Identify ways to earn revenue at each stage of the funnel
Douglas K. Smith, Quentin Hope, Tim Griggs, Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative,You and your colleagues need to tailor the funnel approach for the different strategic objectives of your enterprise. Do this in two ways:
- Make sure to maximize revenue opportunities at each stage of the funnel by connecting desired user actions to your strategy and economics. As mentioned above, for example, Minneapolis seeks advertising revenues from the actions of ‘grazers’ and digital subscription revenues through converting intenders into subscribers.
- Use different funnels for different purposes. Dallas has a funnel for users who arrive via social. Miami’s “Food Inc” effort sought, among other things, to get audiences to attend events. And, Philadelphia’s experiment with a data bridge sought to build shared understanding across the newsroom, marketing and sales as to which audiences advertisers find most valuable (that is, will pay higher CPMs to reach).
To illustrate this, consider a funnel aimed at increasing digital subscriptions:
By contrast, here’s what the funnel might look like for increasing the number of users who attend events:
