SP Brief #2: Optimizing your top-of-funnel
1. A publisher’s funnel is a map of its readership base
Every reader is located somewhere within the funnel
Each location within the funnel implies certain behaviors and qualities about each reader
These different behaviors and qualities are a result of each reader’s e.g., awareness of your brand, experience of your content, and personal reading and spending preferences
2. Traditional marketing expects only bottom-of-funnel readers to take action and purchase
There are many variations of the ‘funnel paradigm’ but each one expects a reader to move through various stages (not necessarily linearly) towards a final end-state
These stages include: new users, engaged users, qualified users, converted users
In this set up only the last stage generates reader revenue as a qualified user converts
3. This is an output of having only one end-point purchase solution: subscriptions
Subscriptions are a powerful monetization tool to generate revenue from a particular type of reader: one that has loyalty, strong reading habits, and gets value for money from consuming your content
In other words, it works well in only one area of the readership map: bottom-of-funnel
4. As a result, most publishers only optimize for their bottom-of-funnel
When all you have is a hammer (subscriptions) every reader looks like a nail (potential subscriber)
Every monetization strategy is therefore focused on transforming the rich and varied types of readers you have into the same, uniform type of bottom-of-funnel reader
This is inefficient (and unlikely) with every marginal reader converted more expensive than the last, driving up acquisition costs and lowering retention rates as readers revert to type and unsubscribe
5. With a more modern, personalized marketing strategy, readers in any part of the funnel can purchase content
Any reader anywhere in their funnel journey can generate reader revenue
A new user, freshly aware of your content and arriving at your site for the first time can be monetized
An engaged user who regularly returns but isn’t registered can be monetized
A qualified user who has registered and built loyalty and the habits of readership can be monetized prior to conversion
6. This is possible by adding a second purchase solution that caters to the rest of the readership map: pay-as-you-read
Non-subscribed readers typically have different preferences than subscribers, namely a need for flexibility and affordability when it comes to paying for content
They want to pay for content in a way that matches their budget preferences, without committing to multiple, long-term payments
See SP Brief #1: Pay-as-you-read vs. pay-per-article for further details and why micropayments are not the solution
7. Publishers can then optimize their top-of-funnel in 3 main ways
Revenue: Now readers are able to consume and pay for content flexibly, opening up the entire funnel for monetization, and not just a limited number of bottom-of-funnel readers
Note the secondary boost to ad revenues as more readers see more ads behind the paywall
Data: Publishers can now know who their top-of-funnel readers are with first-party data (names, emails) and what their preferences are (what they read, what they pay for, etc.) allowing them to optimize marketing for top-of-funnel segments
Engagement: Publishers can engage with top-of-funnel readers much more effectively with new first-party data, and because readers aren’t blocked by a paywall publishers can build a deeper relationship and a strong pipeline to conversion
8. Publishers with this dual setup of subscriptions and pay-as-you-read can now monetize much earlier in the customer journey
Every reader can now be monetized, including first-time readers
No reader need be prevented from engaging with and paying for content, i.e. no bouncing off paywalls
9. With both solutions working together, your multi-stage funnel has evolved into a ‘monetization map’ of your readership
Funnels are excellent paradigms to understand binary-state customers, i.e. they have purchased or they have not
Monetization maps are best to understand multi-state customers, i.e. they have purchased a bit, a lot, or not at all, with their state changing month-to-month
For more detail on this, see SP Brief #3: Funnels vs. monetization maps
10. Next steps: Make an informed decision based on your data
Conduct a limited, low-risk rollout of pay-as-you-read, testing on small cohorts of top-of-funnel readers
Gather data based on how your top-of-funnel readers engage with and pay for your content
Extrapolate your monetization map and decide whether pay-as-you-read is a viable solution and should be rolled out further
Learn if pay-as-you-read works for you. We can give you an awesomely quick 15-min demo.