The formula for financially successful print newspapers of the past was straightforward. Maximizing paid subscriptions with low churn boosted circulation, attracting advertisers willing to pay premium rates to reach a large audience. Today, the print news product accounts for a much smaller portion of circulation and revenues. News organizations have had to expand their news and information products to include newsletters, podcasts, events, games, puzzles and more, primarily available in digital formats and online.
As consumers are offered ever more channels and content from media companies, attracting and retaining subscribers is a major challenge. To compete and drive revenues in this environment, news organizations have had to develop more comprehensive subscriber onboarding strategies and programs.
It’s not enough to accept a subscription and payment as simply a financial transaction, although any news organization is grateful for it. Engaging with every new subscriber after payment is now more important than ever. Subscribers have many choices for news and information, so other content and offers can easily cause them to cancel. The most successful subscriber onboarding programs convince new subscribers that they are valued, that they have joined a community, and that they will be rewarded with special offers to remain subscribers.
To paywall or not paywall
Many news organizations wrestle with the question of paywalls. An open (free) paywall, where all content is accessible, reduces reader complaints about being forced to purchase a subscription to view some news and information. That can sour readers’ relationship with a news organization and negatively impact the likelihood they will become paid subscribers. Some news organizations have carefully developed paywall policies that entice readers to subscribe because they consider the paywalled content valuable.
For Forum Communications Company, a local news organization serving 30+ communities across North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Montana, paywalling content and demonstrating value to subscribers are not mutually exclusive. Placing its most exclusive content behind a paywall has proven to attract subscribers, according to Stephanie Schroeder, Forum’s chief revenue officer.
“When a reader clicks on an article that is behind our paywall, they understand this is reserved for subscribers, and to read it, they must be a subscriber. This also serves as a subscriber benefit because they have access to content other readers can’t view for free. By locking down the best content and reserving it for subscribers, they realize they are receiving something of value,” Schroeder said.
STAT was launched 10 years ago and is part of Boston Globe Media. Its reporting focuses on biotech and pharma, policy, health tech, health, science and the business of health care. Although its audience is quite different than those served by Forum Communications and most national and local news outlets, subscriptions, events and advertising are also its primary revenue drivers.
Some of its content is only available to subscribers. Because the number-one selling point of STAT is the quality of its journalism and the content that so many professionals across various fields need, a paywall is more likely to generate subscriptions. According to Seth Harris, senior vice president of growth and subscriptions, STAT is considering placing several of its newsletters behind a paywall.
“We’re exploring how to offer elements of our subscriber-only newsletters for free with an effort to drive readers toward a subscription. It’s a great learning opportunity to determine whether a newsletter could be a separate subscription product, offering a lower-cost entry point. Maybe someone wouldn’t be willing to spend $399 for our annual subscription plan, but they would be willing to spend a slice of that to have access to our top journalists in that content category,” Harris said.
From transaction to onboarding
The types of subscriptions are as varied as a news organization’s journalistic focus, location, audience, years in operation, delivery method, revenue goals and whether they are for-profit or nonprofit. Many offer low-cost, limited-time trial subscriptions; others offer heavily discounted annual subscriptions, and those with a print product may bundle home delivery with digital access.
Nonprofits seek donations or offer memberships, so the local populace has a stake in supporting their community news outlets. Donor and member benefits tend to include a tax deduction, an exclusive invitation to events, an author and speaker series, merchandise and an annual subscription.
A positive onboarding process often begins with the structure of a trial subscription. Schroeder and her team experimented and decided on a six-month trial at one dollar a month, but charged once. Subscribers don’t incur recurring charges, so they are less likely to cancel.
“When we first instituted this model, we paired a very low price with a hard paywall. It puts the conversion decision in front of customers on the spot. Because the price is so low, they’re willing to convert on that offer. Six months is a good amount of time to build a habit and stickiness. We let them enjoy the product, giving them time to recognize the value and choose to continue their subscription. They’re only faced with another decision at month six: moving to the full-price rate. At that point, we’ve seen a strong retention rate, stronger than we would have expected,” Schroeder said.
Trial subscribers are thanked at the end of checkout and presented with a link to a page listing all the benefits of their subscription. Access to all of Forum Communications’ 30+ news sites and the ability to share a subscriber account with another household member are two of the most attractive benefits. Subscribers also have access to the e-paper, apps, puzzles, games and the ability to comment on content.
Schroeder said subscribers then receive a series of emails during the first month of the trial period to reinforce the benefits. The first is a personal note from Forum Communications’ head of customer success thanking them for their subscription. Each subsequent email highlights one of the benefits.
STAT offers three subscriptions: monthly, a three-month starter and annual. That is where the similarity ends, given the diversity of STAT’s audience. Some require a group plan to provide access to articles and other tools for multiple staff members. It offers discounted rates for students, graduates, teachers, health care professionals and nonprofit organizations. STAT also has a smaller consumer audience seeking information important to them or their family members.
“Our subscribers work in the industries we cover, and medical professionals are only one of them. We have many subscribers on the periphery of health and medicine, such as financial services, consultancies, agencies and policy makers. We work with as many business schools and law schools as we do medical schools. Students who subscribe are not necessarily future doctors. They might be studying health policies or pharmacy,” Amanda Garces, senior director of subscriptions, said.
STAT has two onboarding channels. Those who sign up for a free newsletter, for example, are placed in a six- or seven-step onboarding process. The other channel shows readers how to use the content, how it relates to their studies and careers, and the institution's mission.
“We host a dozen in-person events a year where subscribers receive preferential or favorable treatment and access. I always think of onboarding as learning which two or three behaviors drive a healthier subscriber. We’re working diligently to identify those behaviors, which could be downloading our app, using our premium data tools and industry trackers and saving a story. If they read more than three articles in the first week of their subscription, then we’ll have them,” Harris said.
Subscription retention is part of onboarding
The subscription goals for any news organization are to retain as many subscribers as possible, make it easy for subscribers to renew and minimize churn.
According to Schroeder, she and her team are very proactive about emphasizing their entire network as a subscriber benefit, because some subscribers forget. Access to the Forum Communications news network includes 30+ local news websites and e-papers throughout the upper Midwest — all available using the same login credentials.
“We have experimented with making certain features, such as puzzles, games and newsletters free and locking down other features, such as curated newsletters and archives. Ultimately, it’s a balance of having enough value to engage non-subscribers and keep existing subscribers happy with the product they purchased,” Schroeder said.
Forum Communications has added gamification badging as another retention tactic. Subscribers receive a badge based on how much they engage with their subscription during the first 30 days. Schroeder said her team has created flashy names for each badge, such as browsing buff or article aficionado. Subscribers are interested in hitting a metric and seeing their reading stats increase.
Forum Communications’ subscriber churn rate is less than the industry average, reinforcing the value of exclusive content. Monthly digital churn is approximately 3%, and combo subscriptions can range between 1.0% to 2.0%.
Subscriber retention is as much a challenge for STAT as it is for any other news organization. The job is a bit easier because content can be a critical component of subscribers’ careers or studies. According to Harris, it isn’t unusual for someone to purchase a subscription because they are meeting with their venture capital firm or a biotech startup in an hour, and they know they need a particular story for the discussion.
“Schools and companies can sometimes require students and employees to have a STAT subscription. There are instances where the institution pays for a group plan, providing access to students in a particular course. Other schools will have a discounted rate for a subscription, but for students, they consider it the equivalent of a textbook, and the school has decided that students must pay for it,” Garces said.
Some STAT subscribers purchase a custom plan with a specific number of seats. Custom plans could include custom feeds in addition to their standard subscription access or with various STAT bundles.
“What I like about these types of subscriptions is that the base mechanism is the subscription pricing, and then there’s an added customization layer. That is how we grow average revenue per unit (ARPU) or relationship dollar value. STAT is more than a subscription play; it’s more like a platform. How we deliver a subscription may evolve over time. We want to identify more of those use cases and sell them accordingly,” Harris said.
Garces reports that STAT has a retention rate of more than 90% across both revenue and accounts, particularly in enterprise and group subscriptions. These subscribers tend to be more interested in multi-year agreements, which results in a proactive, dedicated effort by STAT teams to help them gain the most value from their subscriptions. The first quarter of 2026 saw some of the lowest churn rates since STAT launched.
The fine art of rescuing cancellations
Understanding why subscribers cancel, whether it’s during checkout, after a trial period or during a long-term subscription, reveals more about subscriber behavior and helps a news organization refine its onboarding process and maximize retention.
Schroeder said subscribers who have added another person to their account are also less likely to cancel because their plus-one member would lose access to the articles they are interested in. Schroeder said Forum Communications has a straightforward, easy cancellation process, so subscribers don’t have a negative experience and are more likely to return. If price is the reason for cancellation, then subscribers are offered an extension of their discount.
“If they were upset about content they read and want to cancel, we’ll put them in touch with our newsroom to offer feedback. If it’s more of a technical issue, then we’ll give them the opportunity to engage with the support team immediately. We also highlight all the benefits they would lose if they canceled. We’ve found that most people who enter a cancellation flow abandon it without ever accepting an offer. They abandon it just by engaging with all the content we’re showing them,” Shroeder said.
Harris and Garces also understand that subscribers want an easy, quick cancellation process. Canceling subscribers will receive customized win-back offers, and STAT is constantly experimenting with them to find the best matches for its varied audience.
“We’ve received great qualitative and quantitative feedback from the more recent set of canceled subscribers that will help us customize win-back offers based on where they were in their journey. They may cancel three minutes after subscribing or after five years due to changes in their studies and careers. We’re also exploring pause functionality when subscribers are on vacation or have other reasons to pause their subscriptions temporarily,” Garces said.
A constant experiment
Schroeder, Harris and Garces all agree that subscriber onboarding and the downstream retention and cancellation efforts are ongoing experiments. For Schroeder, learning from other news organizations that have been successful with onboarding, borrowing one or two ideas and experimenting with them, is a good place to start.
“Some experiments may fail, but measuring them and discovering which are successful can move the needle for you. Continuously iterating and finding which ideas make your numbers a bit better each day is often easier than looking for a silver bullet,” Schroeder said.
Harris and Garces are fully focused on understanding their audiences, since they are so varied and use STAT’s content for many purposes.
“We talk to the people who are subscribers and non-subscribing readers and ask them why they subscribe to STAT and what we could do better. At any of our events, I ask whether they are a subscriber and what attracted them to become one. My goal is to build a test-and-learn culture to better understand our subscribers and reveal the behaviors that lead to long-term subscriptions,” Harris said.
Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010. He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.
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