Content Insights research: on average, a media outlet has only 3.8 per cent of loyal readers
What is loyalty?
Although many publishers define ‘loyal readers’ as those who are returning visitors, and that have visited their site recently, Content Insights define loyal readers as ‘habitually highly engaged readers’.
Findings
Content Insights’ study is based on May 2019 data from 10 different publications within their network, across four continents. Keeping in mind that these publications have different business models and come from different parts of the world.
– On average, a media outlet has only 3.8 per cent of loyal readers
– Those 3.8 per cent of readers read five times more content in a single month compared to non-loyal readers
– Loyal readers come to your website almost four times more often in a single month compared to non-loyal readers
– On average, loyal people consume almost 29 per cent more articles within a single session
– Loyal audiences read 14.6 per cent more text within a single article
While 3.8 seems not very significant at a first look, the study found that those 3.8 per cent generated 16.2 per cent of traffic across the 10 websites Content Insights looked at. Loyal readers matter because they read, according to the company.
Apart from getting constant traffic and higher levels of reader engagement, what else could be relevant for publishers who want to optimise for loyalty? Revenue.
Loyal readers are more likely to become subscribers, and even more important, they are more likely to stay subscribed.
Click here for the full study and results.
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