SCMP previously had a digital subscription model for about 10 years, until the company was bought by Alibaba in 2016, and it was decided to make the website freely available.

“The hypothesis was that the world would need to understand China and Asia to understand what was happening in the world,” Lee said, noting that the mission of the 118-year-old South China Morning Post is to lead the global conversation about China.

“In order to open up our journalism, and our editorial product, to the rest of the world, it meant taking down the paywall. So five years ago, we took the paywall down. Eighteen months ago, we reached a point where our reach and distribution very clearly pointed towards the fact that we were no longer just Hong Kong’s English language news source of record, but that we were truly a global news organisation.”

He noted that while SCMP does not reveal their subscription numbers, “what I can say is that in the 18 months that we have had our current subscription service live, we have surpassed the number of subscribers that we had in our almost decade old subscription service.”

Getting people to understand the value of content

Lee said SCMP started their relaunched digital subscriptions with a metered wall to get their readers used to the fact that SCMP was going to be limiting the amount of content they were going to be able to access.

“What we were hoping to find is that sweet spot where we can give people just enough that they are effectively retained readers and they understand the value of our editorial products, but not give them so much that they feel that they didn’t have to subscribe at all,” he said.

Shortly afterwards, they moved to an optimised metered wall with a reduced meter count. After that, they launched a registration wall.

“There is a lot of data which suggests that if you have readers who have created registered accounts with you, they are more likely to actually go on to become subscribers,” Lee said, adding that it is something they continue to examine as it evolves “because we have seen that registered users are more likely to subscribe and to subscribe to longer term plans.”

He said SCMP offers three subscription packages: monthly, annual and a two-year term, “each of which have introductory prices,” he said, “but we have definitely seen that the registration wall creates a propensity to subscribe for longer terms, and to stay a paid subscriber as well.”

Two clearly different audiences

Today, SCMP is looking at audience specific walls because over time they have found they have two very clear, but different audiences, Lee said.

“We have the Hong Kong reader, and what we term the China watcher. And that’s reflective of our dual positioning. We, as the South China Morning Post, want to be the newspaper of record and the best source of news for anyone living in Hong Kong who is an English speaker. But at the same time, we also want to be the primary source of China and Asia news for anyone else in the world.”

By making extensive use of first-party data, Lee said they look at the behaviours of their readers and how they are engaging with their products, such as whether they are signing up to newsletters, whether they are downloading apps, and what topics they are reading. For example, are they predominately reading news around the US-China trade war or is it more softer news around people and society?

“What we then do is build audience specific journeys, i.e. we push readers through custom journeys, which push them closer to subscription,” Lee said. “So if you are reading US-China trade war news, the likelihood is you are in markets and potentially going to be an SCMP subscriber,” he said. “If you are reading more soft news around people and society, the subscription intent is maybe not quite as strong as someone who is a hard news consumption reader.”

Knowing your readers will help determine what type of paywall you should have

Publishers need to have a good understanding of how their readers are using their editorial product, which will help them to learn what type of paywall they should build for their audience, Lee said

“Obviously you need to pair this with your editorial resources, what your digital transformation and capabilities are,” he added.

When SCMP was acquired by Alibaba, one of the first things they did was to look at their people and their “pipes,” Lee said.

“What I mean by that was: Do we have the right people to grow our audience? And do we actually have the right pipes and technology infrastructure in place to understand what our readers are doing? Because only until we understand what our readers are doing online do we have abilities to try and monetise against that behaviour,” he said.

To this end, SCMP built a proprietary data engine to help them look at an array of signals each week which in turn gives them a deeper understanding of their readership. “So we’ll look at traffic, how many people are coming on site. What is the source? Is it direct? Is it from search? Is it from social? Is it from platform partnerships? We look at the platform entry, are they coming in from app? Or are they coming in from browser?”

They also look at content consumption patterns to see what topics people are reading about, and what topic they go to after the first one they look at.

Lee said they also look at the frequency with which readers are coming in and their session duration: Are they averaging five to 10 or 15 to 20 minutes?

“How does the change depend on the nature of the content they are reading? Are they coming in as logged in users or are they coming in as anonymous? What is their loyalty status? It seems like common sense, but we have only really started tracking this in the last year. We are trying to understand what are the levers that create more loyal readership,” he said.

If a user is logged in, Lee said, they can start to see if the person is a regular or loyal reader.

“We’ve been able to clearly prove that the more loyal you are, the more likely it is that you are a subscriber,” he said, adding that SCMP has a workflow and team whose goal is to increase reader loyalty.

“It’s basically anything we can do to create additional page views per session to increase loyalty because we know that is a precursor to subscription,” he said.

SCMP also looks at subscription conversion by article and by topic.

In addition, they look at the different states and phases of churn because “effectively all of these data signals allow us to understand better our audience and understand those custom paths towards conversion,” Lee said.

Communicating with readers

In terms of keeping in touch with their readers, Lee said that from the time that someone registers with SCMP through the time they churn, they have automated emails that go out based on the actions readers are taking.

“At the point where you register, you receive a set of emails that onboard you and basically ensure that you are discovering as many of the different SCMP products, whether it is different newsletters, or podcasts or the app, which will push you through to subscription,” he said. “And if you churn, we have a set of emails to try and win you back.”

SCMP is currently aiming to marry that process with their in-app messaging because Lee said they have realised if someone is a subscriber and has downloaded the app and is using it regularly, that person is  more likely to remain a paid subscriber.

Lee also said SCMP has started to build much longer term approaches to keeping people from churning.

“We had a system that meant basically once you onboarded as an annual subscriber, we didn’t speak to you until 30 days before you were potentially thinking about exiting or renewing. That was a 10-month gap where we should have been using that opportunity to better onboard, engage with our readers rather than just hoping that within the last 30 days we could bring them back. So it has changed the face for what we are doing for our annual subscribers,” he said.

Something else they have tried recently is offering free access for a week for all readers who created a free account.

“We have seen a 70 percent week-on-week increase in registered users during free access week, so I go back to the importance of driving registration because we know it creates subscription intent. These are some of the things I would definitely be recommending anyone thinking about launching a paid subscription service to consider,” Lee said.