Thread by @noahchestnut

👏 to the team at Wired for their tireless efforts to sell more digital subscriptions. 🙌 to @nxthompson for sharing granular data + lessons learned wired.com/story/wired-pa…

(feel free to mute me... I'm gonna share a few thoughts based off of what was shared in that post!)

👀 that stood out to me was how much of a focus is on a funnel of individual articles --> sell subscriptions.

Especially this breakdown of the "top 10 articles" that sold subscriptions for us.

My 🔥 🗣️ ... I don't think its that valuable to think of selling subscriptions off of articles!

I don't think people pay for Netflix b/c of a single show/movie, pay for Spotify to listen to an album/song, etc, etc...

But! We've spent the last decade focusing on the "individual article" as the "atom" as opposed to a publication as the focus.

The homepage is ☠️! Embrace the infinite 📜! Yada yada...

Yet... we made those shifts (as publishers) to chase more advertising 🤑 b/c scale = $

And to an extent... this funnel built around an article is a good one! People come to our publications to read, listen, and watch specific things. We should make sure it's easy to buy our bundles when they are on specific pieces of ~content~

But! I'll also say... it's time to make sure we're at least aware that we should be marketing publications alongside (or in favor of) individual articles, videos, etc.

Sell your homepage. Heck, sell your app!

Sell habits that don't require people to use google to find you!

... one last note ...

Don't just try and sell a brand... sell (and compensate!!!) all the folks reporting, creating, editing, and producing your work! People aren't paying for a glossy magazine... they are paying to be connected to other (and real) people.

And obviously... if you can afford it, consider buying a sub to Wired. It's great!