Loyal Readers Are More Valuable Than Clicks

The shape of capitalism on the internet largely depends on engagement. It’s a similar model to television: the more people tune in to watch a show, the more money the network makes by running advertisements during that show, the more money people will pay to be advertised during that show. Regardless of quality, engagement really seems to be the ticket to money in online journalism.

But the logistics of obtaining that level of engagement are often approached backwards. Movies are produced for their clout, their series, or their stars rather than their content, making the audience of the piece somewhat wide-ranging but nebulous. It has the ability to engage wide swaths of people at the start, but can it hold engagement for longevity?

Holding engagement for longevity is the way that audiences build over time. When it comes to online journalism, an analysis of user data from Northwestern University’s Medill Local News Initiative website showed that audiences who return over and over and read more frequently were far more valuable to columnists than people who would drop in occasionally and consume material in one fell swoop.

In order to conduct this analysis, 103 publications have enrolled in Medill’s Subscriber Engagement Index. The index tracks the behaviors of these publications’ subscribers, identifies the content that draws and keeps the most readers, and allows publications to compare their engagement between other companies. The analysis found, in comparing data from July-December 2021, that the publications that created the most content that would draw and retain subscribers overall had higher readership than those that saw high levels of initial engagement but very little retention.

“This research is significant because it shows the key to success in keeping readers is building habit, whether you’re a general interest metro daily or a weekly business publication with a more upscale audience,” said Tim Franklin, senior associate dean and John M. Mutz Chair in Local News at Medill, who added:

“The formula is the same. Do things that regularly lead readers back to you. Why is that important? The cornerstone of the new business model is reader revenue. That means reader retention is paramount.”

Shockingly, though only about 3.8 percent of users are loyal, they consume on average five times more content than casual readers. But just because someone is a subscriber does not make them loyal.

Medill’s index also found that nearly half of digital subscribers are “zombies,” customers who pay for the subscription but hardly, if ever, engage in the content. Spiegel Research Center’s analysis found that “while 49% of over-all digital subscribers didn’t visit even once a month, 54% visited the website just one day a month or fewer, 58% visited two days or fewer, 69% visited seven days or fewer, and 79% showed up 15 days or fewer.”

This means that the loyal base is even smaller than one could surmise just based on subscriber numbers, and those people are still consuming the lion’s share of content as opposed to casual readers. Will this insight cause more newsrooms to move from ad-based models to subscriber-based models? The consequences of these insights are yet to be fully felt in the journalism community.