WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:11.740 [intro jingle] This week's episode of the Rebooting Show is brought to you by House of Kaizen. House of Kaizen brings together leading minds and proven practices to help subscription product teams get ahead fast. 2 00:00:12.200 --> 00:00:23.220 Their Subscription Works program is designed to inspire and upscale your team with training, events, best practices, and on-call consultation that addresses your current opportunities. 3 00:00:23.560 --> 00:00:31.980 House of Kaizen collaborates to optimize the entire subscriber journey, from marketing to product experiences, for net growth and sustained recurring revenue. 4 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:37.780 TJ Hutner from Audible.com will be sharing his experience in a members-only AMA coming soon. 5 00:00:38.200 --> 00:00:51.700 Join TJ and executives from the world's leading subscription brands for these events and more as a member, and mention that you're from the Rebooting for a special price consideration that I am promised is very good by my friends at House of Kaizen. 6 00:00:51.900 --> 00:01:04.060 So be sure to mention the Rebooting. Your team, House of Kaizen's community of subscription growth professionals, and years of growth expertise working to make your subscriber experience better together. 7 00:01:04.580 --> 00:01:12.260 Find out more at houseofkaizen.com. That's House of Kaizen, K-A-I-Z-E-N.com. 8 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:26.540 [intro jingle] The internal education that has been happening is really trying to get people more accustomed to a churn that is much more like the rest of the world. 9 00:01:26.600 --> 00:01:39.100 So if you're in a recurring revenue model, if you're a subscription business like Netflix, like any of the streaming services, they are really accustomed to that churn, and that is- Yeah... you know. 10 00:01:39.180 --> 00:01:44.180 Harvard is very unaccustomed- Yeah... to churn. They- Churn is reality. 11 00:01:44.220 --> 00:01:49.840 If you're gonna have subscriptions- [laughs] I remember when I was, like, doing the subscription, our CEO would be like, "This person ca-" I'm like, "Yes." 12 00:01:49.960 --> 00:01:58.880 If you're gonna have subscriptions, unfortunately, people are going to cancel. That's the reality- They are... and you just manage the churn. Right. And that is just the reality. 13 00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:18.080 [upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting Show. I'm Brian Morrissey. 14 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:23.350 This week, I spoke to Nini Diana, Director of Consumer Marketing at Harvard Business Review. 15 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:32.940 I wanted to have on Nini because HBR is a fascinating publishing business that I think doesn't get as much attention as it probably should, probably because it's part of the Harvard Business School. 16 00:02:33.540 --> 00:02:40.580 But HBR is something of a media juggernaut with a thriving subscriptions business that has three hundred and twenty thousand paying subscribers. 17 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:56.200 Nini and I discuss how HBR chose its metered model, the challenge of figuring out pricing that's premium but still fits with a mission like HBR's, and also how to deal with publishers' least favorite reality of subscriptions, and that's churn. 18 00:02:56.280 --> 00:03:07.020 I hope you enjoy the episode, and please do let me know what you think by sending me a note at bmorrissey@gmail.com. I always like to hear from listeners. Also, if you use Apple, please rate and review the episode. 19 00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:16.980 Now on to my conversation with Nini. All right, so we'll just go right into it, and then we'll just- Okay... see where it goes. Nini, thank you for joining me on the podcast. You're most welcome. Happy to be here. 20 00:03:17.580 --> 00:03:29.580 [laughs] Okay, so first, because I think everyone feels like they know what, at least I do, w- H-Harvard Business Review, but explain it, where it sits within, like, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, et cetera. 21 00:03:30.180 --> 00:03:36.359 Sure. So from a business perspective, it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the business school. 22 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:55.500 We have a dean, uh, at the business school who we report in to him as part of the agreement, and there are financial agreements with the business school that we have in terms of supporting any funding for research that happens at the business school, which there is a lot of. 23 00:03:55.660 --> 00:04:09.400 I don't think people always think of business as a research institution, but- Yeah... that's, in a nutshell, what it is. And we are very careful to be clear that HBR is not an educational institution. 24 00:04:09.460 --> 00:04:17.310 That is the business school's job. But there obviously is a relationship. We don't really have a relationship with the rest of the Harvard entities, you know- Got it... 25 00:04:17.310 --> 00:04:23.159 the medical school, the college, or anything like that. Got it. That's nice. But the goal is to make money. 26 00:04:23.260 --> 00:04:36.560 I wouldn't say that that is the ultimate goal, but- No, I mean, but, like, uh, it's a for-profit entity, 'cause I think that publishing and media, I think it gets a lot of attention these days as doing a lot of different jobs for different types of entities- Mm-hmm... 27 00:04:36.580 --> 00:04:47.240 right? And I just wanna get at is the goal to make a profit with, with the publishing, not as a way to burnish the business school brand solely. No. 28 00:04:47.340 --> 00:04:56.610 It's not solely to, to burnish the business school brand, and, you know, I, I wanna make clear that I am not a financial officer, so my- Yeah [laughs]... 29 00:04:56.640 --> 00:05:04.980 my understanding of the finances is probably not at an expert level. But I will say that HBR itself, it's a.org. 30 00:05:05.020 --> 00:05:15.680 It is actually a not for profit, and that is because there's a percentage of our revenue that has to be fed back to the business school, and that's the agreement, and that's how we maintain that not for profit status. 31 00:05:15.700 --> 00:05:28.960 But you're right, there is a portion of revenue that- Yeah... pays the bills, but we don't pay writers, so I think that there is an integrity that is- Yeah... that the edit team attempts to maintain- Got it... 32 00:05:29.020 --> 00:05:38.620 in that regard. So, so give us an idea of the scale of HBR. What kind of scale are you looking, looking for? Number of people, revenue, like, everything. 33 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:46.040 [laughs] Well, since we're not a public company, I can't- [laughs]... talk about the revenue, but it's actually a relatively small organization. 34 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:57.580 But you also know that Harvard Business Publishing is three different market groups. There's- Yes... HBRG, which is the publishing group, and then we have a higher education group, and we have a corporate learning group. 35 00:05:57.780 --> 00:06:12.567 And we each have pretty discrete goals, although it does all bubble up to the business school. But it's all a-Out the practice of management and leadership. And so i-in terms of that, there is that sort of singular goal. 36 00:06:12.708 --> 00:06:29.728 I-I'm not sure what percentage HBRG is in terms of the revenue share among the entire groups. The subscription business, the content portion is probably 37 00:06:31.308 --> 00:06:53.928 50% of our market group's share or contribution to the overall revenue, so it's generally the largest part of the business, but the press is also a really big, huge part of the business too, and the press is broken out into retail sales, as you might imagine, and e-commerce sales, which is more of the, like, the press books, not the authored books. 38 00:06:54.108 --> 00:07:05.708 The authored books are much more of the retail presence. And our circulation, which is actually public, is somewhere north of three hundred and fifteen thousand. So it's not huge. 39 00:07:05.768 --> 00:07:16.388 It's a good size for the size of the magazine that we are and for being a hundred years old. I find it pretty astonishing that it's still so well circulated with- Yeah... 40 00:07:16.448 --> 00:07:25.358 and every-- it's not every other page is an advertisement. Yeah. So s-subscription, subscriptions are obviously a, a big part of the business, as you said. Mm-hmm. 41 00:07:25.388 --> 00:07:35.588 Explain where they sit within the organization as far as the overall strategy. I mean, it's the biggest part of the strategy, but there are other ways- Mm-hmm... that you make money. There are other ways. 42 00:07:35.648 --> 00:07:49.948 We have analytic services. We do have an advertising business, for sure. But yes, the subscriptions are probably the largest revenue driver, or it's what we rely on the most. It's the-- we call it the core. 43 00:07:50.148 --> 00:08:04.108 It is our core. And so it's still fairly well-balanced between digital access and people who still receive a copy of the magazine. 44 00:08:04.268 --> 00:08:19.028 I think that across the board in the industry it's becoming a question. Certainly among the peers that I speak to, we think a lot about what print means to our overall mix of our circulation. 45 00:08:19.628 --> 00:08:34.628 I think, and the, you know, the peers that I speak with the most have very high quality print books the way we do. So it's definitely a balancing act and trying to maintain 46 00:08:36.288 --> 00:08:42.308 the le- the same level of circulation in print as we do have in digital. However, 47 00:08:43.448 --> 00:08:53.968 we, of course, are challenged all the time by what customers really want and what they're used to doing and how they are used to consuming their media. 48 00:08:54.118 --> 00:09:00.928 And, you know, I use media just 'cause it's a catch-all term these days, but we're definitely challenged by 49 00:09:01.908 --> 00:09:13.808 the idea that if people are cons- continuing to consume more and more on their phones or tablets or laptops or through their earbuds or visually or whatever, how do we create the right mix? 50 00:09:13.848 --> 00:09:16.928 And that's not really what my job is. 51 00:09:17.338 --> 00:09:26.508 Certainly, I work with our content and editorial teams to make sure that we're having the right mix, because at the end of the day, we can get people to keep coming back to the website. 52 00:09:26.588 --> 00:09:38.688 We can keep getting them to buy the magazine and, and the rest of our content, but they're gonna stop if that content isn't rich or varied or whatever it is that they want. So... Yeah. 53 00:09:39.008 --> 00:09:52.908 Explain your role within the organization. You head up the consumer subscriptions group, right? I do. We are focused as a team basically on selling. We have the whole continuum, though. 54 00:09:52.948 --> 00:10:10.888 We have the brand initiation at the beginning of everything and making sure that when people are just registered or they're just a guest visitor, that their experience with our brand is obviously a positive one and that we-- 55 00:10:11.968 --> 00:10:22.188 our goal, makes it sound so crass and somewhat clinical, is to get them to convert in thirty, you know, within thirty days to some sort of form of payment, some sort of engagement with us. 56 00:10:22.308 --> 00:10:30.048 But we don't just forget about people who haven't converted. There has to be that continued engagement. 57 00:10:30.117 --> 00:10:42.768 So we have lots of attention paid to engagement of people who are just reading and who maybe are just reading to the limit that they can read in a month's time, 58 00:10:43.928 --> 00:10:47.488 but give it, still trying to give them a, an enriched experience. So 59 00:10:48.908 --> 00:11:12.148 then along the continuum, if they are a converted subscriber or a product buyer, that we're continuing that conversation in a number of different ways to maintain their engagement, but also gain their loyalty and their familiarity with the brand, and so that we're always trying to reinforce the value that they have, that, you know, how they see us. 60 00:11:12.208 --> 00:11:21.828 And so that is with e-commerce, that is with the subscription and the digital business. It's becoming more of a thing for some younger readers. 61 00:11:21.888 --> 00:11:39.108 We have a, a new product vertical called Ascend, which is geared much more towards younger professionals, people in career transition, people who are much more interested in the soft skills and the sort of soci- the socio... 62 00:11:39.808 --> 00:11:45.788 What am I trying to say? The sort of social anthropology aspect [chuckles] of being at work. 63 00:11:46.008 --> 00:11:57.118 Um, so we're trying to build a lot of pathways for people, and my team-- So the-- we're not just really concerned about the revenue. We are- Yeah... 64 00:11:57.168 --> 00:12:08.488 really concerned about the continued engagement with the subscriber and the ongoing conversation that we are having with them and the value that they-Find in all of our products. 65 00:12:08.518 --> 00:12:17.688 So one of the things that I think that's been interesting about direct revenue is the topic used to be all or nothing, right? It was like you're either all subs or you're all ads. 66 00:12:18.048 --> 00:12:26.588 And obviously there's been permutations that have developed. Mm-hmm. I think even more permutations are developing. E-explain the model that HBR has. At least I- Yeah... 67 00:12:26.598 --> 00:12:37.968 think of it as a meter mostly, and why it's important to do that, because I think every business has their own complexities to it. Right. I mean, and every business thinks about their meter a little bit differently. 68 00:12:38.108 --> 00:12:50.148 Some people don't allow you to read anything at all without some sort of value exchange, and a lot of the time it's just an email address. The media company I used to work for, that was the case. 69 00:12:50.208 --> 00:12:55.088 There was nothing you could get at if you didn't at least sign up for a trial subscription. 70 00:12:55.448 --> 00:13:06.268 And that was, that particular model was, they're like, "Well, we have, you know, 90-plus percent pay-up rate," and, but that was because they asked people to put their credit card in. 71 00:13:06.448 --> 00:13:22.848 So we've toyed with a couple of different paywall heights. We changed it at the onset of COVID when people were at home, and that was definitely a good plan. So you can read, I think it's, I think we're at two and four. 72 00:13:23.768 --> 00:13:28.088 Maybe it's at one and three, but I think it's two and four. [laughs] You'd think I would know this off the top of my head. 73 00:13:28.888 --> 00:13:40.728 Two free articles to read in their entirety, and then you have to register if you want to read more, and then you max out on a 30-day limit. So s- a lot... 74 00:13:40.768 --> 00:13:47.468 The things that we think about are, well, if it's really a time-based paywall, not a rolling paywall. 75 00:13:47.568 --> 00:13:59.688 So it's 30 days, no matter where in a month you sign up, it's at the beginning of that month, you have this amount of time to read four articles, and then the paywall shuts down. 76 00:13:59.748 --> 00:14:11.888 So we, what we definitely see patterns in our conversion, where we have lower conversions at the beginning of the month because people have... their paywall- Yeah... meter has been refilled, et cetera. 77 00:14:12.008 --> 00:14:23.368 So we're think a lot about that, and really what we're trying to move towards is a more dynamic paywall which is much smarter about the amount that people are reading, which is really the ultimate goal. 78 00:14:23.408 --> 00:14:34.828 You wanna give the people who are reading the most the highest, you know, possible hurdle because you don't want them to be taking advantage of things. And then people are finding loopholes. 79 00:14:34.868 --> 00:14:46.247 They're reading articles via the app, and they're getting two to four there, and then they're getting two to four on the website, and that's our fault, right? That's because we're not... 80 00:14:46.628 --> 00:14:51.788 our systems aren't well connected or our registration system isn't working the way it's supposed to work. 81 00:14:51.928 --> 00:15:08.568 So, but we also want to make sure that in times of crisis or high news feeds, 'cause we're not really a newsroom, but we do have a lot to say about the news because it always impacts business and the way people work. 82 00:15:08.718 --> 00:15:30.568 So we definitely have times where we are speaking to our readers as much as we can about the things that they can read for free, that there isn't a paywall requirement because it's much more important to have people be able to read and stay engaged and get what they need than it is to get their money. 83 00:15:30.908 --> 00:15:41.858 Yeah. So let me ask you this. Let me just jump in and ask you this. Like, why does this make sense for HBR versus, like you said before, like a really high paywall, like a strict paywall? 84 00:15:41.868 --> 00:15:48.848 Like, 'cause the people reading HBR, generally I think they make a lot of money. They, they do okay. Right? They do. 85 00:15:48.858 --> 00:16:05.248 [laughs] And I think that for sure we have a higher percentage of C-suite readers than we do people who maybe are lower or mid-career, but we do wanna change that. And I think it's really challenging because 86 00:16:06.188 --> 00:16:16.728 Harvard is an internationally recognized brand- Yeah... up and down the career ladder. And it's really nice to be able to rely on that. 87 00:16:16.868 --> 00:16:32.658 But on the other hand, you don't want all the strings necessarily that are attached to that because you don't want people to... It can have a negative connotation in some regard. So- Mm-hmm... 88 00:16:32.688 --> 00:16:42.138 you wanna take advantage of the positive and you wanna downplay any negative. Yeah. And, and there is a, there's a mission i- and too overlaid too, right? 89 00:16:42.148 --> 00:17:12.008 There is definitely a mission, and I would say that that is w- one in, in any publishing industry, and I've been in publishing for a really long time, both in magazines and in educational publishing, and there is always a dichotomy between the editorial team and the marketing team because the marketing has very, very clear monetary revenue goals that have to be met, and the edit teams have a different set of goals. 90 00:17:12.348 --> 00:17:28.148 And a lot of them are page views and return visits and readership and things like... and int- editorial integrity, and that's a huge goal. Yeah. So you have to, as a marketing team, 91 00:17:29.348 --> 00:17:39.598 you know, on your darkest days, you're thinking, "Ugh, if we didn't sell magazines, you- [laughs]... you know, edit team wouldn't even be getting paid." Um, but that's not really what- [laughs]... 92 00:17:39.608 --> 00:17:47.808 not really what you say. Be nice to the editorial team. [laughs] You have to be nice to the edit team. Um, so we're- They have deadlines every day. It's rough. [laughs] They do. 93 00:17:47.848 --> 00:18:01.748 And the amount of stuff that they churn out is honestly is unbelievable. I know. I mean, the super high quality, relevant content that they put up five new- Yeah... pieces a week. 94 00:18:01.848 --> 00:18:11.918 That actually, for the depth of content, is pretty phenomenal.So- I will say this, I probably shouldn't, but my wife is finishing up a article for HBR, and she said- Oh... 95 00:18:11.918 --> 00:18:24.308 it's the most intense editing experience she's ever been through, and so- I bet... you're doing a good job. [laughs] I, I bet it is. Yeah. Oh, man, our, our editors are... honestly, they're not to be matched. So, 96 00:18:25.228 --> 00:18:33.538 but still, [laughs] you still have to sell it- Yeah... at the end of the day. So you have to match it so the, so the meter makes the most sense. So explain to me then- It does... the pricing, right? 97 00:18:33.568 --> 00:18:41.928 Because, like, I was surprised. I was like, "Oh, this is a lot lower than I would have thought." Again, I think Harvard Business Review, I'm like, this would have to be... 98 00:18:41.968 --> 00:18:53.658 I see s- the Substacks out there are, like, $300, $400. Now- And yet I go and for a mere $10 a month, billed annually- [laughs]... I can subscribe and get digital access. 99 00:18:53.828 --> 00:19:06.228 Or if I want digital and print, somehow I can pay the exact same amount. [laughs] Right. That's been a test that's been ongoing because a lot of it is trying to understand what people exactly are valuing. 100 00:19:06.348 --> 00:19:19.668 And with the research that we've done, and we've done conjoint studies, and we've done focus groups, and we've researched market panels, and we've researched former subscribers, and we've a- I mean, we've asked everybody we could possibly ask. 101 00:19:20.688 --> 00:19:33.548 Because we are working so hard to be global, we have to account for how much price sensitivity there is in some of these emerging professional classes that we're trying to reach. And- Yeah... 102 00:19:33.668 --> 00:19:51.468 so we have to try and find a balance with how we price in US dollars, which we have to price slightly differently in countries that don't pay in a more global, um- Yeah... currency like the euro or what have you. 103 00:19:51.648 --> 00:20:05.628 So some of those countries, we are priced in US dollars, but we're priced at sort of an exchange rate that would make sense. And then, you know, we also price in local currencies everywhere. So- Right... 104 00:20:05.688 --> 00:20:18.977 that's part of it. The other part of it is that the magazine itself on the newsstand is $19.95, which actually at a newsstand price, people... a lot of people have sticker shock. And- Yeah... 105 00:20:19.048 --> 00:20:23.167 if we want to- But they're in airports, and they're like, "I'm getting on a flight," and... [laughs] Yeah, exactly. 106 00:20:23.228 --> 00:20:30.608 And, uh, you know, the business is paying for it, which, you know, obviously we took a huge hit at the newsstand, um- Yeah... in the past couple of years. 107 00:20:30.688 --> 00:20:38.928 The other piece of it is that it's really difficult to figure out how to price digital content because- Yeah... people think that if it's on the internet, it should be free. 108 00:20:39.128 --> 00:20:48.908 Um, and obviously it's not free [laughs] at all. Yeah. It's not, it's not free to make it. So, and there's... 109 00:20:48.948 --> 00:21:02.507 by offering that monthly subscription, that digital subscription with those, with the monthly, um, with having it be stated as a monthly value, we've actually gained a lot more subscribers we, than we, we... 110 00:21:02.888 --> 00:21:10.757 uh, subscribers that we couldn't have reached at some of, um, our prices that we had three, or really only one price three years ago. Yeah. 111 00:21:10.808 --> 00:21:21.128 So trying to balance the cost of the subscription with the transient reader, but the person that you actually want to get in the door that you would not have gotten in the door, and- Yeah... 112 00:21:21.168 --> 00:21:32.518 then trying to understand what their tolerance is for increasing the prices. Harvard's, you know, Harvard will always be the s- a slow roll because that's, 113 00:21:33.788 --> 00:21:41.718 you know, we're fairly risk averse, but we also, you know, we still wanna make money, and we did- Yeah... 114 00:21:41.728 --> 00:21:48.488 increase our prices a couple of years ago, but before that, we probably hadn't increased the price- [laughs] Yeah... in like 10 years. Yeah. So 115 00:21:49.668 --> 00:21:56.688 we're trying to be a little more nimble and a little more aligned with, um, some of the peers in our space. 116 00:21:56.788 --> 00:22:11.108 But by the same token, we don't have the circulation cushion to fall back on if people start heading for the hills when we raise our prices. So it is- Mm-hmm... definitely a very delicate balancing act. Yeah. 117 00:22:11.168 --> 00:22:17.488 So explain to me, um, that's the pricing. It seems like you have a model that's less based around intro offers, right? 118 00:22:17.528 --> 00:22:25.938 Because they're not necessarily peers, but are in, in, uh, the broader sort of thing like a Bloomberg or something that like- Mm-hmm... you get it for a dollar a month, and then it shoots- Yeah... 119 00:22:25.988 --> 00:22:37.318 up to like 40 bucks a month. I think that's a little dangerous, but, uh, because I think nobody likes the shock of, you know, because yes, it's disclosed at the same time, at the same time- Mm-hmm... 120 00:22:37.348 --> 00:22:47.068 we all know that people will put in their credit card for a dollar and then forget. Right. That is right. And it's not that we don't [laughs] want people to forget that they're paying us. 121 00:22:47.128 --> 00:22:53.868 I mean, that is the whole- Well, here's my thing on that... the whole thing of auto-renewal. I'm like, if, if you send me an email saying your... 122 00:22:54.018 --> 00:23:05.648 uh, 'cause Netflix does, like, "Your credit card is about to be charged the full amount- Mm-hmm... like, on this date," then I agree that like that. But if I do not get that email, I assume that that is not an oversight. 123 00:23:05.848 --> 00:23:11.488 No, it is not an oversight. [laughs] But I mean, certainly we adhere to the law. So- Yeah, of course... 124 00:23:11.648 --> 00:23:19.488 in an annual auto-renewal situation, you are obligated to tell people that y- they are going to be charged at the prices then in effect. 125 00:23:19.588 --> 00:23:26.988 You actually don't even have to tell them necessarily if you're raising their prices, but of course it's the right thing to do. You wanna be ethical. 126 00:23:27.228 --> 00:23:38.368 So, uh, the, but going back to the, your question about introductory offers, you're right, we don't do that, and that has a lot to do with risk aversion. That has a lot- Yeah... 127 00:23:38.378 --> 00:23:50.188 to do with, uh, we are, we have not, as long as I've worked at HBR, been a top of the funnel filler kind of organization. We don't do ton... We don't spend a lot of money on prospecting. 128 00:23:50.308 --> 00:24:00.328 We focus much more on mid-funnel and the end of, and- Yeah... towards the end of the funnel. There's already a lot of brand awareness, so we don't do that a lot. Although, 129 00:24:01.688 --> 00:24:15.856 because we've changed our model over the past three years, and it's not just that one-Subscription type. It's actually six different types of subscription, and because we've attracted different types of customers, 130 00:24:17.316 --> 00:24:30.336 what we- what the internal education that has been happening is really trying to get people more accustomed to a churn that is much more like the rest of the world. 131 00:24:30.406 --> 00:24:41.976 So if you're in a recurring revenue model, if you're a subscription business like Netflix, like any of the streaming services, they are really accustomed to that churn, and that is- Yeah... you know, 132 00:24:43.016 --> 00:24:48.036 Harvard is very unaccustomed- Yeah... to churn. They- Churn is reality. 133 00:24:48.076 --> 00:24:53.676 If you're gonna have subscriptions- [laughs] I remember when I was like doing the subscription, our CEO would be like, "This person ca-" I'm like, "Yes. 134 00:24:53.796 --> 00:25:02.636 If you're gonna have subscriptions, unfortunately people are going to cancel. That's the reality- They are... and you just manage the churn, and that is- Right... just the reality." 135 00:25:03.436 --> 00:25:17.676 So that has been an education for all of us really is- Yeah... managing the churn. It's... We had to do a very, very deep dive for our CFO about a year ago because our, our churn had really changed. 136 00:25:17.736 --> 00:25:32.056 Our retention had really changed, and he was like, "What is going on?" Yeah. And our business insights director and I did a ton of research, and we were, at the end of the day we were like, "Sorry, no smoking gun." Yeah. 137 00:25:32.236 --> 00:25:38.446 Sometimes you can, uh, mistake it being a weakness in the product when it's like, no, this is working as it should work. Yeah. 138 00:25:38.456 --> 00:25:47.436 And particularly when you do offers and stuff like this, sometimes you need to put them in a different bucket. It's like I didn't- Yeah... really look at it as churn. If someone took an introductory offer, that's a lead. 139 00:25:47.456 --> 00:25:58.186 We're not really making- Right... much revenue off them, so like why don't we just look at them- Right... as a, as a lead and rather than it being 70% churn, it's 30% conversion as far as I would see. Right. 140 00:25:58.196 --> 00:26:03.556 [laughs] That's a real- [laughs] Well, we, it, what- [laughs] That's why I have optimistic view, Dee Dee. No, it took a while. 141 00:26:03.895 --> 00:26:15.456 [laughs] But the fact that I have managed to actually turn the ship and say, "Listen, can we not keep focusing on this aggregated number of retention? 142 00:26:15.576 --> 00:26:24.636 Can we instead look at each monthly cohort," because of the cadence of our magazine, each cohort every month has a little bit different size and shape. 143 00:26:25.176 --> 00:26:39.265 But if we can manage to successfully ch- basically charge a credit card, if we can manage to successfully do that every month at, you know, 93%, that's amazing. I was like, yes. Yeah. 144 00:26:39.265 --> 00:26:47.126 There'll be a, there will always be an aggregate number, and particularly when you look at an aggregate retention of a monthly subscriber, that doesn't really tell you anything. 145 00:26:47.276 --> 00:27:03.226 So we are inching closer to doing things like I'm not sure we would ever do an introductory rate, although because so many of our peers are doing that and feeling comfortable with it, and because I do have members of my team who are like, "Can we please-" Yeah. 146 00:27:03.226 --> 00:27:12.416 "... like, can we just do this?" There, there's almost a market expectation that's been set for the $1 offer, and it's hard to fight against- Yeah... 'cause I think there's a lot of downsides to it. There is. 147 00:27:12.496 --> 00:27:22.086 There was a really good study. Mather did a really... They had a really good article that I read last week. I'm not sure how old the article is. It's, I mean, it's re- it's fairly recent, but on- Yeah... 148 00:27:22.136 --> 00:27:37.696 how the Times and The Globe successfully did it, and their outlook on it was actually very, very compelling. So if we can find the right model for doing something like that, then I think it makes sense. 149 00:27:37.756 --> 00:27:49.256 I don't think we- Yeah... would ever do anything as go to, like go to $1 because that actually could damage the brand. Yeah. So, you know, that's why we- So ex- ex-... are slow. 150 00:27:50.036 --> 00:27:56.736 So explain a little bit the different sort of, um, subscription options because I think it's, there's a lot of compelling... 151 00:27:56.856 --> 00:28:08.816 Like a lot of times, um, you'll want to have specific subscription options that, that match to specific cohorts in the audience, right? Mm. But then it becomes more complex. The data becomes more complex. 152 00:28:08.876 --> 00:28:20.836 Like you're saying, the churn numbers become more complex because you have six different subscription products rather than, say, one or two. Right, and I, that's, ever since we did that, it's been really challenging. 153 00:28:21.296 --> 00:28:38.056 So at the end of the day, really all we want is people to buy an annual subscription and- Yeah. But the reason we have the monthly offers is because we are cognizant of price sensitivity, and we are also 154 00:28:39.096 --> 00:28:56.396 recognizing that there is this whole huge audience out there that is becoming a larger and larger portion of the world because younger people are getting older, and those younger people are native streaming service people. 155 00:28:56.436 --> 00:29:00.936 They're used to the subscription economy and just paying for everything on a monthly basis. 156 00:29:01.876 --> 00:29:17.296 But it, for us, it's a very, very difficult marketing and communication challenge because our, our magazine is not monthly, and- Right... that is a, like a dumb semantic problem that we still continue to have. 157 00:29:18.156 --> 00:29:32.756 However, you know, we are trying to, to take a leaf from other subscription service books in that they state their offer in monthly terms, but it is billed annually, and you said it yourself. I heard you say it. 158 00:29:32.816 --> 00:29:47.296 I was like, "Oh, he's getting the message." [laughs] Um- There you go. [laughs] So under- understanding that there is a huge discount to be gained by actually paying for it annually regardless- Yeah... of how, you know. 159 00:29:47.316 --> 00:29:54.996 It, it's just so psychological. It's interesting. I don't know if you, you've found this, like at, at some point at, at Digiday we had found that like our like quarterly... We didn't do monthly. 160 00:29:55.036 --> 00:30:03.496 We, 'cause we felt we, we needed, people needed a quarter to really understand the product. At least that's what we told ourselves. Mm-hmm. And dealing with like the churn was, would be too crazy at a month- Right... 161 00:30:03.536 --> 00:30:12.718 basis. But quarterly what we found was that it ended up being more in first-year revenue than in annual.Do you know what I mean? Yep. 162 00:30:12.748 --> 00:30:24.098 Because most people would let it go two times, so we would, we'd charge them quarterly twice, and then they would end up converting to a full year. Mm-hmm. And so, like, the revenue was, like, $700 in the first year. Mm. 163 00:30:24.108 --> 00:30:26.768 And so, I don't know, we always played around with, like... 164 00:30:27.598 --> 00:30:37.208 'Cause I think the, some of the things people who, who aren't, like, that close to subscriptions don't realize is, like, how much, you know, like, the framing makes s- all the difference in the world. 165 00:30:37.228 --> 00:30:47.148 There's a reason that all the subscription pages look alike, because you frame it, and you use decoy offers and stuff like the- Yeah... to make the offer you want people to [laughs] to choose- Exactly... look the best. 166 00:30:47.948 --> 00:31:04.098 That's exactly what we do. How... I mean, yes, it is what we do, but we have been studying the offer for the last eight months just because we recognize that 167 00:31:06.388 --> 00:31:13.788 i- i- we, you know, we're trying to listen to people who are taking, say, our, our premium offer in particular. And i- if people are... 168 00:31:13.828 --> 00:31:26.118 We're seeing people gravitating towards that digital offer, that digital annual offer. And the next best thing is with the print, and as you noted, right now they cost the same, and that was purposeful because 169 00:31:27.388 --> 00:31:41.628 we're trying to f- understand whether is it the value of the magazine that they want? Is it just they, it says they think it's better, so they get it? Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, and with premium, 170 00:31:42.568 --> 00:31:56.128 they're, they actually are getting a few other digital pieces of content. So what is it that people are really paying for? And maybe they're asking- Yeah... themselves the same question. So let's talk about that. 171 00:31:56.188 --> 00:32:02.158 What have you learned? Because there's always a temptation that sometimes people subscribe because they want a piece of content, right? Mm-hmm. 172 00:32:02.158 --> 00:32:09.098 Like, there could be something, like, when HBR publishes my wife's piece, you know- [laughs]... my household will definitely subscribe. Sure. 173 00:32:09.128 --> 00:32:17.968 We want access to that piece of content, so that's definitely one on the board. But ultimately, I always thought that we wanted people to subscribe to the bundle of content. 174 00:32:18.048 --> 00:32:32.978 Like, that, like, I was sure, and could never prove it out with our limited data capabilities, but, like, that people who were incentivized because they needed that piece of content, the pitch decker for s- for some company or something like this, they needed- Mm-hmm... 175 00:32:32.978 --> 00:32:43.318 to do their job. But that, w- that it wasn't like they hit, like, the wall, like, five times and were like, "Hey, I want this. And I wanna... I read this stuff all the time," rather than, "I want that piece of content." 176 00:32:43.717 --> 00:32:50.208 That they would ha- that the people who just wanted a piece of content were gonna have fi- far higher churn rates and less connection to the product. 177 00:32:52.027 --> 00:32:59.788 [sighs] So we're trying to create those connections, um, particularly with the monthly subscribers. 178 00:32:59.828 --> 00:33:13.468 And but what we've learned is that there is always going to be a piece, a segment of the population that is going to buy the premium tier because they see the word premium, and they think, "That is what I've learned in my... 179 00:33:13.548 --> 00:33:23.768 I have earned the right to order premium, and I'm-" Right. "... gonna be premium." You should add a platinum tier, just charge like- [laughs] Well, we might. 180 00:33:24.128 --> 00:33:35.888 A- and then there are always going to be the people who are just gonna pay for a month or two, and then they're gonna dump it, and they're gonna dump it usually in a passive way. 181 00:33:36.908 --> 00:33:46.188 Some of them do actively call to t- Yeah... you know, to turn off the auto-renewal process, and that's a whole other thing that we deal with. 182 00:33:46.388 --> 00:33:57.128 So we have learned that when people actually look under the hood for the premium, and they are not finding that it is the premium that they envisioned, they're going to tell us about it. 183 00:33:58.068 --> 00:34:06.048 So we, as you might imagine, we have a pretty active subscriber base who are very loud, uh, when they... I mean, the more, it's... 184 00:34:06.328 --> 00:34:15.768 We were looking at some of our customer service statistics, [chuckles] and it sounds like our customer service reps spend more time on a ty- on a call than is, like, typical across the industry. 185 00:34:15.808 --> 00:34:22.028 [chuckles] Like, why, why is that? Why are Harvard subscribers more- Well, there's the sheer volume of it. 186 00:34:22.088 --> 00:34:32.358 I, I feel like is sort of underrated by people who go into subscriptions, the, the number, the amount of customer service resources you need, no matter what the s- subscription product is. Because- Yeah... 187 00:34:32.388 --> 00:34:41.008 I don't care how educated the clientele are, there's gonna be a certain number of people who cannot spell their company's names, their own names sometimes. 188 00:34:41.088 --> 00:34:54.028 It's almost the more educated they are, the more they call customer service because the more they believe they deserve the attention- Yeah... that goes along with the amount of money they're paying for the subscription. 189 00:34:54.788 --> 00:35:04.468 So which means you basically have to have a customer service organization that is equipped- Yeah... to handle those calls. But I feel like we're totally getting off topic. 190 00:35:04.628 --> 00:35:14.548 Other things we've learned, you know, we study things like the amount of engagement, um, a monthly subscriber has in the first 30 days versus an annual subscriber. 191 00:35:14.708 --> 00:35:25.368 We study things like if they are, are they reading the archive, or are they reading the sh- the shorter form articles that are posted every week? 192 00:35:26.208 --> 00:35:35.898 You know, we still, there is still tons and tons of value in that archive, and it is, that, our archive is, like, our, you know, our proverbial goldmine. Mm-hmm. 193 00:35:35.948 --> 00:35:55.628 So, you know, we're studying, we have an audience director on the editorial side, but we also have a, you know, an audience person on the marketing side of things because we're trying to build those bridges, understanding why people are coming to the site and what the audience wants. 194 00:35:55.978 --> 00:36:03.348 And for a long time, marketing has been sort of fl- flying the banner of, "Pay attention to what the audience is telling us. 195 00:36:03.468 --> 00:36:13.568 They are responding to these pieces of content on our site, so these are the, this is the content that you should be paying the most attention to in terms of-" Yeah... 196 00:36:13.588 --> 00:36:21.700 you know, building it up.We're not quite there, but we're getting closer, which is, are really good. So final thing is what is the funnel... 197 00:36:21.900 --> 00:36:31.680 And I know it like is varied based on different cohorts, but just give like a broad view of how you view the funnel to get people down to subscribers. So 198 00:36:33.400 --> 00:36:45.820 most people, and this is where our job is pretty easy, most people have some familiarity with the brand we're finding. So we are-- 199 00:36:46.770 --> 00:37:04.680 we're using our paid media dollars to really... W-we do a lot of retargeting, and the closer we get to losing all the cookie, once-- the closer we get to the cookieless future, the more this is really serving us. 200 00:37:04.720 --> 00:37:17.170 And we've really always had a practice of using our registrant base as our main lead pool- Mm-hmm... and not doing tons and tons of prospecting. 201 00:37:17.310 --> 00:37:33.960 It's very expensive to do, and it's, you know, the ROI on that for us is not super great. So we use that registrant base for retargeting, for some on-site messaging, and that's how we pull people in. 202 00:37:34.020 --> 00:37:52.020 We do as, you know, we, we portion our dollars out pretty specifically towards our content and engagement marketing and then the ser- the retargeting using that search network- Yeah... to build up repeated visits. 203 00:37:52.180 --> 00:38:01.140 So when we look at the touch points that lead up to the conversion, we're seeing, 204 00:38:02.060 --> 00:38:13.460 you know, most of it we're seeing is pretty natural organic search, but that is often has to have been fed somehow by our paid search dollars. There's just no way. 205 00:38:13.560 --> 00:38:26.229 But it, if in the last ninety days or thirty days of attribution, it's, then it's the organic search that is- Mm-hmm... getting the credit, that's fine with me. But we do see that there's usually 206 00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:44.889 between three and ten touch points in that thirty-day conversion window, so we s- we ex- we've been examining that as well to find, you know, where we're getting the most bang for our buck, and that is another reason why the edit audience and- Yeah... 207 00:38:44.889 --> 00:38:54.600 the marketing audience teams are working together because our SEM strategy and our SEO strategy have to kinda come together and have the rising tide lift all boats. 208 00:38:54.640 --> 00:39:07.900 So we've been really working to try and get that engine working- Yeah... a little bit better. But, but usually, I mean, I don't know if you know the percentage, but like when people subscribe, they've... 209 00:39:07.940 --> 00:39:18.190 I assume that they more often than not have already been, uh, registered at HBR, that they've gotten an email. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'Cause I, I... That's why I think email's a classic middle-of-the-funnel tool. Mm-hmm. 210 00:39:18.240 --> 00:39:30.400 And people... Like it's, I... It would seem unlikely that someone had ne- you've not seen them at HBR in six months or ever, and all of a sudden they subscribe. Maybe. Right. [laughs] Right. 211 00:39:30.520 --> 00:39:41.480 We are finding that we've done some testing to see whether after a person registers, if they just sort of buzz around on their own, 212 00:39:42.560 --> 00:39:55.040 are they more likely to subscribe in the first thirty days than a person who's registered and we are sorta slow dripping them pieces of content, and there really isn't that much of a difference. Oh, really? Yeah. 213 00:39:55.100 --> 00:40:04.120 It's k- it was kind of surprising. Although when I talked to the manager who is in charge of all of this testing, he's like, "You know, I don't think I ran that test very well." 214 00:40:04.220 --> 00:40:10.050 So he's [laughs] actually gonna test, he's actually gonna test it again. But we do find that the people, 215 00:40:11.060 --> 00:40:20.960 it, like our newsletter subscribers, and I mean everybody would say this, are generally the ones who are subscribing or are converting better than our... 216 00:40:21.300 --> 00:40:32.620 But our registrants are our largest pool, so in the percentage-wise, it seems like we have more registrants who are converting, and there are s- it's... 217 00:40:32.680 --> 00:40:50.760 So it is always the people who, like I s- uh, going back to the beginning of our conversation, we have a pretty prescribed process for people who come and register for creating the awareness and the value so that we can get them to convert in those first thirty days. 218 00:40:50.800 --> 00:41:03.140 And that, that actually feels very organic, and we do use email as the vehicle for that. There obviously is some paid media that goes out there, but we don't kill them when it... 219 00:41:03.200 --> 00:41:13.039 They get a series of emails within the first month, and that's about it, and then after that, if they haven't converted, they only get an email once a week. Yeah. Some people it's like... What's, what's it? 220 00:41:13.100 --> 00:41:23.830 The Hotel California? You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Yeah. Well, I mean, we... there are always gonna be those people. There are always- [laughs]... 221 00:41:23.840 --> 00:41:34.860 going to be the meter riders who just use it because that's what they do, and you're never gonna convert them. 222 00:41:34.910 --> 00:41:48.659 And so we actually are drumming up plans with what to do with each of these different segments. We are trying to improve our data process. So many jobs to be done. I know. 223 00:41:48.720 --> 00:41:57.340 So I'm gonna let you go and do those jobs, but final question- [laughs]... 'cause otherwise I'll get emails like asking me why I didn't ask. How many subscriptions do you have? You mean like how many actual subscribers? 224 00:41:57.420 --> 00:42:10.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah, subscribers, like people paying you money. As of today, I think we had three hundred and twenty thousand. That's not including newsstand, so obviously those aren't consistent subscribers. Right. 225 00:42:10.700 --> 00:42:16.260 So it's a pretty good number. That's a really big subscriber base, isn't it? I think it is. Yeah. It is. 226 00:42:16.360 --> 00:42:27.060 [laughs] I mean, you know, it's not the size of The Atlantic or the size of The New Yorker or whatever, but we're a really different magazine, so- Exactly... I think it's a good number. 227 00:42:27.140 --> 00:42:39.340 And I can say that because this is public information. Got it. All right, Nini. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. You're welcome. I really enjoyed it. Thanks. Thank you all for listening. 228 00:42:39.420 --> 00:42:45.320 Hope you enjoyed the episode. We'll be back next week with a new episode. The Rebooting show is produced by Podhelpus. 229 00:42:45.460 --> 00:42:57.680 Podcasts are a great way to expand your client base, and Podhelpus lets you focus on having engaging conversations while giving your brand the full stack of services needed for a professional look and sound. 230 00:42:58.180 --> 00:43:03.900 Start your own podcast today at podhelp.us. That is podhelp.us. 231 00:43:04.060 --> 00:43:24.320 [outro music]