Spiny Resources

Subscription insights from businesses outside publishing

Spiny Trends / 2023-02-03

You can get a subscription for almost anything these days, from movies and music to software and socks. On his German-language podcast Subscribe Now, Lennart Schneider talks to decision-makers from a variety of industries about their experiences and chal...

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Publisher announces plans for using AI to write content

Spiny Trends / 2023-02-01

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated the media industry headlines so far this year. Much of the hype around the subject has surrounded the rise of ChatGPT, a chatbot that demonstrates advanced conversational capabilities. But beyond the buzz, publi...

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What does a successful subscription marketing team look like?

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-27

Effective subscriber acquisition and retention are critical for any publisher trying to build a robust reader-revenue stream. Technology, from clever paywalls to micropayments can play a part in helping sign up paying customers, but a successful subscript...

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Publishers deliver more for less with AI automation

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-25

Tightening economic conditions are adding to the commercial challenges publishers face. While there is little to be done about rising costs, organizations are eyeing AI automation as a way to optimize content performance and maximize the ROI of their cont...

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How to design your subscriber onboarding experience

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-20

Toolkit's Jack Marshall defines subscriber onboarding as the process through which new customers are initiated into a subscription or membership product. He said: It’s the experience they’re met with in the moments, hours and weeks after their i...

Content

How to perform a content audit

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-18

Real-time analytics provide a detailed view of content performance at a very granular level. A content audit takes a step back and lets publishers evaluate websites in their entirety, identifying opportunities to improve content published against commerci...

Audience Development

TikTok strategies increasingly important for publishers

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-13

Publishers are looking beyond the more established social media platforms for engagement. TikTok strategies in particular have moved up the agenda for publishers looking to engage younger audiences and the platform is responding with added features that m...

Advertising

Five trends that will define publishing in 2023

Spiny Trends / 2023-01-11

It is no great surprise to read that the media industry will face a number of ‘significant challenges’ in this New Year. For What's New in Publishing, Journalism professor Damian Radcliffe addresses some of the biggest trends companies are likel...

Advertising

Publishers could gain from advertising spending slowdown

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-21

Digital advertising spending declined 1% in November, according to data from Standard Media Index (SMI). This is thought to be the first time that overall spending has fallen in the digital publishing era. The good news is that smaller digital publishers,...

Audience Development

Does the 80-20 Rule apply to audience metrics?

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-16

Identifying the content that drives the biggest share of audience engagement is crucial for publishers; knowing what works best can help fix overall content strategy and guide targeting for specific audiences. The Data Science team at analytics firm Chart...

Advertising

Search for third-party cookie replacement continues

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-14

Despite frustrating delays, publishers are ‘pushing ahead’ with their search for a viable third-party cookie replacement strategy. And in a ‘deeply fragmented and uncertain landscape’, the industry is coming around to the idea that there will be more than...

Audience Development

Five strategies for engaging and retaining audiences

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-09

Getting readers through the front door is only the first step in building a sustainable media business. Publishers need to focus on engaging and retaining audiences to grow, build content consumption habits and create ‘brand lovers’. Journalism.co.uk rece...

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Media Moments 2022: a media market snapshot

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-07

Media Moments 2022 is the fifth annual media market review from the Media Voices Podcast. Including advertising’s shift from boom to bust, the appearance of a sense of realism in the subscription space and the increasing prominence of climate coverage, Me...

Audience Development

Two tactics to convert print readers to digital

Spiny Trends / 2022-12-02

Rising print production and distribution costs are squeezing margins for many legacy print publications. Digital transition has long been seen as a lower-cost alternative for pressured publishers, but to make the switch work, they must create digital habi...

Audience Development

Focus on these five media strategies for 2023

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-30

With just a month to go until the end of 2022, now is a good time for publishers to consider the steps they should take heading into next year. To help counter an uncertain future, journalism professor Damian Radcliffe has listed the key media strategies ...

Content

What is a headless CMS?

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-25

With more and more digital channels and devices available to consumers, publishers have had to adapt their publishing processes to reach audiences where they spend their time. This has led to a rise in demand for headless content management systems (CMS) ...

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Publishers should craft SEO-friendly URLs

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-23

For most publishers, the web address for a piece of content is probably pretty low on the agenda when it comes to planning, creating and distributing their work. But without SEO-friendly URLs, you will struggle to achieve the search results that will help...

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Best practices for publishing a successful newsletter

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-16

There has been a lot written about the recent resurgence of newsletters and the value they can deliver in increased engagement, reader loyalty and even monetization. But reports of increasing popularity don’t help publishers get to grips with the newslett...

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Micropayments might help publishers sell subscriptions

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-16

Probably the key success factor for any reader-revenue strategy is subscriber acquisition. Retention is important once you have the business, but signing new customers up has to be the starting point in any subscriptions business. Knowing the best people ...

Advertising

Direct deals and onsite display grow video advertising revenue

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-13

Digital advertising revenues grew ‘exponentially’ in 2021. The IAB reported the global total for the year at $190 billion, a $50 billion increase. Growth projections for 2022 have been scaled back throughout the year as fears of a recession deepen, but am...

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How topical authority helps publishers win at search

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-09

SEO’s Holy Grail is to rank highly for every keyword related to your niche. While the reality of search makes achieving that ideal unlikely, establishing topical authority – becoming the go-to site in your subject area – can boost SERP...

Advertising

How should publishers measure time spent?

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-04

Knowing how long your audience spends with your content is a key metric. Call it engagement, dwell time or time on page, but understanding just how much attention you are getting from your site visitors matters. It impacts everything, from content strateg...

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How publishers can use A/B testing effectively

Spiny Trends / 2022-11-02

A new report says A/B testing is one of the biggest drivers of incremental growth for publishers. Produced by online media-business magazine Digiday and pub-tech provider Piano, ‘The publisher’s guide to A/B testing’ presents an overview of the key aspect...

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AI tools that will save publishers time and money

Spiny Trends / 2022-10-27

There have been concerns that, under the pressure of the day-to-day challenges of revenue generation and content creation, smaller publishers are avoiding experimenting with AI for fear of wasting precious resources. But a recent article from The Fix has ...

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Publishers cutting ad counts to protect reader data

Spiny Trends / 2022-10-26

In print, more advertisements generally mean more money. That legacy thinking has dominated digital publishing for a long time. But there are signs that publishers are cutting ad counts, rethinking their approach to optimal ad space in the age of first-pa...