If I could sum up the Audience stage at the PPA Festival in one word, it would be engagement. From developing e-newsletter habits and community building to (shock horror) actually connecting with subscribers on a regular basis with a bit of positive reinforcement. If your subscription management and publisher tactics are engaging, then your media brand will be too.

Here are 11 top takeaways from the experts speakers on the day (representing a wide range of businesses, including HELLO!, Hearst, the Financial Times, The Drum, Mark Allen Group, Ipsos iris, and many more)…

1. Great content comes from letting your community control the conversation (just don’t forget to lay the ground rules). We all want to belong to something and publishers provide the perfect platform on which like-minded individuals can connect. The secret to effective community management is to establish strong rules of engagement from day one and not limit the conversation to the subjects that brought the community together in the first place. Then let the magic happen organically. Oh, and badges are good too (particularly if you’re trying to get people in the independent mountain biking community to pay and the novice badge is associated with free membership).

2. You want people to contact you if your email doesn’t go out on time. This isn’t a tip about increasing your customer service department, but rather a point about consistency when it comes to email send times. How often do you send an email when it’s ready rather than when it’s right to do so? Building healthy email habits is a great way to get your audience to think about you – and miss you. Of course, a consistent time is only worth keeping if your email content is consistently interesting. Don’t be afraid to stick just one message in an email. And, avoid clever and quirky
e-newsletter brand names as they’re a nightmare to market.

3. Premium gated online content is the best way to get to know your print subscribers. A print subscriber can be, at best, an elusive being. But, by offering a complementary digital subscription to all print subscribers – and then tactically placing content online that provides the answers to questions posed in print. Immediate now know so much more about audience interests, buying habits – and garden sizes.

4. Kindness is good for business (and you). A content strategy based around kindness (and happiness) will not only make your audience – and you – feel better it also provides the ideal environment for commercial partners. Choose kindness and watch those campaign metrics skyrocket.

5. June is the most popular month for fashion, style and beauty content. Now, you might be wondering what this tip has to do with all B2B and B2C brands. But, this is about data and how, by using tools such as Ipsos iris, publishers can monitor trends in consumer behaviour to help shape both the content they create and the strategy that sits behind it.

6. Forget FOMO, positive subscriber relationships are ones built on positive reinforcement and trust. It’s great to see media brands now regularly communicating with subscribers (rather than adopting a more ‘ignore and hope they forget’ approach). But don’t fall into the trap of reminding people what they’re not using. Instead, think like Spotify (and its Wrapped model) and celebrate how people are engaging with you.

7. To ‘dominate’ in subscriptions management, you need to first be a ‘sub’. Yes, I am using a sex analogy, but that’s the kind of advice you get when you ask a Sex Education script consultant and sexpert to talk to a room of subs marketers about creating relationships that last. This tip made the vital point that if you want to understand your audience, take out a subscription and join them. Then, think about how your communications make you feel. (NB: no whips needed like they were on stage).

8. When choosing to partner with an influencer, ask yourself, are they delivering authentic content to the audience you want? Two related tips here. Influencer marketing works best when you find a genuine expert with the relevant audience (look for quality not quantity) and focus them on creating editorial not advertorial and speaking in an authentic voice. Also, beware the influencer who says yes to everything. If they’re selective, their audience is more likely to select you.

9. Sell intent, not audience. Demand gen will supercharge your revenues in 2023 and beyond. Rather than selling advertising around editorial content online, it’s now possible to gather data around content consumption and user behaviour and use that data to push high-intent subscribers towards relevant branded content hubs.

10. Education content is not the same as media content. If you’re looking to build a training business as a way of diversifying revenue (a great idea by the way), you need to invest time and money on pedagogy and learning design – then use your existing content intelligently to encourage sign-ups. 

11. Put a mint with the bill and your tip will jump up by 3.3%. Not sure how this relates to publishing? Register your interest for the PPA Festival 2024 and you’ll never miss out on the latest marketing and publishing tips again.

See you next year.

BONUS TIP
If you run awards, why not set up a community for your judges, like they do at The Drum. It’s a win win. The judges get a whole host of brilliant new contacts with which to connect and you get instant access to a beautifully-curated bunch who will judge more awards, attend roundtables, answer questions, and be generally useful.

Words by Jackie Scully, Executive Director, Think Publishing.