Publishers’ new old-fashioned newsletter growth hack: contests
Millennial news site Mic, for example, last week launched its “MicCheck $500 Giveaway Contest,” which will hand out $500 to the reader that attracts the most new subscribers. Ozy, another news site for kiddos, which already claims more than 1 million subscribers to its daily email, teamed up with known millennial hot spot Oprah.com to offer new subscribers a chance to win a three-day round trip to Costa Rica. In the business space, travel news site Skift also used the tactic to push readers its own newsletter. What’s old is new again.
The emphasis on boosting subscribers comes as the newsletter undergoes something of a rebirth. The big platforms, while good for publishers’ distribution, are black boxes that give publishers little control. Email, in contrast, is wholly in control over publishers themselves, giving them a viable distribution channel not controlled by the whims of algorithms.
“People trust their friends to recommend interesting and informative news, and Mic has a very engaged newsletter audience. Our aim is to turn our most loyal subscribers into brand ambassadors by offering them an incentive to share MicCheck with their own networks,”said Joel Pavelski, Mic’s director of programming.
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