Boosting El-Mundo's subscription base and transforming their digital business

With 70 per cent of its audience opting for annual subscriptions, the newspaper needed to innovate and diversify its content to gain new readers and grow subscriptions. In the face of reduced advertising revenue from print, El Mundo recognised the importance of a balanced commercial approach with initiatives that can optimise both advertising and subscriptions, so both can play a part in their business model.

As a result of participating in the Google News Initiative and FT Strategies Audience Diversity Academy and Subscriptions Academey, El Mundo set a north star goal of 200,000 subscribers by 2025 and rallied all departments around this unified goal, establishing weekly meetings dedicated to increasing subscribers. The publication now has a direct link between editorial and its commercial strategy, with the newsroom heavily involved in the drive for subscriptions, pitching ideas for ways that their content can be used and promoted (ie: social media /newsletters).

Getting to know their readers via registration, and subsequently building up their CRM capabilities, has given the team knowledge as to how best to market their premium product. They know that opinion pieces are very valuable to their loyal readers and have curated exclusive content to cater to them. The paper also has a loyalty programme that offers incentives (ie: movie tickets). Taking on board the propensity of registered users to become subscribers has seen El Mundo go further, using personalised emails with content based on what users have previously engaged with to communicate in more targeted ways.