Situation
The digital arm of a large-scale Philippine legacy publisher participated in Digital Revenue Launchpad 2023 in order to accelerate their journey towards multiple sustainable reader-revenue streams. Initial data analysis showed that their online platforms performed well amongst readers based in the USA and Canada. However, research and in-person stakeholder interviews highlighted that the publisher was failing to fully capitalise on the strong engagement of North American users.
Intervention
- As part of the programme, FTS co-developed a curated email newsletter that would be sent to specifically target North American readers.
- The curated newsletter was sent out during Pacific Standard Time mornings to maximize reach.
- The newsletters were curated to include a local politics story, an entertainment story, and a piece of evergreen content - previous data showed that North American users particularly engaged with articles under these topics.
Results
- 30x higher click-through rates to the website amongst American users compared to non-US users on the same newsletters over the experiment period
- 3x higher newsletter open rates amongst American users compared to non-US users on the same newsletters over the experiment period
“We will certainly revisit the program materials as we look to develop strategies to target certain audience segments. Thank you for sharing them - it has been invaluable for us to have an outside view that helps us now see clearly what we have been looking for all along.”
COO / Head of Operations
