As the media industry continues shifting toward subscription-based models, news companies must clear new hurdles when it comes to acquiring, retaining, and engaging subscribers.

During this week’s members-only Webinar, Robbie Kellman Baxter — author of The Membership Economy and The Forever Transaction — outlined the key challenges news organisations must overcome and shared 12 key value propositions to help attract and retain subscribers in an increasingly competitive digital environment.

The Webinar is the first in a new series called Subscription Masters, presented by the INMA Readers First Initiative. 

Striking a balance

One challenge news companies face today is striking the right balance between subscriber acquisition, retention, and lifetime value, Baxter said. A live poll of attendees confirmed retention ranks as their biggest subscription challenge, with acquisition falling not far behind it.

“In the early days [of digital subscriptions] it was all about the transformation and acquisition,” she explained. “Now it’s really about … continued profitable growth, which requires and different mindset and a balancing of key metrics.”

Baxter discussed the concept she calls “the forever promise,” which refers to the fundamental reason a reader subscribes and remains loyal to a publication. Rather than simply offering content, news companies must position themselves to provide ongoing solutions to an audience’s need for knowledge, community, or entertainment.

“So in the case of news, it’s often when I go out on my own for the first time, when I start my first job or graduate from school … and I feel like now I need to be an adult and have my news sources and belong to a particular tribe or group,” she said.

Once an individual finds that source, they stop looking for alternatives. And news media companies need to understand what those readers want or need to remain engaged.

Today’s technology plays into this opportunity, offering “a very direct relationship where they can actually see what content we’re reading, how long we’re spending, where we start and where we end up, and how we get hooked.”

That information opens the door to creating and leveraging a more direct relationship with the customer, Baxter said: “[It] allows you to better understand the person you’re serving so you can continue to evolve your offering to serve their needs.”

12 value propositions to drive subscriptions

In her book The Membership Economy, Baxter outlined 12 key value propositions companies can leverage to build and maintain a loyal subscriber base.

Before sharing them with Webinar attendees, she emphasised that a news media company does not need to be able to provide all 12: “Choose a few of these that you think you can most deliver on and that your members, your subscribers most need.”

She suggested the starting point is to adopt what she called a member mindset and begin “thinking about the people with whom you intend to have an ongoing forever transaction with.”

Her 12 value propositions are:

1. Economy: Readers perceive the service as a cost-effective way to access high-quality journalism.
2. Efficiency: The ability to save time by accessing well-curated news instead of sifting through information.
3. Security: Subscribers value having reliable, fact-checked journalism that keeps them well-informed in an era of misinformation.
4. Community: A sense of belonging to a group of like-minded individuals who share interests, values, or civic engagement.
5. Expertise: Customers look for publications that understand the world and can summarise it in a way that makes sense for them.
6. Enhancement: Access to premium experiences.
7. Discovery: The opportunity to encounter new ideas, perspectives, or stories not found elsewhere.
8. Variety: A broad selection of topics and experiences to choose from.
9. Adaptability: Offering subscription plans to let users try something and have the flexibility to cancel.
10. Exclusivity: Access to resources not available to others.
11. Status: This is about recognition and standing in a community.
12. Belonging: Although it often gets combined with community, Baxter said it is different because it refers to readers subscribing because they identify with the brand and want to be associated with it.

While these value propositions provide a strong foundation, Baxter emphasised execution is key. And which ones are most important depends upon where the customer is in the funnel.

“What drives acquisition might be variety, or it might be adaptability, or it might be efficiency,” she said. “But for retention and expansion, that’s where variety comes into play. That’s where authority or expertise comes into play.”

And she said, of all those factors, community stands out as the “stickiest” factor: “You come for one thing, but you stay for the people,” Baxter said.

“In the case of news, it might be I came because I know this is a reputable organisation that is reporting on a community or an industry or a region that I care about. But I stay because I love Greg’s content or because all my friends play Wordle. And it’s really fun for me to be part of that community.”

Effective onboarding drives engagement

To improve retention, Baxter stressed the importance of effective onboarding. The first few weeks after signing up are critical in shaping subscriber habits.

“Give them what they came for immediately,” she advised. “If someone subscribes because of a particular story, ensure they see more of that content in their first few days.”

Media companies should also track engagement metrics, such as how frequently users visit, what types of content they consume, and whether they interact across multiple formats — Web site, newsletters, podcasts, etc. This data can help identify at-risk subscribers and re-engage them before they cancel.

“Some of the organisations I’ve been working with have been developing what they call GPS, which is good path score, which is this idea of what do your best customers look like, where do they come from? How do they engage? What articles are they looking at? What are they opening, what are they doing? And then at what point do you relax and say they’re going to stay for a while because they’re fully engaged?”

Knowing the answers to such questions and identifying the key points on your company’s good path “allow you to optimise both your product and your communications and maybe even your content to get people to that level,” she said.

The future of news subscriptions

Looking ahead, Baxter highlighted what she sees emerging in the subscription space and discussed what news media companies should be looking for. The most effective approach for ongoing wealth creation and value creation is to constantly focus on the customer’s outcome, she said.

One current trend in Silicon Valley is an interest in consumption-based pricing, where software companies charge based on usage rather than offering a flat subscription fee. That could be something the news media industry could borrow from: “There’s trade-offs there because with consumption-based, as it becomes more popular, your subscription prices can go through the roof.”

However, it raises an interesting idea about the possibilities of charging based on usage and attracting readers who want to “go really deep” on a specific topic, she said: “If something’s emerging in the world and you have the best coverage because it’s your industry or it’s your region, it may not make sense for that person to be a long-term subscriber because they may not generally care about everything else that you’re covering. So is there a way to enable them to access it? I think for organisations that are looking to expand, that’s really interesting.”

Pricing is another question that companies must look at, and she recommended making sure there aren’t so many pricing options that it’s difficult for the audience to understand. Too many options can also hamper operational efficiency, she said.

Finally, Baxter said, bundling also offers some options for publishers to explore: “That is definitely a trend I’m seeing as kind of an exploration of other packaging techniques.”

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