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(001)
Client
The Economist
Year
2020
Services
(001)
In the autumn of 2019, the Economist newsletter portfolio was not aligned with the visual brand identity, there was a complete lack of personalisation, and competitors had started to create sleek and personalised thematic newsletters.
(002)
The Economist portfolio only consisted of The Economist Today and The Economist This Week, and that was it. So how did we figure out what to do next? To try to understand what our potential customers would be into, we did Guerrilla research at The Economist stands. We spent countless hours on stakeholder listening tours with our key stakeholders (from the CEO to social editors) to understand the business needs and requirements. We sent many, many surveys (with 2000+ respondents). Also had many, many workshops.
(003)
This, combined with us collaborating with the executive editor's content strategy, and analysing clicking and reading patterns on the sites, led us to a point where we were able to start identifying topics for newsletters.
(004)
We were able to extract insights into how readers were interacting with the newsletters (when they read it, what they liked about it, why do they read it?). Most importantly, we got the confidence to start launching thematic newsletters. The first one being The Climate Issue, a fortnightly newsletter on climate change.
(005)
We also were able to make better-informed decisions around some of the more commercial decisions, such as: where to place certain advertisements, how to display sponsored content, and so on.
(006)
We also got a better idea of how the readers perceive the value of their subscription, which led to launching a subscriber only newsletter: Cover Story. Cover Story focuses on... well, the cover story. How it was developed, from the headlines to the artwork. The main business outcomes were: - New specialist newsletters grew the subcriber base by over 25% - Engagement for specialist newsletters doubled relative to the weekly and daily ones. - Feedback loop and systemic approach to collecting feedback facilitated continued iterative improvements. Nowadays, The Economist has a portfolio of ten (well-loved) newsletters.
