The Economist: A Digital Communications Success Story

The Economist: A Digital Communications Success Story:rom Business 2 Community by Edge
An institution that has invested heavily in its digital capabilities and is reaping the rewards is The Economist Group. We wrote about The Economist back in July and decided to delve deeper into its impressive media catalogue.
Its digital offering has helped drive the group’s profits up 8.7 per cent ($US101 million) in the year ending 31 March 2012, underpinned by increasing digital subscriptions to its paywalled website and apps. Interestingly, print circulation for The Economist has also doubled over the past 10 years—it’s now selling more than 1.5 million issues each week.
The Economist Online’s figures are the envy of the publishing world. The site attracts 32 million page views and 7.2 million unique visitors each month, with more than 50,000 reader comments per month. The magazine is available for download via iPad and iPhone, Android, Zinio, Nook, Kindle and Blackberry PlayBook, and its online content includes the full editorial from the print edition along with a growing range of unique web-only content, including news, analysis, columns, blogs and multimedia (audio and video files). The site also features a range of research tools and data for subscribers, including free access to searchable archives, as well as The Economist audio edition.
The Economist Group boasts 23 blogs and has eight optional e-newsletters, including alerts for its online debating platform, highlights from its business travel blog and management-thinking highlights. The Economist Group also has its own digital and mobile products, including a ‘Which MBA?’ iPhone app.
Subscribers can choose from print and digital bundles, and although printed content sits behind a metered paywall, the daily blog content is free. Subscribers can also receive all articles in audio versions, word for word.
The magazine app has about 550,000 unique users, 75 per cent of whom are subscribers (either print or digital). According to recent research, 60 per cent of The Economist’s readers expect to be reading the magazine in a digital format by 2013. Regarding social media, it has 10 Twitter feeds and 1.08 million likes on Facebook. Its 375 YouTube videos have been viewed 2.26 million times, with 12,978 subscribers.
A sister publication to The Economist is the bimonthly lifestyle magazine Intelligent Life (free online edition: www.moreintelligentlife.com). This brand covers arts, style, food, wine, cars and travel, and is available on iPad and iPhone. It has a following of 175,000 readers. The Economist Group talks openly about a lean-back and lean-forward understanding of its customers. The ‘lean-back’ relates to the immersive experience offered by a magazine—whether read in print or tablet form. The ‘lean-forward’ describes the online experience, where customers come to peruse, share, connect and discuss.
The success of The Economist can perhaps be accredited to this simple premise centring on reader behaviour and rituals. The title offers an integrated experience that enables the customer to personally interact with the global agenda analysis and debate that the brand has been renowned for delivering for more than 160 years.
The revenue model for The Economist Group’s publications is circulation-led, with a focus on creating content of value, relevance and originality, which its followers will pay for, rather than relying on advertising revenue. Nevertheless, in 2010 the company aggregated its influential psychographic audience data and launched four vertical advertising networks under the brand of Ideas People Media. As an online advertising network, the business unit sells advertising across nearly 50 publisher websites, which The Economist Group knows its readers visit.
All digital strategies enable increased visibility of The Economist Group’s other brands which range across education and e-learning, conferences and government roundtables.
For similar case studies and further reading about how Associations and member-based organisations are shifting digitally to engage their audiences, see our recent white paper Best Practice in Digital Communications for Professional Associations.
Published by Fiona Berkman – Marketing Specialist at strategic content agency Edge. We help clients achieve their brand and marketing objectives by telling brand stories and using deepening customer relationships using engaging content.