Digiday Research: The most effective tactics for driving subscriptions

Publishers use email in various ways to drive people to sign up for subscriptions — either with marketing via offers sent to those already in their database, or sending more email about specific parts of the subscription product, like dedicated member-exclusive pieces, to their audiences.

However, only 23% of respondents said sharing email lists has proved an effective tactic for them.

When Digiday last conducted this research, 65% of publisher executives said their most effective tactic for customer acquisition is email, and 16% said it was house ads.

Subscriptions are the most important focus for publishing execs. Almost 46% of respondents said growing subscriptions were a major focus for them over the next six months. Other major priorities are building direct-sold ads: 64% of publishers said that was either a large focus or a very large focus area for them.