Wednesday 26th June: Audience revenue and growth strategies from outside the UK

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Last week’s Audiencers Festival looks like it went brilliantly, and I’m grateful to Jacob Granger for covering it (and some of the sessions from our own Summits). There are some fascinating stories in this piece, from the formation of Canada’s biggest local co-operative newsgroup to the ruthless retention strategies of Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

I particularly liked French news organisation Libération’s approach to reducing churn. They have a plan for most scenarios, from inactivity to an upcoming expiry, and use that to try and move them to longer plans.

People prefer to save money (€36) than time (two months) by switching to an annual plan. This saves "hundreds" of would-be cancellers a month, said head of subscription marketing Adèle Bacos.

The short history of photo posts in this highlights the ridiculousness of these algorithm changes. But if you care about your Facebook content doing well, this is worth a read. Looks like photo posts are back in, which I guess relegates the link back to the comments section…

When is a magazine no longer a magazine? Maybe when it no longer fits neatly on the bookshelf, and instead can survive the dishwasher. Everything about this story treads that fine line between being brilliant and bonkers. “I sort of envy anyone who subscribes to McSweeney’s who thinks they’re subscribing to a magazine and winds up getting something like this in the mail….That feeling of mild confusion, followed by surprise, awe, and joy, is nice to imagine.”

Ed Jennings and Steven Keevil launched Local Authority on Substack in 2021, covering the Medway towns in Kent. Not only do they run it outside of their day jobs, but they got over 500 readers to turn up across three hustings. They put the big turnout down to the direct relationship formed with readers. One nugget: they’re inspired by Mill Media but are fully aware Medway is not Manchester, and are adapting accordingly…

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