Exiting Advertising Model: How Niche News Are Booming Thanks to Subscription (Case Study)
We found ourselves in a position of running a quite outdated, specialized legal-focused website. Already bored? :) Don't be. A huge potential was revealed to us shortly after a few hours of initial analysis. It only needed a well-thought-out strategy for paywall, and patience. What was the result? A successful project with a strong brand identity, which continues to grow thanks to a stable circle of readers and subscribers.
Disclaimer: It’s important to note that I am the main owner of the Najpravo.sk, therefore this article might be perceived as a kind of self-congratulation. It is not. Even while we have achieved a lot, there is still a lot to learn and improve on the project I probably overly adore :)
Acquisition
It was a challenge in some way, when we acquired Najpravo.sk in 2021. This biggest legal news portal in Slovakia with a target audience of advocates, lawyers, judges and prosecutors was a site with an obsolete design and unseen potential. At that moment, we also didn’t have a clue about the content which we were planning to monetize. The legal vertical was a big blind step for us.
Let's dig into a lot of lessons learned from revenue model disruption made and comprehensive business transformation.
Significant Reduction in Ad Impressions. We Bet it All on Subscriptions
After a low-cost, quick but really necessary facelift, we decided to go on budget. It didn't make sense to invest heavily and wait to see if there would be interest in the subscription.We started small and invested gradually as part of a bootstrapping strategy. Reinvesting our earnings into minor, but needed innovations.
Market Leader
To draw a clear picture, at the time of acquisition, Najpravo.sk was already a market leader, but in one of the smallest markets with the narrowest language mutation in the European Union (Slovak language is spoken by only 5.5 million inhabitants living here).
It also had zero paying subscribers and zero logged-in users. That ment, we couldn't really project, at the moment of acquisition, if the success in this small market would result in profit. We could win the game, but still lose the money invested.
Why Ad Monetization Didn't Make Sense to Us
The bold step in monetization was to cut advertising space and our generated ad impressions by up to 95%. Why? Overall, ads weren't very profitable. For a smaller, specialized project like this, there wasn't a large amount of premium demand from programmatic advertisers, and maintaining a sales team was financially unsustainable. I suppose many niche publications on smaller markets find this a real challenge for their striving.
Furthermore, shortly after purchasing the project, our biggest direct advertising partner, who paid us for exclusivity for top viewable positions, chose to terminate our contract. So, we decided to take a gamble – and put all our bets on subscriptions.
From Zero, It's Easy to Grow Like Crazy
It can be said that growing from absolute zero is actually the easiest. After launching our subscription, we gained our first 72 subscribers in the first month, which was a delightful surprise. We surpassed the hundred subscriber milestone within just two months.
The project's growth is evident in the graphic below, which displays the estimated revenue from payments made through the online payment gateway.
How did we achieve it?
Let's take a look at what we had in our hands from the start and what played a role in the project's success. First and foremost, it's important to mention the circle of loyal readers.
EXTRA TIP: You can create a similar visualisation for your website too with the help of an easy-to-use NCI tool.
Another crucial factor that helped us achieve success was the declining but still present direct and organic traffic. Today, we reach 60,000 unique monthly visitors, with the majority coming from Google. By the time we purchased the website, a few thousand readers were already registered (but not logged in, not using their accounts), allowing us to start engaging with them right away, on the homepage and in the newsletter we began to send regularly.
Directly related to the traffic, and still relevant today, is the high homepage visibility. A lot of readers visited and continue to visit our homepage daily or weekly, thanks to a large amount of quality old and new content and also handy calculators for advocates.
The homepage has been the strongest acquisition channel in terms of subscription conversions we've had from the start of the project, and it continues to work with it to this day, followed by newsletter.
So, this was our starting line - it can be said that we had a solid foundation to build on. The transformation could then begin...
Significant Design and CMS Changes
At the beginning, we couldn't work with the website as it was. Take a look yourself, this is what Najpravo.sk looked like in 2020.
We invested our initial 2,000 euros in the previously mentioned quick facelift to bridge the time needed for the transformation. There is no need to attach the design of this facelift. It was not ideal, but at least less “noisy”.
Our Story with Ghost <3
For our web platform's premium section, we chose Ghost. This practical, minimalistic CMS is like the Apple of CMS systems in the world of small-mid publishers and bloggers. Thanks to its ease of use, we loved it from the first day. Our small editorial team (currently consisting of three in-house and approximately five external editors) also quickly grew fond of the new CMS.
Easy to Use, Easy to Implement
We opted for Ghost for several reasons right from the start. Beyond its mentioned ease of use, we found it to be an open-source tech that was easy to implement (initially opting for a self-hosted instance on virtual servers). Ghost also provided us with the essential features we needed – subscriptions, recurring payments, Stripe integration, and a powerful mailing system already in place.
Additionally, Ghost is not only CMS but a whole site platform with front-end and cool design templates, which we are very pleased with, and friendly support guys, always ready to help.
By the way, this became our new starting line. This is how our homepage looked like right after implementing Ghost. So, what do you think, can you spot three differences compared to the previous website image above?
Tech is Ready, Time to Do Some Business
In our next step, we began to lock content on the website - gradually for registered and paying users. We also focused on improving various distribution channels; from the homepage to Google search. An era of new distribution started for us with newsletters and social media.
Distribution models on the path to subscription revenue (by priority)
- Homepage
- Newsletter
Last But Definitely Not Least: Strong Brand Identity as a Significant Aid
A key factor was also the fact that Najpravo.sk was a well-known brand in the market from the beginning - a strong brand that a generation of Slovak lawyers grew up with.
The iconic logo, which we later updated to a more modern look, along with our unique color scheme, have long been associated with this brand, making it effortless to build upon them. We began utilizing a consistent design pattern across new platforms, such as with the Instagram profile, where we aim to connect with the legal community and offer a mix of professional, news, educational, and entertaining interactive content.
Today, our black paragraph symbol on a dark yellow background makes us easily recognizable also on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.
I could write for ages about why Instagram makes a lot of sense even while it is not driving any conversions or why the strange yellow & purple color pattern in brand identity is a dealbreaker. However, I think for this time, it is enough. I hope you liked it and, obviously, you even learned something. Thank you for reading.
P.S. Yes, I have 10+ years experience in digital news publishing. I love it, but sadly I don’t have the capacity to consult, even for a nice fee. But I know the greatest people in the industry, who will help you for sure - feel free to reach me out. Your “hello” is more important than you think.