word on the street 15 need to give them that nudge. But on the other side, you’ve got a whole bunch of people who are ready to tip off and cancel. You have to work on both of those sides. Membership acquisition and retention is really subtle. It’s about perception of value: you’ve got to make people think that membership is valuable because they get a magazine six times a year but also benefit from the community, feel part of something. And you’re managing to convince your members? Yes! I’m really proud of our churn rate – out of 6,500 paying members, there are only 280 that have actually pressed the cancel button. This tells me that we are providing that value. What about you and the wider magazine community? Do you feel part of that? Definitely. I remember you giving a presentation about subscriptions at an International Magazine Centre event. Your point of view was as the editor of a craft magazine, which seems a million miles away from a mountain biking magazine. Yet what you detailed was exactly the same issues that we had. It was an eyeopening moment: I realised we’re not on our own. It can be easy as a magazine editor to think of yourself as part of the industry on your topic, like craft or science, rather than seeing yourself as part of the publishing industry or magazine community. Yes – as an independent publisher, you see it as a unique business, that nobody really gets unless they’re ‘in it’. You fall into the trap of thinking all your problems are unique to you, and that’s a very lonely place to be. But when you’re in that community, you realise you’re not alone, that craft magazines have exactly the same issues as mountain bike magazines. And it feels like such a weight is lifted. So the same thing that attracts all members to our forum is exactly the same thing that attracts publishers to events like Magazine Street. That shows the power of community. What made you switch from the word ‘subscription’ to ‘membership’? First, subscription has an association with a payment, whereas membership is something you belong to. Subscription is associated with a magazine that drops on your doormat every month, whereas with membership, the community is there every single day. Also, for many people in the community the magazine is actually not that important. It’s important to a great number of our members, and quite a lot of our members just subscribe because of the magazine. But if we stopped printing the magazine tomorrow, a huge proportion of our membership would stick with us, because they get more out of it. What we’re trying to do for the members is a product, a bundle. We’re trying to cram as many things into the membership as possible so that the printed magazine, although it’s critical to our brand, is just one reason to join. And counter to that, when people are hovering over the ‘cancel’ button, we want to give a whole list of reasons for them to pull that finger back. It’s about retention as well as about acquisition. In fact, retention is more important. It’s good to hear you say that. For some, acquisition is the focus and the existing communities don’t always get the same love. Apart from anything else, if you concentrate on acquisitions, you don’t make any money. You may acquire a hell of a lot, but as soon as those people find out it’s going up to £39 for the next year, they’ll be out. It’s like the Penny Falls. You’ve got coins against the edge, ready to fall over, and you just
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