NEW YORK: The New Yorker, the highbrow US cultural magazine, is in the fortunate position of generating two-thirds (65%) of its income from subscribers, but it wants to go further by almost doubling its paid circulation to two million by 2023.
Despite hiking the cost of its most popular print-digital bundle by 20% last year, the publication still held on to its readers, even witnessing total paid circulation rise by about 12% to 1.2 million.
Encouraged by that growth and the recognition that consumers are prepared to pay for quality content, The New Yorker is adopting a multi-layered strategy to drive up revenues from readers.
Led by Monica Ray, EVP of consumer marketing at parent company Condé Nast, the magazine has hired 15 extra writers – with plans for another 10 this year – to boost its coverage of special interest areas.
As reported by Digiday, The New Yorker is working on offering more content for readers after discovering that they are more likely to pay if offered more kinds of content.
“It is all about the editorial stories and being able to find writers who can write the stories that don’t appear anywhere else,” Ray said. “We do need to show subscribers the value; we always have to come up with different ways to meet different needs for them.”
The New Yorker has also beefed up the content of its nine email newsletters to include subjects like politics, business and food, at the same time as deploying personalised targeting on its website to attract more readers.
But according to Monica Ray, the most important driver has been the ability to target affinity groups on Facebook and Google using paid posts and paid search keywords.
“Those digital channels are what’s opened up The New Yorker. That’s changed the way we reach consumers,” she said.
Another part of the growth strategy involves building the brand overseas, most likely in the UK and then to other English-speaking countries.
For example, although aware of the cost barriers to growing overseas, the magazine has made a start after hiring London-based writer Sam Knight, who uses Facebook to target articles at potential customers in the UK.
Despite hiking the cost of its most popular print-digital bundle by 20% last year, the publication still held on to its readers, even witnessing total paid circulation rise by about 12% to 1.2 million.
Encouraged by that growth and the recognition that consumers are prepared to pay for quality content, The New Yorker is adopting a multi-layered strategy to drive up revenues from readers.
Led by Monica Ray, EVP of consumer marketing at parent company Condé Nast, the magazine has hired 15 extra writers – with plans for another 10 this year – to boost its coverage of special interest areas.
As reported by Digiday, The New Yorker is working on offering more content for readers after discovering that they are more likely to pay if offered more kinds of content.
“It is all about the editorial stories and being able to find writers who can write the stories that don’t appear anywhere else,” Ray said. “We do need to show subscribers the value; we always have to come up with different ways to meet different needs for them.”
The New Yorker has also beefed up the content of its nine email newsletters to include subjects like politics, business and food, at the same time as deploying personalised targeting on its website to attract more readers.
But according to Monica Ray, the most important driver has been the ability to target affinity groups on Facebook and Google using paid posts and paid search keywords.
“Those digital channels are what’s opened up The New Yorker. That’s changed the way we reach consumers,” she said.
Another part of the growth strategy involves building the brand overseas, most likely in the UK and then to other English-speaking countries.
For example, although aware of the cost barriers to growing overseas, the magazine has made a start after hiring London-based writer Sam Knight, who uses Facebook to target articles at potential customers in the UK.
Sourced from Digiday; additional content by WARC staff
