. Today, they have a staff of around 25 full-time employees, with Florencio Terra, Membership Coordinator, Libbie Pattison, Campaign Coordinator, and Stacey Peters, full-stack web developer, leading the charge on the newsroom’s membership and audience-input work.   

Underpinning that success is their system of systematically asking for audience feedback and input and using it to refine what they offer readers and members. As Peters put it: “We pride ourselves on asking for little chunks of information wherever we can.” 

This case study shows how a few straightforward surveys, including an automated one running in the background, can be used to continually add to your understanding of your audience segments and help you take steps to serve them better.

Why this is important

Audience research can be a big, daunting survey – or it can be short requests for audience input during a brief moment when you have their full attention. There isn’t anything unusual about VTDigger’s approach to audience research. But their suite of surveys and their commitment to always following up with respondents give the staff a highly useful picture of their audience needs and reassure the audience that they’re being heard, which makes them more likely to respond again in the future.

MPP offers this case study as an example of how a newsroom can begin conducting audience research in a low-effort, high-impact way. 

What they did

VTDigger’s audience research can be divided into three parts: 

  • Its annual, comprehensive reader survey, which focuses on reader’s attitudes toward VTDigger and it coverage, 
  • One-off surveys soliciting feedback on specific products, and
  • Small, quick opportunities for audiences to give input. 

Annual reader survey: VTDigger sends out a reader survey in SurveyMonkey once a year. They began this practice in 2013, a few years after their launch. They distribute the survey by posting it on their site and sharing it via their newsletter list. In order to increase survey participation, they also resend the survey email to anyone who hasn’t opened it after a week. Their goals for the most recent annual survey were to identify the other channels and types of news readers use and pay for, to check their understanding of audience demographic information, and to see how satisfied their current audiences are with their coverage and products.  In other words, this survey mainly serves as competitive landscape research to help them identify coverage and distribution gaps they could fill.  The survey also includes several explicit questions related to VTDigger’s membership program (see example below). Here’s their 2019 survey. 

Courtesy of VTDigger

Survey for product: When VTDigger is refining or about to launch a new product for their readers, they’ll seek audience input on that specific product. Prior to launching their 2020 Election Guide (a roundup for Vemonters about the candidates, how they can vote during COVID, and the latest election news), they wanted to know how to frame reporter’s interviews and write-ups with candidates. They sent out a survey asking readers if what they wanted to hear about from the candidates, and what issues mattered the most to them. Here’s their reader survey for VTDigger’s election guide. 

Courtesy of VTDigger

Small, quick inputs: VTDigger credits Rebekah Monson, co-founder and COO of WhereBy.Us for this one: when people unsubscribe from your newsletter list, ask them why. VTDigger added a field to their newsletter unsubscribe confirmation page asking “Please let us know why you unsubscribed” to gather feedback in real-time. Since their newsletter is a primary driver of membership growth and engagement, they see feedback on this product as a vital temperature check on their membership strategy writ large. 

Courtesy of VTDigger

The results

Annual reader survey:  In total in 2019, VTDigger received 1,747 survey responses from their audience members. Their 2019 survey revealed a big increase in their readers’ interest in local news – in the past, statewide news, especially governance and legislature, was the top interest.

Based on two data points from the annual survey (the high percentage of readers who wanted to see more newsletters, and the topics most of those readers were interested in) VTDigger created new weekly email newsletters based on particular beats: education, environment, criminal justice, health care, and politics. The team then added calls-to-action on stories within those beats, asking the reader to subscribe to the related topical newsletter. Within four months, VTDigger gained between 5,000 and 8,000 subscribers to each of these new email newsletter lists — a clear indicator that they successfully delivered on incorporating feedback from their audiences.

The “unsubscribe” survey: Their single-question unsubscribe question revealed that the most common reason people unsubscribe was “I just get too many emails.” Newsletters are the best way VTDigger gains new members, so they wanted to keep them in some way. They updated the unsubscribe page with an option for users to instead downgrade to weekly summaries.  They have not yet measured the success of this, but plan on reviewing in the coming months.

What they learned

From their “unsubscribe” survey, the team collected data that allowed them to prioritize newsletter reader preferences. VTDigger learned they have a lot of seasonal residents and second-home owners, so they often get unsubscribe messages like this one: “I am away from VT for a while and have so many emails!” Eventually, they would like to be able to offer a “restart” date for their newsletter, to allow these folks to freeze their subscription for a certain period of time. But they haven’t reached a point where the potential impact of this change is worth the effort and cost to implement it. They’re okay with losing newsletter subscribers over this type of complaint for now. 

For their annual survey, VTDigger learned the importance of offering small incentives to bring in more responses from readers. This past year, they offered all respondents a chance to enter a raffle for a $100 gift card to Bear Pond Books, a local bookstore based in Montpelier, Vermont. This helped the team recruit a large set of survey participants. 

VTDigger learned the importance of incorporating new types of survey questions into their annual survey year after year. Instead of keeping the survey format the same, they add new questions depending on their product and membership goals for the upcoming year. For example, this upcoming year they are considering launching a member-only or paid newsletter. They plan on adding a few specific questions to their 2020 Annual Survey that will help them determine if this is a viable product to offer, and if so, how they can cater the product to their members information needs and ideal user experience. 

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Look for high-attention moments when you can collect small bits of feedback. Even though it was a negative circumstance, asking readers why they’re unsubscribing as they unsubscribe works because you have their full attention. Look for similar opportunities when readers are highly focused on your site and you can ask related questions. 

Audience research is a cultural mindset. VTDigger has prioritized feedback from the beginning. When it launched, it had a way for readers to submit a tip, report an error, or upload documents at the bottom of every story. Today, the newsroom gets between 50 and 100 tips every month and the VTDigger team reads and follows up on every tip that comes in. Some people complain that they spent too much time at the DMV, while others submit tips that lead to VTDigger breaking news. Getting tips like those requires a cultural commitment to always be listening to readers so that they feel comfortable coming to you when they have something to share. 

Audience research needs a clear workflow to be actionable. Over the years, VTDigger has developed clear workflows for creating and acting on audience research findings. For example, every submission via the bottom-of-story tips request gets emailed to their four-member edit desk and logged in a spreadsheet, where editors log their follow ups. The spreadsheet also allows the team an overview so that it can identify patterns across the state. 

Other resources 

Local/Regional Digital native Conducting Audience Research Developing Memberful Routines Adopting a Product Mindset Retaining our Members VTDigger

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A Danish member-driven newsroom that seeks to add complexity and curiosity to the news
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Founded
2016
Launched membership
2016
Number of members
17,000+
Percentage of revenue from membership
83 percent

In summer 2019, about three years after Zetland launched, the founders faced a hard truth. Despite many successes, they still weren’t profitable, and they were running out of time. Their monthly expenses totaled 1,650,000 krone (about $178,000), but monthly revenue only totaled 1,300,000 (about $140,000). CEO and co-founder Jakob Moll ran the numbers, and found that if they could grow their membership from 10,500 individuals to 14,000, they would break even.

With a clear goal in mind, they knew they needed to grow their membership, and quickly. Rather than turn to a typical marketing or acquisition campaign, they took a gamble: if they opened up about their financial situation and appealed to members’ passion for Zetland, could they enlist those members to help change their financial trajectory?

What followed was one of the most ambitious member-ambassador campaigns Membership Puzzle Project has seen. They surpassed their goal in less than a month, and at the end of 2019 they reached a major milestone: financial sustainability. 

Why this is important

Marketing is an important component of your membership growth strategy, but many newsrooms focus on that and completely forget about one of the most powerful tools they have: their most loyal members. The Membership Puzzle Project sees membership as, among many things, a way to identify your strongest supporters and incorporate them in your quest for sustainability. 

Few initiatives embody that more clearly than Zetland’s “members getting members” campaign.

The campaign wasn’t flashy. It didn’t include celebrities or any over-the-top swag. It succeeded because Zetland found the intersection point between their audience members’ passion for Zetland and their newsroom’s sustainability needs – and they were willing to offer complete transparency in exchange for members’ help. Understanding what motivates your audience members to participate and figuring out how that intersects with your needs is key.  

What they did

In June 2019, co-founder and then CEO of Zetland Jakob Moll published a piece headlined: “Here are the key figures about Zetland’s business that are usually kept secret in a business like ours.” The article laid bare Zetland’s financial books. 

Moll was blunt: “Right now, our expenses are greater than our income – in other words, the amount in our bank account is shrinking every month. If you spread out the snapshot over a whole year, we have an income of 1,300,000 a month and expenses of 1,650,000. If we had 14,000 paying members instead of 10,500, our expenses and income would balance.” 

Moll’s financial tell-all article also introduced members to a proposed solution: become an ambassador for Zetland and recruit new members. In the ambassador campaign, newly recruited members got to pay whatever they wanted for the first month of access, but after that, they would have to pay the standard monthly membership fee of ~$14 a month. Here’s what this process looked like in practice:

They recruited “ambassadors” from their current member base. Ambassador recruitment officially started with Moll’s financial-tell-all article, which included a sign-up form for ambassadors that first verified the respondent was already a Zetland member. The sign-up form was also the process for onboarding ambassadors and included questions about how the ambassador preferred to recruit their new members. Over the next two weeks, more than 1,000 people across Denmark signed up to become ambassadors.  

They equipped their new ambassadors for both digital and print recruitment campaigns. When a member became an ambassador, Zetland gave them a unique signup page URL that included their name. The URL brought potential new members to the pay-what-you-want sign-up form. Zetland also gave ambassadors the option of postcards or posters to spread the word offline. They shipped out more than 20,000 postcards and 2,000 posters with ambassadors’ personal codes for the ambassadors to share when the campaign launched. 

They officially launched their ambassador campaign on Aug. 6, 2019. The ambassadors started recruiting new members by sharing a recruitment form with a video of Moll introducing himself and Zetland’s mission. Then, the reader was shown the dominant call-to-action, which was the pay-what-you want box. 

Courtesy of Zetland

When a new member signed up, Zetland sent them a long, personal welcome email from Lea Korsgaard, the editor-in-chief. They frequently reminded their readers, members and ambassadors that “this is your campaign, it’s not ours.”

Membership Puzzle Project shared additional details about the execution in its 2019 case study of the campaign.

The results

Zetland’s ambassador campaign launched on Aug. 6 and formally ended on Sept. 6. Their goal was to add 1,400 members to their then-10,500 members. They reached that goal in a week. In September, they passed 2,500 new members (totaling 13,000 members). By the end of the campaign, they surpassed 14,000 members. 

That 14,000 number is significant because at 14,000 members, their newsroom broke even and started making a small profit. About six months after the campaign officially ended, Moll reported to Membership Puzzle that they are “moving toward 15,000 members.” So far 346 of those original ambassadors have signed up to be ambassadors year-round. 

The pay-what-you-want model for the first month was also a success. New Zetland members didn’t go for the lowest possible payment. (On average, new Zetland members decided to pay a little bit less than the equivalent of $9, when the sticker price for the first month of membership is equivalent to $6.50.)

In addition to volunteering to help recruit new members, more than 500 Zetland members also volunteered to help with member-driven editorial projects in the coming months. 

What they learned

Look to recruit people who are willing to pay some amount for membership. Zetland ran its first ambassador campaign in 2018. It brought in 700 new members, but many of those members didn’t stick. Only half of them even logged on to Zetland after the campaign ended. Moll believes that giving free access sent the wrong message to their audiences. In 2019, Zetland focused on recruiting members who understood the value of high-quality journalism — the folks who were willing to pay for it — and it worked. The members recruited during their 2019 campaign have a retention rate that mirrors that of Zetland’s overall membership.

Be honest about your financial situation and what you need from your members. Zetland found their ambassadors eager to jump in and help the newsroom reach financial sustainability. The radically honest articles published prior to the ambassador campaign’s launch (including how many more members, exactly, they needed to survive) helped mobilize their current members into action.

Set up your ambassadors for success, and say thank you often. The Zetland team worked hard to make their ambassadors feel special, empowering them to recruit new members either digitally with their personalized URLs or manually with postcards. Ambassadors also received small gifts like stickers and packets of plant seeds. The Zetland team was sure to say thank you often, and to keep their ambassadors updated on the newsroom’s progress and success along the way.

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Find ways to harness members’ passion for your organization. Ambassadorship taps into members’ passion for your work – one of the six key motivations MPP heard when analyzing responses from hundreds of supporters of news organizations about why they gave their support.  Members motivated by the chance to show some love for your mission are proud of their affinity with your organization and want people to know about it. 

Although only a small percentage of your members will likely respond to your call for ambassadors (the 90/10/1 rule is that 90 percent of members will just consume the product, 10 percent will interact with you, and 1 percent of that 10 percent will become core contributors), that small percentage can have a transformative impact.

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National Digital native Making the Business Case for Membership Growing our Membership Retaining our Members Zetland

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A national trilingual news organization focused on local news and politics
Location
Selangor, Malaysia
Founded
1999
Launched membership
2019
Monthly unique visitors
5 million
Number of members
20,792*
Percentage of revenue from membership
46 percent

Malaysiakini launched a subscription in 2002, making it one of the first newsrooms in Asia to adopt an audience revenue model. In 2019, Malaysiakini introduced a membership program as a supplement to its subscription because subscription growth had stagnated and readers wanted a deeper relationship with the organization. The membership is an optional add-on, allowing subscribers to opt-in if they want (at no additional cost), or remain subscribers. 

Malaysiakini chose this blended model, rather than moving to membership alone, because of the political climate in Malaysia. Government attacks on the press are frequent, and Malaysiakini knew some readers would be afraid of calling themselves a “member” of Malaysiakini. 

“There is a wisdom in not formalizing [our membership program]. We can use the term ‘members’ informally for now. But everything that’s in writing says subscribers, even our invoices because using the term ‘member’ might make the government target them,” Chief Membership Officer Lynn D’Cruz said. 

*This is the number of subscribers. Malaysiakini was unable to provide the number of subscribers who opted in to membership.

Why this is important

The Malaysian government keeps close tabs on journalists by threatening to revoke publishing licenses and suing individuals and organizations – including Malaysiakini on several occasions, most recently in June 2020 over user comments on the site. That made readers fearful of being publicly associated with the organization. 

Because of that fear among readers that they might become targets for being “members” of Malaysiakini, the organization felt it was important to allow readers to remain publicly identified as subscribers. Readers only get invitations to become a member after they subscribe. 

The blended model allows Malaysiakini to offer options for both those who want to support and read Malaysiakini without being associated with it and those who want to engage more deeply (but still want to keep a low profile while doing so). 

MPP has often been asked what membership looks like in repressive media environments. Malaysiakini’s approach offers one way that news organizations can quietly support the engagement typical to membership models while not exposing their supporters to risk.

In addition, blended revenue models are on the rise, raising many questions about how, exactly, two models can coexist in the same organization. This is an example.

What they did

Malaysiakini has had a subscription service since 2002, but launched their membership program in November 2019. 

They began the process of designing the membership program with a survey to subscribers asking them why they remain subscribers (most said it was because of their loyalty to Malaysiakini) and what they hope to see in the future. They received a couple thousand replies. The survey showed that the top two requests were a newsletter and early access to news reports (the latter of which is still in development). 

In response, Malaysiakini introduced two membership products:

Nifty Notes newsletter: All subscribers are automatically added to the mailing list for this weekly newsletter, although they can opt out at any time. This newsletter is available to non-subscribers, too, as a loyalty-building product that might encourage them to become paying subscribers down the line.

Kini Community: An online community available to subscribers who opt-in to the membership program. Members of Kini Community are allowed to bookmark stories, follow and like comments by other members in the community, and bid for stories they want Malaysiakini to cover next. This was developed in response to readers who expressed interest in having a deeper relationship with Malaysiakini.

An image showing a mobile interface of Kini Community's "Bookmark Stories" feature which includes a icon people can click on to save a story to their profiles.
One of the features of Kini Community is the ability for members to bookmark stories. Due to the ongoing case, this example includes dummy text.

Although the journalism industry is trending away from allowing anonymous commenters, Malaysiakini opted to allow subscribers to comment anonymously to protect them from any retribution by the Malaysian government.

Malaysiakini has had to handle commenting carefully amid government pressure, particularly since the government sued Malaysiakini over five anonymous comments left on the site.

Malaysiakini’s commenting policy reads:

All comments are linked to your Malaysiakini subscription profile which we reserve the right to disclose to law enforcement agencies should they require it for valid purposes. In the past, Malaysiakini had refused to divulge the identity of our contributors, resulting in police raids and computers seized. We will continue this policy. However, there may be exceptions to this.

At the same time, Malaysiakini incentivizes Kini Community members to use their real names by giving them points for doing so. The points are akin to currency in the Kini Community, and members accumulate points by purchasing them, leaving comments, or using their real names. Points allow them to like others’ comments. 

The results

Although Malaysiakini declined to provide numbers, they say that almost one-third of their subscribers have joined since November 2019, when they launched the membership add-on and more than half of their total subscribers opted into membership.

However since the Malaysian government filed charges against the publication in June 2020, commenting on site and engagement on Kini Community has dropped, partially because of a dip in enthusiasm and partially because Malaysiakini has also reduced the number of stories it allows comments on. It no longer allows comments on the story about the ongoing trial, said CEO Premesh Chandran.

Subscribers have expressed concern that Malaysiakini will hand over their personal information to the Malaysian police, despite the fact that Malaysiakini has made clear in its commenting policy that it will not do this unless a commenter is “in clear breach of the law” – even if refusing means risking another raid of its office. Malaysiakini has had to be very clear with commenters what they can and can’t protect commenters from.

“We actually warn our [commenters] that they are responsible for their own comments, and we will hand over their personal details if required by the police. This also ensures that our readers are more responsible for their comments on Malaysiakini,” Chandran wrote to MPP.

What they learned

Having a blended model allowed Malaysians to support Malaysiakini whatever way felt safest. It was crucial to offer readers the option to remain a transactional subscriber relationship, or to opt-in to membership as well. This allowed Malaysiakini to continue to receive financial support from both types of readers. “They believe that Malaysiakini provides truthful information and this is what they’re supporting. They want access to the truth,” D’Cruz said. 

However, community building is incredibly hard when participating in the community feels risky. Malaysiakini has seen a steep decline in engagement since charges were filed against the publication. They’re experimenting with incentivizing Kini Community members to use their real names, but against the backdrop of the trial, it’s unclear if that will work.

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

If you’re operating in an environment with limited press freedom, make sure your supporters feel safe. In a country like Malaysia, where government persecution of media is strong, the number of people who want to publicize that they support a news organization targeted by the government is likely much smaller than the number of people who want accurate information but want to keep a low profile. As you choose and design your audience revenue model, it’s important to keep in mind not just what you need, but what will make your potential supporters feel safe offering their support. 

Having a blended model requires clear communication. Having two revenue and engagement models coexist in the same organization requires exceptionally clear communication with your audience members. Any confusion could lead to trouble gaining both subscribers and members. You should strive to make it easy for them to understand the difference, as well as which best suits their needs. 

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Defining Membership Legacy Digital native Developing Memberful Routines Retaining our Members Malaysiakini

Newsroom overview

Who They Are
A digital media and consumer analytics company that inspires black woman to realize how she can change her world through every click she makes and every conversation she has
Founded
2014
Location
London, U.K.
Launched membership
2017
Number of members
about 1,000
Percentage of revenue from membership
60 percent

It’s part of Black Ballad’s mission to be a safe place on the internet for Black women, who have few places where they can come together online without experiencing verbal abuse. When it launched, Black Ballad was a blog without a paywall, and as their reach grew, so did the abuse their writers and commenters suffered from online trolls – a tradeoff for growth that Black Ballad wasn’t willing to accept. 

First, they shut down comments. Then, when they launched their membership program in 2018, they created a member-only Slack workspace to be the safe place they knew their readers needed to feel supported and protected. That Slack group, which Black Ballad moderates with a very light touch, has become a steady stream of feedback on what their members care about and what Black Ballad should be paying attention to.

Why this is important

Many news organizations say they want vibrant online communities, but end up turning those spaces into yet another way to push their journalism out to audience members. For Black Ballad, the community is the end goal – and that’s evident in everything from how they think about the purpose of Slack channels to the community guidelines. 

Black Ballad also demonstrates that offering emotional safety and inclusion can be a competitive differentiator – something Membership Puzzle Project also found when studying member-driven movements beyond news. They’ve made it routine to use the insights they gather from being in conversation with their members to make audience-centric editorial decisions. The positive feedback loop encourages further member investment in the community. 

What they did

Black Ballad began as a blog without a paywall. That helped grow its reach, but co-founders Tobi Oredein and Bola Awoniyi found that when their articles went viral, the writer and others who engaged in the comment section received significant abuse. Oredein and Awoniyi knew something needed to change.

“Even before membership, we were adamant it be a safe space for Black women and if we can’t provide that on our site, what’s the point?” Awoniyi said. 

They removed comments on site entirely while they figured out their next steps. The challenge coincided with the design of their membership program, which launched in June 2017.

They briefly considered reinstating the comments section and making it member-only, but decided that comments would be too limiting. They wanted to enable conversations about anything important to Black women, not just things that Black Ballad wrote about.

They ultimately decided on an invite-only Slack workspace for their premium members, who pay £7a month or £69a year and make up about half of their 1000+ paying members. After they join, premium members get an onboarding email (“Welcome to your private safe space for Black women”) that walks them through setting up their account and establishes guidelines for the community. 

Black Ballad’s introduction to the Slack group (Courtesy of Black Ballad)

They also began sharing important internal decisions in the group, treating it as a de-facto community advisory board. In June 2020 they decided not to send a reporter to cover the Black Lives Matters protests in London because COVID-19 infection rates were still high, particularly among Black residents, and they did not want to put a Black journalist at risk.

They shared the decision in the Slack group before making it public. The positive feedback they got helped them feel comfortable sharing the decision more broadly. 

The results

More than 350 members currently have active Slack accounts. There are 15 to 20 channels at any time, on topics ranging from motherhood to TV and movies. Black Ballad has learned over time to keep the number of channels limited and to keep the majority of the conversations in the #general channel so they don’t get too fractured. 

They’ve also figured out the rule of thumb for when a conversation in #general should get kicked over to a topically relevant channel: “If this was a WhatsApp group chat, at what point would the messages become annoying?” (That’s typically a thread about 15 to 20 messages deep, although if there are several people engaging and it’s lively, they’ll let a thread go on much longer than that.)

Meanwhile, they’ve distilled the criteria for creating a new channel: 

  • The topic is a top interest mentioned in the onboarding survey for all members (this is how motherhood became a channel), 
  • The channel has been requested by many members (there’s a #BBsuggestions channel), or
  • There’s strong but limited interest in the topic in the #general channel.

They did that for TV shows like Insecure to avoid spoilers and because not all members watch the show. They also did it for the activism channel in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in summer 2020 because they knew that some of their members needed the Slack group to be a place where they could go for a mental health break.

For Awoniyi, the best moments are those when they spot members helping each other without any prompting from the Black Ballad team. 

At one point a woman in the group shared about a workplace dispute she was having. Another person active in the group at that time worked in human resources, and stepped in to advise the original poster and others about how best to protect their rights in the workplace. 

Awoniyi sees many more opportunities to foster peer-to-peer mentorship in the future, as well as a more robust onboarding experience to teach members how to make the most of the Slack workspace and a newsletter sharing personalized recommendations for conversations to check out.

While Black Ballad rarely assumes any sort of formal moderator role in the group, it does pay close attention to the conversations and incorporates the insights into coverage decisions. The informal, ongoing feedback loop empowers the community to play a key role determining the topics covered by Black Ballad, making the site a user-led initiative.

“The Slack platform is for more than talking about the articles. At its credence, it is a pipeline of data for Black women who want to talk about issues most important to them,” Awoniyi said.

What they learned

“When it comes to community, the best, first thing to do is listen.” You can set up all the Slack channels you want in the world, but if they’re not based on things you think you have heard, they’re not going to be successful.”

But editorial discretion remains key. “Yes, getting direct feedback from listening is useful,” Awoniyi said, “But that’s not always an indication of what a community wants, its an indication of what they’re talking about right now”

It’s about the intersection of your needs. Awoniyi says the key is creating a space that is suited for what your organization wants to do, and finding where that intersects with what your community members want to use the platform to discuss and explore. “The more you can make those two things align, the better the platform should perform,” Awoniyi said.

Key takeaways and cautionary notes

Community members can tell when community isn’t the point. Community members can tell when an online community exists solely to broadcast your journalism at them. The vibrancy of Black Ballad’s community has a lot to do with how little Black Ballad tries to steer the conversation any particular way. That also means that the insights they gain are more organic. 

Underpinning all of this is a clear sense of the purpose of Black Ballad and, by extension, the Slack group: to create a safe space online for Black British women. It is not about exposure, or reach. Black Ballad does not treat the group as a way to get people to read more of its journalism (although their journalism does often end up discussed in the group, and the staff might share it if the topic comes up organically). Choosing an invite-only Slack group over comments or a Facebook group limits the reach of their work, but it also deepens the trust and relationship they have with their existing members – and for Black Ballad, that’s a worthwhile tradeoff. 

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Disclosure: Membership Puzzle Project supported a separate project at Black Ballad through its Membership in News Fund.

Startup (less than 5 years old) National Black Ballad Digital native Developing Memberful Routines Retaining our Members