Media insiders share their thoughts on how to monetize resistant audiences
I asked and you responded — thanks to all my subscribers for sending me your thoughtful and innovative ideas.
Hey y’all! Anita here. I received a lot of responses to my last newsletter about monetizing resistant audiences, including lower-income communities, so I’m sharing the most interesting ones in this week’s edition 💬
My insider’s approach
In “Why won’t these audiences pay for news?” I hypothesized that journalism outlets should offer tangible rewards to incentivize lower-income audiences to pay. Since these audiences face “stressed cognitive loads” when making decisions, it’s likely quicker for them to process the benefits and drawbacks of tangible rewards, compared with intangible awards.
Ben Ledbetter, contributing reporter for Carolina Public Press, a non-profit investigative news outlet serving North Carolina, provided some thoughtful and practical suggestions for tangible rewards.
I’m in North Carolina and like your hypothesis. In addition to local grocery store discounts and coupons, I have a couple of additions. If there is a grocery store cooperative, I would add additional discounts for that store. Also, there could be passes for one or two trips on local transit. Coupons or discounts for work shoes like Skechers could go a long way for those working service industry jobs. I would add discounts to a locally owned coffee shop. This would provide something multiple workers could use but might not have the money for on a regular basis.
Jeffrey Dvorkin, senior fellow at University of Toronto’s Massey College and former National Public Radio ombudsman, added more context to the public radio revenue model. (In my last newsletter, I shared an example of how WDET, Detroit’s NPR affiliate, successfully monetized audiences that may not typically donate to the station.)
What a great and timely discussion. This is a ubiquitous problem with not one clear way forward. But a couple of ideas are emerging, if I may…
First, as public radio has discovered in the U.S., only 10% of listeners actually send money to their local station. The other 90% are not entirely freeloaders, but they may indirectly support the local station in a variety of ways, including supporting those organizations — business and philanthropic groups — that are willing to actually send money.
Second, subscribing to a news outlet by individuals during the pandemic is problematic, as well. People who are economically stressed may not feel quite so generous. Paywalls are a problem but there seems to be no way to avoid them, for now. My approach to paywalls [is] to suggest to media organizations to drop the paywall for one or two visits. Entice the audience with excellent journalism then ask them to pay.
Dvorkin also emphasized the importance of creating a positive user experience for news consumers, specifically referencing how the popularity of streaming audio and video has made the public impatient with advertising interruptions. “Streaming content has made the public less loyal, or media promiscuous,” he said, adding that news outlets must produce quality journalism and create user-friendly products to stay competitive as a result.
Ariel Zirulnick, the Membership in News Fund director at the Membership Puzzle Project, a public research project studying how news outlets can turn their strongest supporters into paying members, echoed my thoughts on membership benefits that incentivize willing members with the financial capacity to purchase a membership for another person who couldn’t otherwise buy one for themselves — namely, that they don’t solve the problem of how to directly monetize lower-income audiences.
“Great points in here about the limitations of the ‘I pay to keep news free for everyone’ ‘benefit’ of membership,” she said, adding that MPP is very interested in the topic of monetizing underserved communities and would love to hear more examples (so readers, please keep ‘em coming!).
My outsider’s approach
The BIPOC-led news outlets I coach as part of the Facebook Journalism Project’s Sustainability Accelerator are focused on building out their consumer-revenue streams, after having just launched month-long fundraising campaigns in early March or mid-February. All four had to overcome external or internal barriers to launching their campaigns.
Identifying the right value proposition was a priority for two community-driven outlets in particular. For The Rafu Shimpo, we emphasized that the 118-year-old newspaper is an institution because it’s consistently served Los Angeles’ Japanese-American community through its ups and downs over the years:
Since 1903, The Rafu Shimpo has been there for you and your family’s most important moments. In addition to covering the larger news of the day, it has remained one of the few media outlets to chronicle the lives and stories of our community – from business and social announcements, to sports and civic events, to engagements, weddings, births, graduations and obituaries….Help us continue to serve you for another 118 years.
For NextShark, a digital news outlet that reports on Asian-American news, we highlighted how the 8-year-old publication has supported its community during a particularly difficult time by reliably reporting on the rise in COVID-related racism and anti-Asian hate crimes, as well as on Asian-American success stories:
Since the beginning of 2020, we’ve seen and reported on the terrible rise in COVID-related racism and anti-Asian hate crimes in our communities and the devastating struggle that many Asian and BIPOC-owned businesses faced because of the pandemic. We’ve also covered the incredible strength and achievements of Asian Americans pulling together to help one another….Your donation will help us keep reporting news you won’t see elsewhere, from Asian success stories to exposing racial injustices affecting our community.
As for internal barriers, both Rafu and NextShark had to grow into getting comfortable with asking their readers for donations. Prior to its February fundraising campaign, NextShark had never launched a campaign before. And although Rafu previously ran fundraising campaigns, the last one was several years ago, as the newspaper has been careful not to request donations from its community too frequently.
The Lakota Times, a print and digital publication that serves the Lakota community in South Dakota, dealt with another internal barrier, which was updating its website to reduce friction on the payment page so visitors can enjoy a better user experience.
I’ll explore more internal barriers to monetizing audiences in upcoming newsletters, so stay tuned for that. Until then, please consider supporting the fundraising campaigns of my four coaching teams:
NextShark kicked off its campaign on Feb. 20, and has raised close to $30,000 of its $50,000 goal
Indian Country Today began its campaign on March 1
The Lakota Times launched its campaign on March 1
The Rafu Shimpo started its campaign on March 3
Shout-outs
Many thanks to Alec Saelens, local newsroom revenue manager at the Solutions Journalism Network, for becoming one of The Other Wave’s newest monthly paying supporters.
In my community
Last month, I co-organized Media Makers & Entrepreneurial Journalists, an event by the Future of Journalism Initiative, with Carleton University professor Brett Popplewell. It featured Media Girlfriends founder Nana aba Duncan, The Narwhal EIC Emma Gilchrist and The Rover creator Christopher Curtis.
I contributed to “2021 Visions: How Should Media Entrepreneurship Evolve?” a series of predictions about newsroom leadership, product development and journalism entrepreneurship from members of CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism community.
Vision25, a joint effort between the Online News Association (the world’s largest association of digital journalists for which I serve as a board member), the Maynard Institute and OpenNews, shared five ways to get involved in the movement for racial equity in newsrooms.
Around the same time that Australia’s Senate passed legislation that effectively requires Facebook and Google to pay news outlets for content, the CEO of Stuff, New Zealand’s biggest news site, said she doesn’t regret leaving Facebook seven months ago and encourages other outlets to experiment with exiting the platform.
Cool stuff I like
Check out this brilliant, foreshadowing 2017 Buzzfeed piece about Armie Hammer, which looks at how Hollywood’s broken system and warped interior logic kept helping the embattled actor get many second chances. I also recommend reading author Anne Helen Petersen’s Substack newsletter, Culture Study.
My friend Sahra, whom I met while living in New York City, founded Nguyen Coffee Supply, which sells specialty Vietnamese coffee in the U.S. (shipping is also available outside of America). Not only is her product high-quality and delicious, Sahra is all about uplifting people in her community, which shines through in how she runs her successful business.
Madeline Miller’s Circe, a not-so-recent but still fantastic pick for one of my book clubs, is a subversive, feminist retelling of the goddess's story from Greek mythology, which was only briefly mentioned in The Odyssey.
I recently watched and absolutely adored A Fish Called Wanda, a 1988 comedy crime caper starring acting icons Jamie Lee Curtis and John Cleese. It’s definitely made my top 20 list of all-time favourite movies.
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