Ernst-Jan Pfauth / @ejpfauth

How you can build a loyal audience

We don’t write about the weather,

We don’t write about the weather, We cover climate change.

So why do you still call yourself a ‘publisher’?

Looking for the virtual equivalent of this:

Or: to make sure we don’t end up as just a content provider for Facebook

Before we get to that…

48,000 paying members ($67 p/y) 45 FT staff

So how do we build audience loyalty?

• By being ad-free and seeing ourselves as a service

• We empower them to be our ambassadors

• We start at the first visit

• We involve readers in our journalism

(I hope you can apply our findings to your media business)

1. We see ourselves as a service

We decided to stay out of the “ads race to the bo"om”

We don’t have to decide how far we want to go in fooling our audience

We can just focus on informing them in the best possible way

2. Our readers are our ambassadors

We rather make it work for us

‘This article has been shared with you by paying member ….’

3. We try to build a relationship with new visitors

175k likes 140k followers

Almost every author has a personal newsle"er

4. We involve our readers in our journalism

It’s easier to build a relationship with a journalist, than with a publication

(not just for business reasons)

Because everybody is an expert at something…

A thousands doctors know more than one correspondent Health Care

From journalists to conversation leaders. And from readers to contributing experts.

So we publish our story ideas

So how do we build audience loyalty?

• By being ad-free and seeing ourselves as a service

• We empower them to be our ambassadors

• We start at the first visit

• We involve readers in our journalism

By the way, you can read us too!

thecorrespondent.comGo to:

And tell me what you think on Twitter: @ejpfauth

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