Partnering with Google to help Japanese publishers evolve from an advertising business model to subscriptions

Situation

Chugoku Shimbun, a major local publisher has been trying increase its digital reader base. However, they have had some challenges around their churn. Formulating effective strategies around user engagement to retain their subscribers will be beneficial for them to further growth their subscriber base.

Engagement

During the course of the 6 months programme, FT Strategies supported Chugoku Shinbun in the following capacity:

  • Conducted data analysis and provided feedback on their current engagement strengths and challenges.
  • Formulated their comprehensive digital strategy based on in-depth data analysis.
  • Advised on multiple experiments including: increasing user engagement by segmenting users by their engagement level, decreasing churn rate by carrying out a newsletter campaign.

Results

  • Started implementing a compound engagement metric “RFV”
  • Reduced churn by 20% through newsletter campaigns
  • Increased daily readership of digital newspaper by over 20%
  • through app push notifications
  • The conversion rates of new subscriptions marketing campaigns increased over 10 times higher than in previous campaigns

“As a result of the the Academy, the number of new subscribers has increased and that of cancellations has decreased, owing to the effects of these new tactics. We were able to learn how to accelerate our operation cycles to reach the target goals fast by conducting experiments.”

Manager of Digital Marketing