Achieving a 20% Conversion Rate: The Local Publisher’s Winning Formula

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All right, so, so, yeah, I'm just sharing my screen here. Yeah, so, so what the heck is happening here? We have free registrations and we have paid subscriptions.

Yes.

And we have, the last 30 days, we have almost 200 free registered readers and almost 40 paid subscribers. So right around a 20% conversion rate between pre registered readers and paid subscribers. Is this, is this a new setup.

Or is this, this is fairly new. And so let me, let me back up and explain like why and what happened and you know. Yeah, also, also you have to look at, there's a lot of new trial subscribers which I haven't even added into the count.

Right.

They don't even count as part of that conversion rate. So it's, it's north of 20% for sure. It, if these paid trials convert. Anyway, I often get emails from publishers. Maybe they go through some sort of publishers course or some sort of Google whatever, whatever. And one of the things that Google often recommends is that you put a newsletter signup box on your site, whether it's on the sidebar or inside the content. And anyone who's using Leaky Paywall and doing the free registration model knows that when you do that, you're bypassing everything inside of our funnels. You're bypassing the account setup, you're bypassing the upgrade messaging that could come later. Like, and not only that, you're also confusing the reader because they sign up for that newsletter and they think, oh, I've already signed up. Why can't I, I can't read this. I, how do I, I thought I had an account. So it creates more admin work as well. And then, so I'm looking at, I'm getting an email like that and I'm thinking, okay, let me, I need to provide some data behind this. So I don't have many publishers that have newsletter signups on their site outside of the free registration. That's by design.

Right.

I go back, I look at 30 days of newsletter signups for the newsletter form on the site. There's like 12 for 30 days.

12.

And then you compare that to 193 through the free registration.

Wait a second. So back up, where's the newsletter form sitting? And is There free registration going on at the same time or is this.

Yes. Okay, so that's inside the content is where the. This is where signup is. And I believe it might be on the sidebar somewhere too.

Okay, so it's a, It's a direct comparison. Oh, yeah. Same, same site, same point in time.

Yeah, it's the.

You have the newsletter in content Google recommendation.

Yes. Which they.

They don't know. They don't know that much.

So the thing you have to be careful about with Google is they're giving you broad. If you go through any of these publisher courses, like, I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff in there, but some of these like broad things that they're telling you to do don't always apply to like nurturing inside of a free registration. Paid model. Paid subscription model.

Right. Okay, so what you're seeing is 12 newsletter subscribers through an in content newsletter prompt.

That's right.

Versus 193.

That's right.

Direct comparison. And that's last 30 days.

That's last 30 days for the newsletter prom. Okay, that couldn't be more clear. Like if there's not like a blinking red alarm going off in your head to be like, what am I doing? Like this. Like, if you're a publisher and you don't have that free registration set up, you are missing out on so many signups on your site because we talk about this all the time. People will give up their email and create a free account in order to access content. That is how the newsletter. Right. Grows. Putting a, putting this little side benefit box on the sidebar or in the content to sign up for our free newsletter. They don't really know what they're getting with that. They're like, eh, you know, yeah, I don't want, I don't want. I don't need spammed. Yeah.

You know, and out of those 12, like speaking of spam, like, there could be some fake emails in there.

For sure.

For sure.

And going back to this, it can also create more of an admin headache because they're just, they're thinking they've already signed up and they're like, what the heck is going on? So they've, they sort of bypassed all these like, things that we've set up for them. You know, the one free article, then the registration, then they sign up, then they can get more access and then they're getting the newsletter and then they're seeing the upgrade messaging. They're bypassing all, all of that. When they just jump on the newsletter alone. All right, let's put, put a.

Let's put a pin in that. Back up just a little bit. You said a lot of great stuff very quickly. So if someone's. If someone does not have a free registration set up on their site, what should they be doing if they don't.

Have a free registration?

Yeah. So, yeah. What's the actual framework? What do they need to be doing on. On the site? Like, how many. How many articles for free? When do they get stopped?

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, I get this question a lot, too, because publishers are a bit nervous to set up a free registration or any kind of gated scenario. So what you're looking at the data that you're experiencing in this, in this chart here. With 193 free subscribers, this is one free article to the masses. So your first visit to the site, I get the article for free. Okay. My second article, I'm hit with the free registration prompt in, in the story. Right? So this is. I'm looking at the article. I get a box. It tells me I need to sign up for free in order to continue reading content. And then I go to the next article, and I'm hit with a upgrade message after. After that free article. So.

That.

That's the funnel. It sounds really restrictive to a lot of publishers. You're like, oh, my God, like, that's, that's really tight. But most people, and we've talked about this before too, like, you're lucky if they hit two pages on your site. So I wouldn't be too concerned about them getting to that upgrade message because most of them won't on that first attempt. They're gonna, they're gonna read one article. It's gonna be a miracle if they read two articles, and it's going to be a miracle if they get the three. Right. So I wouldn't worry too much about it and use that. And just to kind of tie this up here, the newsletter will drive them back to the content on the site. They're going to see your brand, they're going to see other stuff that you. That you fire out. In the case of what we're looking at here with Salem, they offer other free content that's in front of the funnel. Like, you can do that. Like, it's okay to do that on certain stories. They have a lot of, like, statewide news that they might make free or some sort of, you know, local initiative stuff that needs to be free for whatever. For whatever reason. So, yeah, that's, that's what I would recommend that's awesome.

That's a really good point you just made about and I call them levers that publishers have to adjust based on their audience and their content. And that's. So you set up a global framework which you're recommending. Okay, I read one free article and if you're looking here up screen on the second article, you get prompted with this story is free for you message and it requires an email and a password.

Yeah.

Once you hit submit, it unlocks that article, sends the email to mailchimp or whatever you're using, sends the free tag into mailchimp or whatever you're using so you can have this nice clean list of, of logged in re registered readers that, that you're also, it's also, they're also throwing data to your insights. And what's amazing is you're asking for a password.

Right.

So it's like email password. And we can also verify, we have verification. So we can verify this email is, is legit. But they're doing it and you're getting what's, what's. Go look at 193 divided by 12. You get, you know you're getting a 10 times plus. Better, better take up rate even when you ask for a password.

Right.

The content. And they want your newsletter to free.

Yeah. I mean and that's, that's key. Right. We, we don't just need the newsletter, we need them to make an account because when they're ready to pay.

Yeah.

They're going to have to go through this like signup process and whatever we can do to reduce that friction when they, when they are ready to pay, like they've already got an account, they've got their email in. They're just going to have to add a little bit of information, you know, first name, last name and a credit card and they're done. Like that's it. Off they go. So we're, we're priming them for the future credit card payment down the road.

Yeah. You're signaling that your content's worth something and that's, you know, your confidence in your original content. And that appears on the free registration side because you're saying hey, email password. And you can get this article, get the newsletter. And so that just, it primes them and then yes. It lowers the friction on checkout because they're already logged in. Really it's a matter of a credit card and that first name, last name.

Yeah.

So let's just finish this, this funnel here. So okay, so I fill this out, I unlock this Article. I read this article. I'm on the newsletter. The newsletter sends me back to the content over and over again. And what you're saying works, and I agree, and I know this works, is that you get one additional free article and that's it. So then the next time you hit an article, you get the upgrade message, which is basically the benefits of upgrading your account. And my take on this is that you need your free registered readers to see this message multiple times. Yeah, five times, 10 times, 20 times.

There could be months of this going on before they're ready to convert. And again, if they bypass this setup and they're not logged in and they're not getting that upgrade messaging, you're not, you're not, they're just not seeing it. And so you're delaying this potential paid member or subscriber indefinitely, right? That's right.

You got to draw the line in the sand. You got to be tough, take a breath and just do it. Because it works. And we see this, we see this with all the publishers that we set up with this framework and make it tight. So it's one free article on the meter. Then you have to register, then you get the second article and then you get the upgrade message on the third article. And then the newsletter is driving them back over time. They're, they're converting, they're converting higher than, than really any other method. I mean, look at the New York Times. They don't even give you one article. You have to register right up front. Yeah, very good reason for that. That's, that's what we're looking at here.

Yeah, yeah. And this is, this is certainly the, like the preferred method. I see a lot of publishers, I don't know if this is a trend, but you try to read content and it, it, like there's a pop up and then it redirects you to the homepage. Like I don't know what's happening or why publishers are doing that. You see that often with like national or Metro. I don't want to call out the Metro paper that does this, but it's, it's, I don't understand the logic behind it. It's a very hard paywall. Like there's no email capture. I'd be happy to give an email and sign up for free to read that article and at least get some, you know, get acclimated to the content a little bit before I just, you know, hand over, you know, 25 bucks or whatever the payment is.

So yeah, Google knows what works for the sort of the generalized content creator that's not running a subscription platform.

Yeah.

Comes to a subscription platform. You need to nurture your readers through a very specific funnel, which is what we're. Essentially what we've shown here. So that what they're saying as far as the newsletter ask doesn't apply to folks with paywalls and subscription platforms running. Because that free registration will. Absolutely. As we're looking at the data, will outperform.

Yeah, I'm going to say go ahead. No, no, you're good, you're good.

Well, I just want to say one more thing about the data. Let me go back to it here. And that's peaks and valleys. So one of the things I've been looking at a lot of these charts, and one thing I noticed is that when you get a surge in free subscribers, I mean, look at this peak. Look at this peak over here. You get a surge in paid subscriptions. Why does that happen?

Yeah. Well, let me just say why those are happening first, because I did take a look at this specific publisher to see what on earth are they publishing that's causing these spikes? And free signups. And paid signups. Yeah, it's the hyperlocal content. Imagine that. Right. So it's these super, super local focused stories that's happening in this small community, and people are just like, oh, my God, I have to like, okay, I'll sign up. I got to read this. I got to know what's going on. Like, what is happening. And these were some major stories in the region that had interest. And, and so, yeah, that's driving the free signups, which then in turn drives the paid signups.

They.

They are. I mean, you can't, it can't be more clear looking at these charts, that there is a correlation between the number of free signups and the number of paid. And I tell publishers over and over and over again, you know, forget the SEO, forget the social stuff. Yeah, you can do that if you want. If you want to focus on that, fine. But spend more time on growing the newsletter, getting it to a number that's astronomical.

Right.

And then get it to convert at 7, 8, 9, 10, 12%. And you can do that with local content. Like, that's. Those are all. There's all kinds of different keys here. I like to say there's one key, there's not one key to this. There's like multiple things that you have to focus on, but that's what's working across the board, whether it's in an affluent community or it's in A smaller rural town in West Virginia. This is the model that works.

Yeah, it works like crazy. I will say that this data basically suggests that the nurturing that happens with the free registration can happen within the same day. So I go to your site, I read an article, I get stopped. I have to register to read the next article. I read the next article, and then I go to the third article, I get stopped again and I get asked to pay.

Yeah.

And I think, wow, like, this content's great. Like, I, Yeah, they. I had to register, which signals paid, and then now they're asking me to pay. And I've thought about paying, but this, I think I'll just do it now. And so if you look at the. If you look at the peaks of the. The free and the paid, they're. They're in sync practically, which is unbelievable to me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is like, you know, I don't know how many of these off the street sign up for free and, you know, get access to content, are then turning around and paying. I suggest. I suspect it's not that many.

Right.

I suspect these peaks and valleys are because of the stories. Obviously, people see value in it, but a lot of these paid subscribers are deep into this funnel, like, who are just about to convert. That story pushes them over the edge. You're like, okay, enough. Like, you know, you, you're producing good work. Let me just pay you for this so I can stop the upgrade. So I don't, I don't think you're, like, you're going to get a blast of free signups that are going to convert like, like in that moment, like that. I think that's a pretty rare occurrence. I'd have to look at the data on that, but I'd say it's rare.

Well, there is a correlation. More free subscribers, more paid subscribers. And like you said, it's not one thing, but this is a big thing. And I guess I lost that browser. I was just going to show that the checkout process is also pretty. Pretty slick when you're already logged in.

But. Yeah, yeah, okay, that's.

I think that wraps it up how. How local news publishers can achieve a 20% conversion rate right here. And reach out if you have more questions or want to talk about it. Thanks, Tyler.

Thank you.

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