Why it matters
Ad investment in news media continues to plummet. Rather than growing its audience with free access to content, Times Newspapers made a bet that it could use the coronavirus ‘news surge’ to attract paying subscribers with the lure of its analytical journalism.
Takeaways
- The publisher was attracting the ‘wrong type’ of subscriber with discounted deals and free trials. By making users pay in full and up-front, it has significantly reduced churn rates.
- The Times is developing a model to predict a user’s long-term tenure based on their first week of engagement, enabling its UX team to...