“Subcriptions are a commitment!” with Lennart Schneider
Written by:
Alexandra Borchardt
What makes people subscribe to journalism and stick with it over time? In conversation with Alexandra Borchardt, subscription expert Lennart Schneider explains what drives subscriptions, how media outlets build trust, and why it pays to focus more on existing subscribers.
You’ve worked in subscription marketing, done extensive research on the topic and advise businesses. What do you see as the three biggest drivers of subscriptions in journalism?
First of all, exclusive stories that are hard to replicate. Many people want to read them at the source. Interactive formats can also be appealing, such as access to the NSDAP membership database or, on a smaller scale, salary calculators. The downside of these one-off projects is that subscribers often leave again soon afterwards. So you need to give them reasons to stay. Subscriptions are more sustainable when people sign up because they love particular writers or podcasters. People are increasingly putting more trust in individuals than in media brands. Media organizations will therefore likely come to resemble record labels, which have a whole roster of individual artists under contract.
The second important factor is patience. When launching something new, you often think people will be thrilled by what you’re doing and subscribe straight away. But trust takes years, even decades, to build. One approach is to start by building a relationship with your audience through a free product, such as a newsletter. At some point, you can then launch a paid product. Rather than taking something away from users, it’s best to offer them additional value in return for paying. That said, it’s important to keep expectations realistic: if five per cent of your users subscribe, you can be pretty happy with that. Of course, there are exceptions. The gaming podcast “Stay Forever”, for example, was free for more than ten years. When the team finally introduced a paywall, thousands of fans subscribed straight away.
The third success factor is persistence. It’s normal for people not to subscribe the first or second time they’re asked. You should make sure potential subscribers encounter your paywall as often as possible. Data from publishers shows a clear correlation between the number of prompts and the number of subscriptions. In general, though, you shouldn’t focus solely on acquiring new subscribers, but also on retaining and activating them. It’s important to make sure the subscription marketing team has the right incentives. If team members are measured only by how many new subscriptions they secure, they’ll resort to competing on discounts. That rarely pays off.
It is well known that acquiring new customers is many times more expensive than retaining existing ones. What can media brands do to keep users coming back?
Despite all the marketing strategies, journalism is still the core product. That’s what matters most. In our industry, the term “product” is often used in a rather peculiar way. What people call the product is actually just the packaging for the journalism.
To retain customers, you first need to understand their needs and then try to create offerings that build habits. The news itself changes, but certain formats should be recognizable and create a sense of anticipation. These range from a regular column to a podcast with a familiar host or a live blog covering major events. It makes sense to tailor offerings to those customers who visit regularly. Because, however disheartening some may find it, 95% of users are of no value to subscription marketing: they simply won’t commit. Non-journalistic products can also drive engagement, of course, such as games. As recommended in Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown, you should regularly ask your users one question: “How would you feel if our product no longer existed tomorrow?”
But there’s something else I always say: a subscription comes with obligations. Founders in particular should bear this in mind. People often say that startups need to experiment a lot and fail fast. That’s not a good idea when it comes to subscription models. People want to subscribe to something they already know from experience. So you should only put up a paywall once you’ve achieved product-market fit. Any changes should then be explained transparently. This also applies to models that aren’t purely transactional, such as subscriptions. Anyone marketing memberships, where members see themselves not just as customers but as part of a community, or asking for donations should also deliver on their promises.
Experts say a subscription shouldn’t be a prison and that cancelling should be possible at any time and without hassle. Yet many publishers, including well-known ones, do exactly the opposite: they lure people in with free trial months and then hope they’ll stay. Which strategy pays off?
Countless people have had bad experiences with subscriptions, so the fear of getting trapped in one is still firmly ingrained in many people’s minds. In reality, subscription traps are now rare. But that’s more down to better consumer protection than to publishers having a change of heart. Germany’s Fair Consumer Contracts Act stipulates that subscriptions must be cancellable on a monthly basis after the first year. More recently, consumers have also gained a 14-day right of withdrawal after concluding a contract, and exercising this right must be possible in no more than two clicks. Google and Apple also have strict rules for their app stores.
In my experience, it pays to communicate openly about how easy it is to cancel. Take the knowledge platform Blinkist, for example. The team found that more people sign up for subscriptions when they’re told transparently how the trial period works. There are also fewer complaints, which would otherwise create extra work. Customers today are used to flexible terms from major providers, and switching between subscriptions has become more common. The moment someone cancels can therefore be crucial in shaping how user-friendly a brand is perceived to be. Any company that still designs its subscriptions as a prison can only afford to do so if it doesn’t care about building long-term customer relationships.
Lennart Schneider advises leading media organizations on their subscription and newsletter strategies. On the podcast “Subscribe Now” (www.subscribe-now.de), he interviews decision-makers from some of the most exciting companies in the subscription economy every two weeks. In his newsletter of the same name, he shares best practices. Before that, he spent more than six years at the weekly newspaper “DIE ZEIT”, where he helped build the customer loyalty program “Freunde der ZEIT” and the literary community “Was wir lesen”, among other projects.
Photo: Ina Mortsiefer
Last updated: October 28, 2026
