Reader revenue is the most reliable way to build a successful and sustainable content business. Digital subscriptions and membership models have proved highly successful for news brands including the New York Times and Washington Post, as well as local news like the Boston Globe and Minneapolis Star Tribune.
How can mobile apps help drive that success for your reader revenue company? See 3 key areas where apps can really shine below.
1. Mobile audiences are app users
According to eMarketer, mobile users spend 90% of their time in mobile apps versus only 10% on the mobile web.
Reader revenue companies can more deeply engage with their audiences through mobile apps. Increasing returning visitors and driving up time spent are great reasons to adopt a mobile app strategy.
“Another learning is that more than 50 percent of subscribers are coming from the apps, so the apps are crucial to our subscription success. And only 30 percent of the subscriptions are coming directly from the paywall,” – Sophie Gourmelen, Le Parisien
2. News consumers engage with push
Many apps use push for marketing and sales use cases. Content apps are strongly positioned to use push to engage their app consumers with more content that they love. Using content rather than marketing for push notifications is a great opportunity to build loyalty and engagement.
A recent study by App Annie and LeanPlum showed a 7x increase in customer retention when using personalized push.
Push is even more effective in reader revenue apps when editorial is involved in crafting the message. Clifford Levy, a digital editor for the New York Times discussed their evolving push strategy with Recode back in 2016.
“A year or so ago the push notifications from the New York Times were simply headlines. They were written with a particular voice that was almost like the voice of the print front page. Sam and I and some of our other very, very talented colleagues in the newsroom said, "You know what? That's not how the lock screen on a phone works. The lock screen is where you get texts, the lock screen is where you have very personal communications. We need to evolve a new voice for push notifications.”
“We [The NYT] get a bigger traffic spike from push alerts than we get from anything else.” - Michael Owen, New York Times News Desk Editor
3. Mobile app spending is growing
Mobile app spending in 2021 was up 20% over 2020 to $133B USD according to Sensor Tower. And that’s not all. Sensor Tower is predicting that by 2025 mobile app spending will reach $270B USD.
Reader revenue products can tap into this growing digital spend by adding mobile apps to their product suite.
Build and Grow Reader Revenue with Nami
Once you’ve built a great app experience to engage your readers and build loyalty, Nami has all the tools you need to build and grow reader revenue.
Integrate recurring revenue with our No-Code paywalls and 5-minute integration to sell and grant access to your premium content. Manage your customers with our CRM. Understand opportunities to grow revenue with our analytics and insights, and build campaigns to execute on those insights. We’ve got you covered.
“The retention rate for annual app subscribers is the highest of any of our subscription offerings,” Bryan Davis - Senior Manager of Audience Marketing - New York Times