Try these tactics to engage middle-funnel audiences

This is a series on Better News to a) showcase innovative/experimental ideas that emerge from the Knight-Lenfest Newsroom Initiative and b) share replicable tactics that benefit the news industry as a whole. 

These insights were shared during a live Q&A session with alumni of the Table Stakes Local News Transformation Program in October 2024. This piece features tips from reader revenue expert Claudia Laws, a Table Stakes alumna who participated in the 2017-18 Poynter program with the Durango Herald and the 2021 Major Market program with the Salt Lake Tribune. Laws is currently the director of consumer revenue and subscriber innovation at The Times-Picayune and Nola.com.

Local news organizations are invested in capturing the interest of news consumers who are stuck in the “middle” of the audience funnel, but don’t always know how to move those audiences down the funnel to becoming loyal users, donors or paying subscribers.

One example of an audience funnel model shared by Laws in the Q&A. (Slidesgo)

While top-of-funnel tactics expose people to your organization and mission, audiences in the “middle” are already aware of your brand. This is an opportunity to better educate news consumers and build relationships with segments of your audience who could be more engaged and more inclined to give money to your news organization.

Claudia Laws is a coach and reader revenue advocate who helps news organizations leverage strategies to drive growth in readership, subscriptions, membership and donations. She’s worked with a range of news organizations, including international and American chain newspapers, small independent media organizations and nonprofit news organizations.

During an October 2024 virtual Q&A session for Table Stakes alumni, Laws offered suggestions on how news organizations can connect with middle-funnel audiences:

Find funnel models that work for you

Laws notes there isn’t just one funnel to follow. News consumers find your content through different channels, and their level of awareness around your brand can change over time.

“People start to become aware of your product, and then they start to become fans or advocates and give you some money,” she says, describing the typical user journey toward retention. Along the way, these individuals might also influence friends to subscribe, become members or donate.

Laws explained the basic funnel she created when she was the marketing and analytics director for the Salt Lake Tribune from 2020 to 2021: Readers often become newsletter subscribers who buy into the print and digital products, then eventually become donors.

In her current role as the director of consumer revenue and subscriber innovation at The Times-Picayune and Nola.com, Laws references multiple funnel models daily. These funnels can look vastly different and include a variety of metrics, depending on the products each news organization offers.

For audience and revenue teams, Laws stresses the importance of creating funnels that are customized to a news organization’s local audiences. There can be different funnels for audiences on Instagram, Facebook and other social platforms, or for each news product like newsletters.

These funnels can be turned into customized visuals created on Canva, or they can be as simple as a color-coded Excel spreadsheet. Custom funnels are an effective communication tool, serving as a reference that can help teams navigate toward North Star goals.

Maximize your newsletter lists

Newsletters are one of the key indicators in what Laws calls the “sticky middle funnel,” where it’s harder to identify audience needs and track user behavior. But learning more about news consumers in the middle and bottom of the funnel can also help you retain them.

Pitch products to existing newsletter subscribers

If your CMS or analytics platforms don’t include features that easily segment digital audiences, you can do it easily in Excel or Google Sheets.

To start, Laws suggests comparing email addresses between two sets of newsletter lists by applying the VLOOKUP function in Sheets or Excel. For example, you can see how many paying newsletter subscribers are not signed up for your daily newsletter, then find ways to engage them.

“Let’s ask our subscribers if they want to get our newsletter, because we know it’s a great retention tool,” she says. “Or these newsletter subscribers sign-ups are not paid subscribers, but they see our value. They’re in that middle funnel.”

One experiment to try: For one month, email non-paying newsletter subscribers twice a week and see how many “turn” into paying subscribers in that time period.

“If you don’t give those people a chance to subscribe by having an ask in the newsletter itself, you’re leaving money on the table,” she says.

Develop an onboarding process

Creating automation journeys in your CRM or email service provider platform can help you save time while also building connections with subscribers. Develop an onboarding process that highlights your best content, beginning with a welcome email that explains what they can expect out of the newsletter: “Thank you for signing up. You’re going to get our daily headlines every morning at 7.”

After signup, you can continue to engage new subscribers in the days, weeks and months with highlights like:

• An “in case you missed it” email with select stories
• Top stories from the last two weeks
• Invitations to follow your organization’s social media accounts
• Previews of your organization’s other newsletter products
• Three top-performing evergreen or utility stories

Reintroduce stories with purpose

The Times-Picayune and Nola.com have seen that evergreen and utility stories are ideal not only for repurposing, but also for converting new readers. Evergreen content, Laws says, can be re-introduced to audiences every four to six months. For stories like Nola.com’s “Shellfish jackpot” feature, a boost in readership and engagement often follows. Except for annual lists and local reviews, evergreen stories don’t typically need updating.

“The other thing is utility content,” Laws says. “Utility content is so good for search, it’s so good for the algorithms, but it’s also good for your users.”

Some of NOLA.com’s most popular utility pieces – such as “non-stop flights out of the New Orleans airport” or “how to get your passport” – need to be updated more often because of the value they bring to readers.

“We’ve leaned into that really heavily and it’s paid off so well financially – both in conversions for paid subscribers and readership numbers – that we hired a utility editor,” she says.

Test pain points with your team

At a recent staff retreat, Laws and colleagues from various departments mapped steps along different “user journeys” that consumers are likely to take online with The Times-Picayune’s media properties. The groups wrote out the steps with Sharpies, Post-its and finalized ideas on a blank newsprint roll.

“In a very real way, we were all able to see our piece of it: from editorial to subscription to our customer service team,” she says. “At the end of the day, I had a newsprint end roll about 20 feet long that I packed into my suitcase and brought back.”

During their six hours together, the participants were able to find holes and explore pain points throughout the user experience, Laws says. They even tested the newsletter signup forms to see how quickly they would receive an email confirmation, and everyone registered for a subscription. Team members discovered some discrepancies in user experiences across Android, iPhone, Mac and PC devices. And because there were software engineers in the room, they were able to fix some issues in real time.

Investing time in strategic exercises can help with team-building and learning more about how news consumers interact with you online. Laws also recommends, when possible, testing and experimenting with engaging externally, even when it seems like audiences aren’t responding to your attempts or calls to action.

“I think we need to stop looking at failures as fails, because they’re just learning opportunities,” she says. “At the end, that testing gets you to bigger money and bigger revenue and bigger audiences. You’re not going to get there if you don’t test, and failure’s part of testing.”