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Norway’s Aftenposten looks to build retention through features, habits

2022-08-03. During the past eight to 10 years, Aftenposten has undergone a massive digital transformation of its editorial and business operations to the extent that the portion of revenue coming from subscribers is now around 80 percent – a solid foundation for sustainable growth.

by Brian Veseling brian.veseling@wan-ifra.org | August 3, 2022

Most publishers still heavily dependent on the uncertain nature that comes with digital advertising dream of being in Aftenposten's situation. However, ensuring they retain as many paying subscribers as possible is no small feat and brings its own set of challenges.

Known as Norway’s quality national daily, Schibsted-owned Aftenposten has around 150,000 paying digital-only subscribers, a sizeable figure in a country that has just over 5.4 million people.

At around the equivalent of 27 euros a month (or about 325 euros a year), Aftenposten is fairly pricey.

“So it’s really, really important for us to find ways to engage people on other platforms and get them back to us and use the product,” Schibsted’s Sidney Glastad told participants at WAN-IFRA’s recent Digital Media Europe conference, which took place at Schibsted’s headquarters in Oslo.
Sharing is caring (and helpful for retaining)
The publisher continually experiments with various features to retain users and Glastad, who is in charge of growth and target groups, discussed some of the things they have found to be most successful.

For example, Aftenposten gives subscribers the ability to share their digital subscription with someone else, and in fact, they strongly encourage this practice. Why? For one thing, it helps users to see extra value in their subscription.

It's also a powerful force in retention. If a reader goes to cancel their subscription, the first screen they encounter shows the name of the p...

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