Just like digital subscriber acquisition needed rethinking (paywalls, search, social funnels), retention needs its own transformation from print-era tactics.

The recent INMA Media Subscriptions Summit in Amsterdam and conversations with members worldwide offered us a new agenda for digital-first subscriptions. Let’s now build a toolbox.

• Stop binary thinking of readers as subscribers vs. non-subscribers. Think of retention as a forever relationship.In small or saturated markets, you literally cannot afford to constantly lose subscribers because you’ll soon run out of people to convert.
• Find a better fit for your subscriptions to modern lifestyles of digital consumers. Pause vs. cancel. Downgrade vs. churn. Restart in one click. Adapt your product line and tech infrastructure to allow more flexible relationships.
• Master experience at the post-acquisition and post-churn moments of truth: from onboarding new subscribers, habit forming, upgrading, to cancellation flows, and comeback loops.
• Re-organise to solve common problems. Retention isn’t a role. It is not even a team. It’s an outcome of efforts of all in the newsroom, product, marketing, data and customer service. Cross the silo and build a new retention culture.

This practical and case study-based Master Class will offer a blueprint for new retention strategies for digital-first news media.

Don’t miss your targets in 2025. Find new ideas for testing and scaling. Make a business case for a new retention agenda at your company.