Refinery29’s Everywhere Email, Times Newsletter Growth, Global Media Consumption Plateau, Bloomberg-Economist Video Deal, Media Metrics, InDesign Tip: New Document Dialog
Welcome to Technology for Publishing’s roundup of news, stories of interest, and tips for media industry pros! This week, we’re sharing posts about the success of Refinery29’s Everywhere email newsletter, the impact of newsletter growth at The New York Times, a slight drop in the amount of time consumers spend on media, a global video partnership between Bloomberg and The Economist, and more.
With an enviable 63% click-to-open rate, Refinery29’s Everywhere newsletter has successfully tapped into what engages subscribers. In fact, that rate is four times the average of both beauty-focused and other media newsletters, according to eConsultancy data. What’s the secret sauce? To start, provocative stories and attention-grabbing subject lines—which are performance tested as many as three times before sending, a Digiday article says. Like other brands, Refinery29 is now targeting niche audiences as well, recently launching entertainment- and style-focused newsletters. Altogether, its emails have an average click-to-open rate of 55%, the article says.- The New York Times is also hitting an impressive newsletter number: a combined 13 million email subscriptions, double the number it had just three years ago, Digiday reported in a separate post. Though some of its success is due to the so-called Trump bump, the Times has been steadily growing its newsletter portfolio, from 33 in 2015 to 50 today, targeting a range of topics and markets. Such growth is important, the company said in an internal memo, because newsletter subscribers are twice as likely as regular Times readers to become subscribers, and they also read double the number of stories per month as the average Times reader does. Also check out a post from TheStreet on how the Times is planning to launch Cooking as its next big paid product.
- It’s looking like overall global media consumption has reached a saturation point, according to new data from research firm Zenith. It says while the average time spent consuming media daily was 456.1 minutes in 2016, that figure is expected to drop slightly this year to 455.8 minutes. That’s not surprising, since people have only so many hours a day to spend on media, as a Recode post points out. However, increases are projected for certain regions, including North America, where individuals are expected to consume media for 612.4 minutes a day this year versus 601.5 minutes last year, an uptick of 1.8%.
- And financial news leaders Bloomberg and The Economist are teaming up on global video distribution, following the industry trend toward licensing and syndication to build new revenue streams. Under the deal, Bloomberg Media Distribution will provide its clients with access to The Economist’s Daily Watch, a series of short videos covering financial and other news topics, Folio reported. Bloomberg aims to use the content to enhance its current offerings, while The Economist is looking to “raise its global profile” in North America, the article notes.
On the Technology for Publishing Blog
- To help you stay on top of industry trends, TFP’s Media Metrics roundup brings you the latest on consumer attitudes about the role of news media, cord cutting, newspaper industry employment, ad fraud, and more.
- InDesign CC Tip: InDesign’s New Document dialog has been redesigned as part of Adobe’s effort to provide consistency across its products. Check out Monica Murphy’s post to learn more.
- Don’t miss: Our latest infographic pick highlights how awareness about “fake” news and other bogus content is impacting the way consumers interact with digital content.
Image: Digiday
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Posted by: Monica Sambataro
