Digiday: How the Seattle Times is empowering reporters to drive subscriber growth

justgladtobehere · Feb 4, 2019

How the Seattle Times is empowering reporters to drive subscriber growth - Digiday

The Seattle Times has extended its efforts to add subscribers down to the ground level.

Over the past year, the news publisher, which grew its digital subscriber base 38 percent to 40,000 in 2018, has been trying to get small teams of reporters to think more entrepreneurially about driving subscriptions. It wants them to not just monitor which kinds of content visitors read on their way to paying but also to experiment with new content and packaging formats designed to keep readers engaged.

In 2017, the Times gave its newsroom staff access to a dashboard that showed reporters which stories they published were driving subscriptions. Next, the Times’ executive editor, Don Shelton, formed several teams, called mini-publishers, which paired editorial staffers with members of the paper’s digital audience, product and business intelligence teams to figure out what kinds of content the audience likes, how to make more of it, and so on. The first two teams, which focused on local politics and the University of Washington’s football team, launched in 2017. But in 2018, it expanded that effort to more topics the Times knows are big subscription drivers, including the Seattle Seahawks and Mariners, opinion, real estate, outdoor and travel, and local food and drink.
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Fredrick · Feb 5, 2019

This kind of stuff angers Fredrick. Come on. Reporters get dumped on for EVERYTHING. Sell some ads, advertisers. Sell some subscriptions, members of the circulation department. You get paid, too. Reporters meanwhile have to do everything! Shoot pictures, host podcasts, write stories on absurd deadlines, now sell ads and sell newspapers. Somebody else do something besides reporters and layout people!!!!

Twirling Time · Feb 5, 2019

Get the circulation manager to comb all the old folks homes. Have to do it regularly, though, because of ... turnover.

Tweener · Feb 5, 2019

Gannett has been asking reporters to help sell subscriptions for years. I think I should have enough credits for a Master’s in marketing by now.

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Digiday: How the Seattle Times is empowering reporters to drive subscriber growth

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Digiday: How the Seattle Times is empowering reporters to drive subscriber growth

justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

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Twirling Time Well-Known Member

Tweener Well-Known Member

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