speaker: Ulrike Langer

topic: Die neue Morgenzeitung – Wie US-Publisher erfolgreich Newsletter monetarisierent

Lisa mea as Altiza or the Valbongfu print.

It's, it's film in film the community building.

Be the skin function on Rosli and Kernen takes.

Ulrikelanga

Bonire, your newsletter again, Austin Vanni start. That's the comment.

So, in case you are surprised, I got permission to speak in English since my slides will be oops, this is too far.

This is the one we should be, since my slides are in English and I don't want to have to get all schizophrenic by switching languages in my mind all the time. I got permission to speak English even though I'm German, but I'm also American. I live in the US, I, I analyse media developments there have been doing that for the last 14 years and for the last 30 years I've actually been working as a freelance journalist for Uber or publications. First, Medium markets.

seen and now it's all about business models at Crespo.

So, we'll skip this. We don't have the time. We'll go right into the interactive part, the audience participation part in case Hans Obaauer hasn't woken you up enough already, I will try to do this now. So I would like to have a show of hands from you for the question, what is driving your newsletter revenue.

I hope it is A, B, C, or D or a mix of that and not question and not answer, otherwise you would be somewhat late to the game, but not too late. So,

Answer A, who is making money with display advertising and sponsoring their newsletters. Can we have a show of hands? OK, that's.

That's OK. That's about 20 hands, who has premium subscription and memberships. That means newsletters that are behind the paywall or our standalone products. That's our maybe 15.

who is combining their newsletters. Now this is advanced, who's combining their newsletters with events, either big conferences or smaller networking events.

Even fewer what maybe 12.

who is using newsletters to drive e-commerce or has affiliate marketing. That's maybe 10, so we're getting lower down into the funnel and answer E, don't be afraid if you're E, that's OK. This is not the US.

12, I think there are some more, you're just too shy.

So, I will show you cases for American newsletters that are doing this or a mix of this.

And they're not doing E.

I'm showing you 3 case studies, the, the first one is Axios and Axios is all about premium scarcity. It's not about volume, it is about getting the right kind of subscribers. 6 a.m. City, they use AI for local for scaling their model on a national level and morning brew has been very smart about building a whole multimedia eco.

System around their newsletters. So let's dive into the first one, Axios.

what they have been doing is creating a scarcity around their inventory of newsletters, they have, they, as you all know, they invented the, the smart brevity principle, and they have also, and that's this lesser known, they have also been concentrating on a news a niche strategy. So there

Their niche is their new mass they, they don't create just a few newsletters for everyone, but.

For every niche where they find this is a market that is lucrative for us, that's where they go in and that's where they go deep and that is where they actually make their money.

and

For the advertising finance the sponsored newsletters, they only create a new one if they already have the market demand in advance, so they, we will also see this with 6 a.m. City on the local level. This is something that they have in common, don't start in a market where or in an industry or in, in part of an industry which is not lucrative for you.

This is

OK. so limiting the sponsoring, the sponsorship inventory that creates scarcity and that creates the opportunity for premium pricing, but it's also about creating events and connections between the advertisers, your subscribers, and yourself. It is in this triangle that they are able to create value for all three and

Axio Pro and their new trends new newsletters which just starting they're actually quite expensive, so, Axio Pro costs almost $2500 per year. What what the subscribers are getting is not so much a newsletter, but a more affordable.

consultancy for themselves. So instead of having to hire a consultant that would be or consultancy that would be way more expensive. They're getting this mindset in form of a newsletter into their inbox, and of course they're getting access to peers, access to industry influencers and networking and a very small and premium circle, so they're buying, they're buying axis.

Getting access for this.

And the target is only to have from all the axios newsletter free subscribers, the target is only to get 2% paying no because this is so, so premium and so expensive. You don't need many subscribers, you just need the right ones.

what's the lesson from that? um.

Create

Scarcity and go beyond vanity metrics. So, of course, if you have a model like this, you cannot chase page views or opening rates, that's not what matters. You want to, you want to convert the right kind of readers.

And, so that's.

That's all for now from Axios,

key insight from that, I think I've already said it, let's go right into the next one, which is 6 a.m. C. So that is a nationwide, local media model, they go only go into the very lucrative cities. They do not start in markets where, where they don't, have a have data that is telling them that.

In a few months they can be profitable. Often it doesn't even take that long because they only start with 2.5 people, 2.5 full-time positions, one of them is solely devoted to creating relationships with local advertisers and um.

They don't need much, that they, they break even is at 50,000 subscribers at per market.

You can do that if you have a bootstrap model. Now this is, this is not, of course, hard hitting investigative journalism. if you've ever seen an axio local newsletter, it's about what's going on in my city, what do I need right now in my daily life, but it's not breaking local scandals. it has value.

And nobody else is doing it as well as them, but it is, of course not the only kind of local journalism, we need, so that's the caveat with this model.

No crime, no politics, nothing that would, nothing advers adversarial that would drive advertisers away that belong, that's the other part of that strategy.

what they do have is a what they call a pride of place AI algorithms and that is a is a mixture of how much do people spend on retail, how much do they give to charities, what's the social sentiment? Is there a coherence in this community. do they like to interact with each other, um.

In the neighbourhood networks, are they fighting with each other or do they help each other? All of these factors are informing 6 a.m. City's strategy. And then they have absolutely streamlined their processes. So when they enter a new market, they do this in the same way and every single market and now they all have all the processes and processes in place, how the newsletter.

look like it's always the same, um.

And they go from start to being functional in exactly 2 weeks, that all it takes.

Yeah, they devote, they diversify their business model also, so newsletter advertising is, is the primary stream of revenue, but they also have an e-commerce product that is sent out with the newsletter. It's it's connected. It's called the buy, it's kind of a smaller version, less sophisticated version of The New York Times wire cutter.

they also licence their software to other publishers, and this is something that actually many even small publishers in the US do once they figured out, what kind of software works for them and they're getting questions from their industry peers. They, they try to think, is this something that we could actually licence to others.

They also form strategic content partnership, so TECO has brought local broadcasting stations, radio and television, and they form partnerships with them to broaden their reach on both sides. They carry each other's content. They carry each other's subscribers.

and Ryan Heay, who is the chief operating officer of 6 a.m. City thinks that his model, has a lot of potential also for other publishers, but they, they aren't there yet. The advertising industry in the US is actually signalling that they want to have more inventory and newsletters, but publishers aren't offering it to them. And I think this is something to be

thinking about in Europe too, are you actually aware of where you're advertisers want to be, and could you be offering them more in your newsletters.

last model morning brew, I think I have to speed up here a little, um.

So morning brew went from being one loose letter to being many newsletters for different industries and also from bring just a newsletter to also being a podcast and then several podcasts.

And their revenue has

has been, I would say almost exploding they're definitely profitable. They now have 7 specialised B2B newsletters, so they went from one generalised morning newsletter to 7 specialised newsletters all the while, analysing, what, where, where's the money it's and human resources in tech and finance and retail. So they're, ideal,

Subscriber is someone who writes the subway for 20 minutes maybe every morning and maybe is new to the job, to his job and wants to impress his or her boss, so what do they need to know for in their workday to climb the next ladder in their career, and that's what Morning Brew wants to offer them in their, in their little niche.

the revenue streams,

So the B2B newsletters are now actually more profitable than the flagship newsletter, even though that's the older one and that's the, the best known one,

They work with events with merchandizing and with networking, that's all connected, they can, they

they have this podcast and 4 podcasts, the YouTube channel, I mentioned that and actually 60% of their audience engagement first contact or commenting or, or subscribing to a news, new newsletter that now happens outside of the newsletter, so the newsletter is only one element in their whole puzzle strategy.

if you have a platform with newsletters and video and podcasts and events, of course you can use all of them to cross promote each other and that is something that I often see underutilised with publishers globally really that they create new verticals which in themselves are really good, but they are underutilised to constantly be cross promoting each other.

podcast listeners, are especially prone to, to also subscribe to the newsletter that is for their industry, so if someone is.

Interested is listening to a finance newsletter for their industry, of course, they will be predestined to also subscribe to the same newsletter, you just have to show it to them at the right moment.

yeah, that is something that CEO Robert Dibble of Morning Brew says he has this chief financial officer ambition. So, as I said earlier, the young, the young professional who wants to climb up the career ladder, Robert Dipple calls this cross-pollination, I like that term, so cross, cross pollinate your events, your verticals, your newsletters, whatever you have.

I will be finishing up with 4 strategic lessons from Axios. Let's go back to Axios create artificial scarcity target your niche influencers.

Focus on, on the metrics that really matter to your brand, do not fan focus on vanity metrics. I very often still in industry news, see, opening rates, total subscriber rates, those are not the metrics that matter as much as the ones that you can monetize in the end and build direct relationships.

Those are the axio lessons.

what are the 6 a.m. C lessons, use AI to predict which markets will be valuable for you if you want to reach out, branch out into a new market.

Use a eye to automate your processes so you do not have to start from scratch everywhere if you're, if you're, newsletter set up works for one local market, see if it, if you cannot use, use the same one also for a different market with different content, of course.

now this is something to be

taken with a grain of salt because if everyone would be doing this, we wouldn't be having hard hitting journalism anymore, but actually avoiding controversial content, expands your reach with advertisers that goes without saying, and also 4th strategy, if you have software that you like that works, that your colleagues like, think about, is there a business model behind it? Could you licence it?

And 3 strategic lessons from morning brew build more multimedia ecosystem do not silo your verticals, but do segment your audiences who can, who can you upsell your products to. You need informed and informed data strate strategy to do that, to precisely target the right audience.

And think about even if you're a local publisher, is there a B2B model maybe behind your content, behind your newsletters with local advertisers, local businesses, local politicians be interested in a more targeted B2B approach that is the right, the right content for them because it goes deeper and helps them in, in their daily professional life.

The bottom line, know who you serve, choose the right distribution channels and build sustainable direct relationships both with readers and advertisers.

If you want to make no more, more case studies. Here's my shameless plug. Subscribe to my newsletter and listen to my next two sessions this afternoon. Thank you very much.

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