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Vendor: ‘Can We Do Another Box?’ Swag Boxes Piling up the Dollars and Fun

by Media

“It is crazy in our office. All those drive-by pickup people are coming today and tomorrow. We have about 20 sponsors—a school, a math tutoring company, Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, Girl Scouts, Maryland Hall for Creative Arts, Annapolis Pediatrics… We go live Monday night.”

 

That’s from an email from Donna Jefferson, publisher of Chesapeake Family, sent me last week with the accompanying picture you see. What’s going live is their annual STEAM Fair, pushed to the virtual stage this year but advanced forward by the “event boxes” that participants pay for.

 

There will be four days of early evening events, starting tonight, and although they are geared for kids, other publishers have proven that adults can have the same wide-eyed enthusiasm getting swag boxes as kids.

 

About a month ago, Dan Fink, managing director of Money-Media, a Financial Times company, sent me a unique video that they “published on the value sponsors can get from sponsoring virtual events and providing swag.” In the very funny video, two young children open a swag box meant for one of their parents. You see the enthusiasm and playfulness of the kids, and it makes the point that what’s wrong with a little swag in all of our lives, young or older.

 

“I thought this video did a great job showing that virtual sponsorships can have huge value,” Fink wrote me. “Money-Media doesn’t do a lot of conferences, but our parent company’s conference division, FT Live, does tons of events. They asked to use the video clip as a way to encourage sponsors to provide swag for virtual events. Those are the video producer’s kids.”

 

Taking a step back, the idea of event boxes is many-fold: provide some of the swag that we’re used to getting at in-person events; help ensure that people registered for events will actually attend; give your sponsors and exhibitors another way—a very personal way—to connect with your audience; and inject some fun into a tough period.

 

Bustle Digital Group (BDG) started giving away product kits ahead of some of its sponsored events. These kits include items like yoga mats—for its virtual yoga retreat—and lip glosses in order to make for a more immersive experience, but also to get attendees more engaged with the sponsoring brands. The event kits were complementary for the first 150 attendees to RSVP.” Always good to set a limit like that—gives people more incentive to respond quickly.

 

“It’s important to get products into consumers’ hands,” said BDG president and CRO Jason Wagenheim, adding that this will enable them to promote via word of mouth and social media, turning attendees into micro-influencers for brand sponsors.

 

We know that vendors and exhibitors still very much need to connect with customers. “We work with sponsors and brand partners to acquire products, and we also go direct to factories to have specific products manufactured for every box,” says David Webb, editor-in-chief of Explore, which has also gone all in event boxes. “Our brand partners are a big part of the box—they appreciate that they can get their materials and products directly into the hands of active users and buyers through us.”

Explore now has a warehouse and factories on contract. They learned quickly that the boxes take a commitment to do, so now they do it for others. “We had to learn everything from the ground up,” Webb said. “We packed the first test box in our office, and the next one at a warehouse space. We learned it all on the fly, and used these lessons to be better with the next one.”

 

For Jefferson, while the office looks like a shipping warehouse, the process has been mostly smooth. Because Chesapeake Family is a regional publisher, people have the option of driving by and picking up the boxes, or, of course, they can be shipped.

 

“We used Fed Ex to do the shipping—that was the most expensive part, and only one complaint that it arrived damaged. We replaced it right away.”

 

She said the demand, as you can see, has been huge. “One vendor has already asked if we could do another box. So far, so good.”
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Do Your Subscribers ‘Feel Like Insiders’? Robert Skrob’s Revenue Growth Recipe.

by Media

“The key I’ve found to subscriber retention is focused on the feeling of the relationship, rather than the stuff they get,” Robert Skrob told me on a recent phone call. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with [and train] Harley-Davidson dealers. Harley motorcycles are a premium product; they sell for 25-30% more. Yet Harley sells more than half of all the motorcycles. Buying a Harley doesn’t get you to your destination any faster. It doesn’t reduce the costs on gas. But instead it feels different to the owner. It feels like when you ride a Harley, you’re part of a movement, and gives you something to look forward to.

 

“Honda focuses on engineering, horsepower and price; Harley focuses on how you feel like a bad&*% when you ride a motorcycle.”

 

I’m more of a bicyclist than a motorcyclist, but the more I thought about places I subscribe to, the more I saw the headlight. When a New Yorker article gets discussed, I hold my head high as a long-time subscriber. “Yes, I read that.” Baseball Digest allows me to know that Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra both hit home runs in two Game 7s of the World Series. Even my heating contract makes me feel like I can be a little more demanding—and conversely upset when something doesn’t go right. (“You didn’t tell me the thermostat takes batteries and they corrode!”)

 

“Too many people focus on how much work goes into publishing a newsletter, or the number of speakers they have, or how good the content is, when it’s really about the feeling that all of that generates,” Skrob said. “Does subscribing feel like this is something special? Do they feel like an insider to something? Are you accelerating the goals they want to achieve? Do they feel like part of something that’s bigger than them?”

 

Skrob hits on so many key bullet points that you see from successful publishers every day. Haymarket Media’s PR Week features include Coffee Break with executives, Lockdown Life and A Day in the PR Life, all designed to put you inside the world of public relations. At The Information, emails come from the person in charge, Jessica Lessin, and ask for $10 to subscribe: “Limited Time Preview – The Information AM is a curated list of the biggest stories in tech. Become a subscriber to receive this every weekday in addition to our exclusive articles, live video Q&As, podcasts and org charts.”

 

“Making sure the subscriber experiences a big win early in their journey is important,” Skrob said. “It can just be clarity of a particular problem—simply understand the next step forward for a problem they’re having. That’s enough in order to get that” subscriber feeling good.

 

“When they take the first step [of subscribing with you], that’s the first step on the road to helping them accomplish goals and dreams,” Skrob said. It’s kind of “like the first scene in a movie when you get to know characters and start to care about who this is and what’s going on.”

 

Again, Skrob comes back to your thinking about solving subscriber/member problems. “I’m in so many meetings with subscription businesses, [talking about] growth goals and targets we’re trying to hit. That can happen if we think first how we solve our subscribers’ problems—rather than a revenue goal we have to hit.

 

“Usually we don’t have that big a problem getting information [from subscribers],” he added, though certainly now the ways we get that information has changed. Gone for now are the intimate conversations at in-person events.

 

“Usually your subscribers will be asking questions, ‘How do you do this or solve that?’” Skrob said. That’s great intel to use in your customer outreach. “Nobody has to know you thought of [the information you’re giving subscribers] based on customer service. The editorial team needs to be in close contact with your customer service team. Get your daily customer service reports to all staff. Here are the top questions today and here are the new questions we got.”

 

And as for those Harleys, be careful if the pandemic, a mid-life crisis and clever marketing makes you feel like riding one.

 

Look for Robert Skrob’s new book on growing subscription revenue coming out very soon.

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‘We’re Looking for Ways to Deeply Engage’: Virtual Event Innovations

by Media

What could have been better this early morning than sitting on my patio with a velvety layer of fog over the lake and Zooming into a scones-making session with Stacy Brooks, director, communications and social media for the American Physiological Society (APS)?

Okay, having her send the scones over, of course, would have been sublime. But I will happily make them myself another day. This was part of AM&P 2020—the annual conference of a sister division here, Association Media & Publishing—and it put me in the perfect mood to watch their keynote speaker, Mario Garcia, the distinguished author and Columbia professor. (I will also soon write about Garcia and a terrific session Brooks co-hosted yesterday on writing and editing in this age.)

 

“We’re looking for ways to deeply engage with The New Yorker reader,” Eric Gillin, Condé Nast’s chief business officer of the culture division, said recently for the seven-day long New Yorker festival. Besides all the virtual interviews, they added a tactile component, a session where meals were sent out to paying attendees who then tuned in for a related panel. There was also a drive-in film in Queens, NY for local attendees to see a premiere.

 

These elements are critical to getting audiences to pay for virtual or hybrid events, said Eric Fleming, executive producer of experiential agency Makeout. Particularly “exclusivity” and a “swag-like experience” that audiences can engage with to help increase ticket sales by providing something that feels substantial.

 

Here are four other innovative ideas:

 

Make your virtual platform year-round. In June, the United Fresh Produce Association transitioned their popular annual conference into United Fresh 2020 LIVE! With 50% more attendees, they decided to create United Fresh LIVE! 365, a year-round online platform featuring a permanent expo, social gatherings, on-demand education, webinars, conference programming, and networking opportunities for the global produce industry. “We basically built a year-round convention center,” John Toner, VP of convention and industry collaboration, of the United Fresh LIVE! 365 platform, told Convene. “[The platform] serves as the connection point,” adding that exhibitors whose engagement strategy went beyond the show floor reaped the best results.

 

Mugs for the camera. To foster a spirit of connectedness at their annual conference, BIO (Biotechnology Innovation Organization) Digital changed the meeting’s tagline from ‘Beyond’ to ‘Nothing Stops Innovation.’ Then, in advance of the conference, the group mailed all speakers a custom mug with the new tagline.” It was an added expense, but worth it because it gave speakers brand recognition onscreen that reflected togetherness, said Erin Lee, VP of marketing operations and customer experience at BIO. She added that engagement has become “more about building loyalty, the power of the brand, and giving members access to resources and connectivity in a time of need.” BIO surveyed members—always like to hear that—to find out what would be most helpful for them. “We focused on being a service to the industry.”

 

Start a Niche-Within-Your-Niche Week. Two years ago, Access Intelligence’s Event Marketer put on a Women in Events Week. While they already had a Women in Events print feature, the special 2018 Women in Events Week brought it to life, as “the editorial team transformed the franchise into a week-long series of experiences across 15 cities that engaged more than 1,000 industry women in panels, presentations, professional development and networking activities that ultimately generated [thousands of dollars] in sponsorship revenue.” There were also unconventional networking functions like sneaker art classes and offbeat museum tours. All of this can be translated for this virtual age. Our own FISD did a splendid virtual FISD Week a few months ago that also featured a women’s panel—not the norm for this financial division—and other engaging activities.

 

Make the content a series. An in-person event is pretty much confined to those days. There should be no limit to a virtual event. Eric Shanfelt, founding partner of Nearview Media, suggests a series of sessions to comprise an event. “We’ll just do a live webcast every Friday at 1 pm Eastern. We’ll record it and put it in the members only section, and then in a podcast. Sponsors will like it because they get multiple mentions in email, the webcast, on-demand and the podcast. People can then come in when they want and view what they want.” Added Matthew Cibellis of Cibellis Solutions: “I want to emphasize that SIPA member companies might want to (at least for the near term) begin thinking through a sponsorable monthly series, rather than one or two big annual events as a means of engaging their attendees and sponsors.”

 

And, maybe, make scones for those monthly events. I’d be in!

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‘We Changed Parameters’ and Saw a 50% Jump; Lower Paywalls, Higher Returns

by Media

The international media association WAN-IFRA recently held its Digital Media Asia 2020 conference, virtually, of course. “Input from the management, marketing and data teams was key to improving the subscription rate of the South China Morning Post’s (SCMP) digital version, according to Vienna Lee, SCMP’s digital marketing director, audience growth.” (This was reported on the WAN-IFRA site.)

 

“The SCMP ePaper was previously free to all readers,” Lee said. “But on August 10th, we launched a paywall for selected markets. Then we changed the parameters so that readers would get five free articles before hitting the paywall instead of 10 previously.’’

 

“Surprisingly, there was a 50% higher subscription rate with five free articles compared to 10 free articles. The next initiative involved changing the background color of the subscription page from a lighter background to a darker background. ‘To our surprise again, readers preferred the darker background,’ added Lee. Further tests also showed higher engagement when readers logged in with their personal accounts, compared to being anonymous.”

 

I’ve mentioned before a report that came out last year from the Shorenstein Center at Harvard and Lenfest Institute titled, How Today’s News Publishers Can Use Data, Best Practices, and Test-And-Learn Tactics to Build Better Pay-Meters.

 

Even though it came out before the pandemic, the practices it preached seem to be even more accurate today. Here are some of those:

 

Most publishers are too generous and need to stop more readers to force conversion. The report talks a great deal about the importance of having a high stop rate—that is the percentage of all digital users who are ‘stopped’ by a subscription prompt, a paywall or a meter limit. It is calculated by the number of users stopped by a meter or paywall in a given month over the number of unique visitors during that period. The report found that the organizations that are stopping more people have stronger digital businesses. During 2020, many publishers did lift their paywall for their COVID-19 stories and resources. But that bump has started to fade some.

 

You might want to lower your meter limit. As the above example attests to, a majority of publishers with metered models set their meter limits at five articles per month or lower. This number has gone steadily down since 2012. Some publishers used to set the paywall as high as 25 articles a month. “As publishers have experimented, and readers have become accustomed to digital subscription, meter limits have tended to decline among the publishers studied and within the industry at large.” I know many publishers, including Digiday, now do three.

 

Increase reader opportunities to encounter the meter. Is the meter simply the articles a reader clicks on, or are there more factors involved? You might lower the meter rate for more editorially-intensive content. Their limit might be increased if they do other things with you. For those with an ad blocker, a subscription message might be customized to invite the reader to subscribe or turn your ad blocker off to continue to read content before the average meter stop.

 

Quicken your load times. “Page load times represent the largest difference between successful publishers in the top percentile and 50th percentile of publishers studied, with a median load times of 5.76 seconds.” Avoid advertising overload—probably easier in 2020—use real estate to drive readers to subscription options, and encourage content discovery through customized recommendations and infinite scrolls.

 

Be clear and make it easy. “The most effective stop messages include a single clear call to action, offer attractive introductory trial rates and include buttons that make clear the location(s) to click to advance the offer. Others include content-specific messages that link to the specific articles or sections the readers are pursuing.” If you want people just to register in order to get past an initial paywall, try to convey that registration will be very brief. “Small changes in the purchase experience for a user—such as slight delays in page load times, unclear instructions, extra data fields, or confusing presentations of an offer—can lead a user to abandon their purchase.” Also, the desktop conversion rate was five times higher than the rate for mobile.

Again, you can see the whole report here.

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The Crisis Editorial Strategy That the FT and Northwestern Agree on

by Media
“It may seem to be verging on madness to make this move during such unusual times, but we have found this new currency, properly communicated, has given everyone involved a new sense of purpose at a strange time.”
That quote comes from Tim Part, a manager at FT (Financial Times) Strategies in London, in an article on the INMA website yesterday.
The new currency he is talking about is the introduction of a reader lifetime value (LTV) into their editorial lexicon. “Long ago we realized the story of reader engagement was a better one to tell to the newsroom compared to a simple volumetric yarn about pageviews,” Part wrote. “Quality reads and RFV (revenue, frequency, volume) scores have long been embedded in the newsroom, but it was important to move toward LTV as a key metric.”
Interestingly, I looked up reader lifetime value and came across pre-pandemic research from Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center that also pushes retention and individual subscriber value over the effort and expense of attracting new subscribers—though with different initials: CLV.
“Being able to move a reader to a subscriber, while important, has much less leverage and value than growing the long-term value of that subscriber,” said Tom Collinger, Spiegel’s executive director. “Understanding and then working to grow [customer] lifetime value (CLV) is a well-known goal and measure in the retail and e-commerce space. [CLV is a] far newer and less familiar goal” in American news organizations, but it’s one they should embrace as customer revenue becomes more of a priority and advertising dollars become less of one.
Here are key takeaways from Northwestern’s research and FT Strategies’ “new currency”:
Add dedicated Slack channels. While Zoom meetings can work internally, FT’s Part said it’s the “informal chatter around the main news desk” at events that needs to be created virtually. “Dedicated Slack channels were set up to replicate this as much as possible.”
Look at new technology. A new tool, Spark, “enables our journalists to collaborate more on articles. It means the messaging platform is less cluttered,” Part wrote.
Keep your audience informed. “The [FT Strategies] audience engagement team also beefed up its existing daily e-mail communications to ensure this remained the place to keep track of the many new initiatives the FT has launched during these unprecedented times.”
Keep your newsletters strong. “The newsletter is one of those things that is going to bump you from 97 to 98 [retention rate],” said Ed Malthouse, Spiegel’s research director. “The way someone running a newsroom should think is as follows: ‘I’m going to need to devote a reporter to create that newsletter. What’s that worth?’ There are costs associated with having that reporter. Everybody who subscribes to the newsletter—let’s say they go from having 25 to 40 future payments. You can then do the math to determine whether it is a smart thing to do.’“
Monitor engagement, even more now. “Many news organizations, understandably, have been laser focused on acquiring new digital subscribers,” said Medill Senior Associate Dean Tim Franklin. “But what this research shows is that isn’t nearly enough, and is not even the most important thing. News organizations need strategies to build long-term loyalty with the subscribers they already have. Otherwise, they’re just pouring water into a leaking bucket.”
Take into account the patterns of the new normal. I wrote a column about this last week when a dryer vent cleaning company targeted Saturday as the best day to schedule everyone, even though so many people are home during the week now. FT’s Part said they see their audience’s new behavior and hours in their metrics and reminds us that “the commute has disappeared, leading to a flatter level of consumption, but one which starts an hour earlier and finishes an hour later. Journalists need to understand these new patterns and be able to produce content tailored to them.”