Welcome to the Publisher Newsletter by Media Voices: profiling the people and products powering publishing.

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How The Economist deepens reader relationships with polls

The Economist has strengthened the personal connection with its subscribers by launching The Insider - a weekly newsletter and discussion show, which enables readers to participate via polls. In a success story with Opinary by Affinity, they provide exclusive insights into their engagement strategy and the results achieved.

Learn how to:

• build a “personal reader connection” and link it to renewal and retention.

• structure an Insider-style loop where readers help shape the conversation.

• drive repeat engagement by giving readers a reason to return, including anticipation and follow-up on poll outcomes.

Turning readers into paying subscribers: 5 tips for converting via newsletters

Whether you’re launching a paid newsletter, or enticing free subscribers to upgrade to a paid product, emails can be a powerful conversion tool. Bloomberg, Hearst UK and Mill Media share tips to help convert free newsletter subscribers to paying products.

At The Publisher Newsletter Summit, a group of leaders in the newsletter space gathered on a panel to discuss what works when it comes to nudging engaged audiences to pay.

Henry Seltzer, Director of Newsletter Operations at Bloomberg, Joshi Herrmann, Founder at Mill Media and Rosie Percy, Newsletter Strategy Director at Hearst UK joined Chris Sutcliffe on stage to share their experiences. Here are five of the top strategies and tips the panel outlined to increase success with reader revenue.

1: Build relationships, not transactions

Mill Media was early to paid newsletters, seeing the opportunity to build reader revenue through low-volume, high quality local newsletters. They first launched in Manchester in 2020, and following its success building a paying audience there, it has now expanded to five other cities including Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow.

Now, they have more than 10,000 members paying for journalism across those publications. Herrmann said that one of the keys to that success has been getting readers on board with the publisher’s mission on a personal level.

“We have found that trying to set up the relationship you have with your readers as less of a transactional relationship in which they’re ‘buying content’, and more like a relationship where they feel like they are something that they want to be part of,” Herrmann explained. “They have a connection to the media company, they have a connection to the brand, and by having a connection that makes their life better in some way, that is a more durable way of getting them to pay.”

Herrmann sees their quality local coverage as something people really want, and will therefore pay for if it’s good enough. “I think there’s a desire on a lot of people’s part to feel connected to the places that they live,” he noted.

Bloomberg is building personal relationships by putting their own journalists front and centre. Writers like Matt Levine, John Authers and Tracy Alloway all have their own newsletter brands, which Seltzer says helps audiences feel more connected.

As part of an overhaul in newsletter strategy, Bloomberg put half their newsletter portfolio behind a paywall in 2025. “We see newsletters as value-add to the value of the subscription itself,” Seltzer explained. “So they’re getting all of the Bloomberg subscription and content, plus subscriber-only newsletters.”

Percy shared that Hearst UK also sees audiences responding well to personalities, and developing relationships rather than transactions. She says newsletter professionals need to think how they themselves want to interact with a brand.

“If I want to open an email from someone in my inbox, I want it to read like it’s a letter from someone I know,” she illustrated, emphasising the value in editorials. “I don’t just want it to be a list of links to a site with nothing extra added. Remember you’re in someone’s personal space, and build that personal connection to deserve being there.”

Percy also said that this personal approach needs to be considered when working on newsletters in more saturated markets. “What are you offering that’s different and personal to this person that can help you build a relationship?” she advised asking.

2: Get the newsletter right first

Over the last few years, Hearst UK has migrated to a new newsletter platform. Percy said that this has helped them understand how their audience interact with newsletters at a deeper level, with more advanced analytics showing where people are clicking, and allowing better segmenting and targeting of users.

She advocates for getting the product right first before spending effort moving readers down the subscriber funnel. “We spent time really honing that initial experience before we then push them down the line to bigger investment and bigger commitment, which is purchasing a membership,” she outlined. Their newsletters are now consistently performing above industry standards, which builds a strong foundation for improving conversion to paid products.

Newsletter quality is also of vital importance for The Mill, where the articles are delivered within the newsletters. Herrmann explained that they couldn’t compete with the perceived wisdom of volume publishing in local news in the hope of converting a few readers.

“People will pay for incredibly low volumes of content as long as those newsletters that they get are heavily differentiated, as long as they have an individual voice to them and an emotional connection to the audience,” he observed.

Herrmann pointed out that Mill Media and others have shown that there are sustainable reader revenue models in lean teams, simple delivery models and low-volume, quality pieces. 

Bloomberg’s Seltzer said that publishers need to carefully weigh up the point of a newsletter before thinking about conversion. “Think about why the newsletter needs to exist…think about the reader utility here,” he emphasised. “What are you really bringing to people’s lives, and what is the service that you’re providing, whether that’s curation and saving them time, or whether that’s just building a relationship with people in that community?”

3: Understand what readers love

Once Hearst had built a newsletter product they were happy with, the next step was building an understanding of what readers love and how that can be commercialised. Percy highlighted Prima as a brand where the newsletter readers’ habits gave them clues about areas that could be used to entice them into buying a membership.

“We knew that the content that’s most popular for Prima readers from the newsletter was puzzles,” she explained. “So we put puzzles behind a paywall with one free to play per day… So it’s identifying what content the readers are loving, still giving them a little something, but upgrading that.” 

“We can identify in our platform a user based on their membership status; whether you’re active or not, and what level of membership you are. So if you’re on a trial, if you’re a committed member, we can show dynamic content based on your membership status… reminding people of the services they have available if they are paying, and showing people, here’s what you could have had, with content we know they’ve had a previous affinity with, then moving them up the line to pay for more of it.”

Sometimes, the product may be right but the presentation may not be resonating with readers. Bloomberg tried packaging five of their technology newsletters in a ‘skinny bundle’ behind a paywall. Subscribers were given access to the articles linked within the newsletters, but not a full Bloomberg subscription, with the aim of enticing new audiences.

“It wasn’t as successful as we hoped,” Seltzer admitted. Now, they’re emphasising the value of the subscriber-only newsletters to the overall subscription offering, rather than segmenting paid offerings.

4: Recognise value in smaller audiences

One crucial shift all three publishers have seen is how smaller audiences and more niche topics are valued. It’s not a case of choosing between large and small lists; instead, both have their place.

“We’re seeing a distinction between the [free] broad newsletters that have a broader base…Then the subscriber newsletters are analysis, in-depth, reporting, original insights that you’re not going to get if you’re not a subscriber,” Seltzer outlined.

They have a monthly subscriber-only newsletter, Watch Club, dedicated to horology. The newsletter also gives access to launch parties, collector meet-ups, and brand showcases. “We’re seeing value in a smaller engaged list of paying users, as opposed to large lists,” said Seltzer, referencing Watch Club. “We’re really seeing engagement go up on smaller, subs-only newsletters.”

Hearst have also begun building out newsletters with smaller but highly engaged users. They aren’t charging for these at the moment, but are considering subscriber-only newsletters in the future. Like Bloomberg, newsletter subscribers get access to content and events they wouldn’t get elsewhere.

Their Esquire brand also has a watch-focused newsletter, About Time. Percy said that this was the second most popular content vertical across Esquire, with hyper-engaged readers.

“Even though it has a smaller audience, we’ve been able to sell advertising tenancies in it with watch brands, because people will read a 3,000 word newsletter on watches,” she explained. “Because people on this list are so engaged with that subject, we’re able to then build on that niche subject and the person writing it.”

Herrmann said that anyone considering launching a newsletter should create something in a market where there is a clear gap or niche. “There are lots of segments, verticals and local areas where there is a vast under-supply of journalism or content,” he pointed out, also noting that it’s easier to create an efficient business if you don’t have 20 global competitors.

5: Follow up on the story

Knowing when to push subscription or membership messaging is still a pain point for many publishers. Paid products need to be clear and visible for those who might come across brands for the first time and be willing to sign up. But more often than not, it is getting the right message to existing readers which pushes them over the line.

Herrmann said that this can vary hugely person to person. “Some people will only join a paid subscription if there feels like there’s an overwhelming, persuasive reason to do so,” he pointed out.

They see spikes after big stories sent out across Mill Media’s brands. But sometimes the biggest converters can be the follow-up stories from reporters explaining how a key story was broken, the relevant legal checks, and more insight into the investigative journalism process. “There are certain people who will sign up at that moment, but who wouldn’t sign up when the story was published,” Herrmann noted.

Related to his earlier point about building relationships rather than transactions, it isn’t surprising that Mill Media’s better performing subscriber campaigns are those which have an emotional value to the appeal, rather than just the intellectual or rational.

But for local news publishers in particular, there is a natural ebb and flow to subscriber acquisition. Herrmann described “big growth moments” when journalists have produced particularly strong work, followed by quieter patches. 

Regardless of the type of publication, understanding what readers want and creating a high quality product are two core pillars of a strong reader revenue strategy. 

“As we are entering this new environment where SEO is crashing and AI is coming for us, the more we can get readers to be involved and engaged on an ongoing basis, the more sustainable the whole model,” Bloomberg’s Seltzer concluded.

Tickets for this year’s Publisher Summit are now on Early Bird sale. Book now to secure the best rate before the agenda and speakers are announced.

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