Presented by: Richard Holden, Deputy Head of Product, The Economist

1. Tackling subscriber churn by
understanding your
customers
Richard Holden | @rchrd_h | Digiday Publishing Summit Europe

2. My biomoji
Dictionary
Editor
2007–2014
Product
Manager
2014–2018
Deputy Head of
Product
2018–present

3. Traditional product development

4. Recognise these symptoms?

5. Let’s take a step back here

6. What is our mission?
Complement world-class journalism with a world-class
digital experience. If we aim to reach, acquire and retain
more subscribers, we must invest in our digital products.

7. But not just any digital products
We need to invest in digital products that better serve the
needs and pain points of readers (as opposed to digital
products because “it’s cool!” or “why not?” or “ad inventory”
or “I’m right and you’re wrong”).

8. Where “why not?” got us…

9. The way forward
Focus more on solving business problems by solving
customer problems. Doing more “digital stuff” is not a
strategy. Digital is a means to an end—that end being a
better customer experience across all channels.

10. So we tried a different approach

11. Case study: Lamarr

13. Prioritise which problems to solve

14. Talk to customers
We interviewed readers to validate that the
problem actually existed!
“Not enough time to read”
“Never get around to reading it”
“Not reading it makes me feel dumb”
“It’s a hard read”
“I feel pressure to read it cover to cover”

15. Develop hypotheses
Problem: “As a new subscriber, I’m constantly
overwhelmed by the amount of content I need to read each
week. I can hardly keep up. Unsubscribe me now!”
Hypothesis: By helping subscribers, particularly new
subscribers, quickly find and discover relevant content
within a native app, they will feel more intelligent and
accomplished regardless of how much they read.
Desired outcome: Develop habit; renew subscription.

16. Sketch prototypes
Features and experiences we prioritised:
● Curated list of daily picks
● Section browsing for weekly edition
● Intuitive iOS app experience
● Faff-free audio edition
● Morning briefing
● Larger images
● Bookmarks
● Swipe between articles

17. Test like mad
● We tested prototypes with hundreds
of recent, loyal and lapsed
subscribers, as well as prospects
● We ran an alpha test with 40
readers, many of whom recorded
themselves using it for a week
● We then released the beta version
on TestFlight to several hundred
users

18. Daily picks This week Audio edition

19. Prepare to be wrong
● Time stamps confused many users
● Readers preferred editorial curation not
algorithms or personalisation
● Section prioritisation feature was less popular
than expected (it broke their mental model)
● Readers don’t care about length of articles
● Digital-first readers want the print edition

20. Develop a thick skin

21. What’s next?
● Still early days but initial signs look positive for retention
● Develop North Star engagement metric so we can more quickly
understand what works and doesn’t work
● Apply methodology to our other products such as the website and
newsletters

22. Takeaways
● Focus on customer problems, not checkbox features or products
● Solve customer problems that solve a business problem, and have a
clear strategy for your product
● Use user research and the right metrics to stay on the right track – and
to avoid stakeholder bombs

23. End
richardholden@economist.com