When you step back and look at all the things that lead people to subscribe to a newspaper—the background factors, the specific triggers, the lifestyle conditions, and the publication characteristics—patterns emerge.
The survey asked an array of questions to get at all of this. Those multiple questions can make the results seem complicated because there is a lot to digest, but they also provide a richer profile of the consumer.
To help make sense of this robust data, we looked for patterns and connections in the answers from more than 4,100 recent subscribers. Based on this analysis, we identified nine different groups—what we call “paths to subscription.”
Some individual subscribers might fit into more than one group. But these paths offer a clear sense of different types of readers and how publishers should try to appeal to them.
The nine paths are:
- Digital Paywall Converters
- Topic Hunters
- The Locally Engaged
- Social Media-Mobile Discoverers
- Journalism Advocates
- Life Changers
- Coupon Clippers
- Print Fans
- Friends and Family
The report describes the unique combination of factors that lead each group to subscribe and offers insights into the best ways to target readers of each path.
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- Paths to Subscription: Why recent subscribers chose to pay for news
- What makes people ready to subscribe to local news, and what converts them
- After conversion: How to engage and retain new subscribers
- How different types of recent subscribers vary
- Digital subscribers: What motivates them to pay and how they are different from print readers
- Younger subscribers: What the future of paying for local news looks like
- How subscriber motivations vary in big and small markets
- What drives Republicans or Democrats to subscribe to local news
- Paths to subscription: Nine common journeys from reader to subscriber
- Digital Paywall Converters subscribe because they want unlimited articles
- Topic Hunters subscribe for news about a particular topic or issue
- The Locally Engaged subscribe because they care about the community
- Social Media-Mobile Discoverers subscribe after high-quality engagement on digital platforms
- Journalism Advocates subscribe to support a free press
- Life Changers subscribe because they just moved or changed jobs
- Coupon Clippers subscribe to get print coupons and save money
- Print Fans subscribe because they love relaxing with a paper
- ‘Friends and Family’ subscribers need news to support relationships with people
- Methodology
- Appendix 1: Respondents’ demographics and news behaviors
- Appendix 2: Analytical Definitions of Paths
- Paths to subscription: Nine common journeys from reader to subscriber
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As digital platforms and their users continue to grow and change, the ways news outlets build strategies around them will, too. These are themes we believe are key for digital transformation and sustaining and growing local news.
The next API Local News Summit will be on how local and community-based media might engender a local identity and embrace their geography and history. We’ll help news leaders consider how they contribute to a community’s well-being by fostering a sense of place — and how, when done with care, this might offer new ways to sustain local news.
This guide features strategies tested and proven by local news organizations that participated in the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program along the themes of product thinking, revenue, engaged journalism, collaboration and managing change.
