The Information Uses Newsletters to Report on Niche Areas

While tech publisher The Information has stirred up press for two newsletter launches this week, subscribers can revel in the fact that it also plans to debut "a few dozen more" newsletters on niche topics in the coming months. The San Francisco-based tech outlet now has a total number of five newsletter offerings ranging from a weekday briefing on tech developments to a Saturday morning dispatch on Silicon Valley from the site's founder, Jessica Lessin. The newsletter expansions include two brand-new products: Reality Check and China Newsletter, which join previous newsletters The Information AM, The Briefing and The Takeaway, according to Lessin. The announcement comes as the newsletter ecosystem continues to expand, prompted by platforms like Substack and Revue that have made it freshly apparent how much potential revenue lies in the inboxes of readers. Media Newsletters Are Booming, and Substack’s Co-Founders Lit the Fuse 'Going deep' on niche topics Four times a week, reporter Matthew Olson will write Reality Check, which covers the worlds of augmented and virtual reality. The newsletter debuted Monday with an exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg. Reporter Yunan Zhang will publish the Mandarin and English-language China newsletter every other week, covering the latest developments in the Chinese tech industry. Lessin declined to share how many total subscribers The Information has accrued, though she said average open rates are higher than usual and regularly fall in the 30%-40% range. For comparison, the industry average for open rates is 22%, according to Mailchimp. My hope is that people say, ‘Oh man, no one's gonna read that.’ And then a couple of months later, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of people reading it.The Information's Jessica Lessin The Information's burgeoning email program is made possible by its current hiring spree, which Lessin highlighted in a December tweet. The publication currently has six editorial job openings and nine total positions for hire. One forthcoming newsletter, currently unannounced, will build upon The Information’s proprietary organizational charts, tracking the comings and goings of key executives to map the taxonomies of power within influential tech companies. Another will cover the creator economy, a rising economic force that has blossomed during the idle days of the pandemic. A third will cover the cloud enterprise space, owing to the amount of news The Information breaks on the industry, Lessin told Adweek. And a fourth will likely cover the world of cryptocurrency, based on information seen in a job advertisement. If the subject matter sounds niche, that’s the point. The Information prides itself on “going deep,” a mentality that suits the newsletter format well. “My hope is that people say, ‘Oh man, no one's gonna read that.’ And then a couple of months later, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of people reading it,” Lessin said. “That’s what we’re going for.” The tech site will be taking an "iterative" approach to its newsletter products, seeing what works, gathering feedback and making adjustments. "With newsletters, you don’t have to build a fancy product from soup to nuts," Lessin said. "One of the reasons we got these out of the gate so quickly is so that we can begin that learning process." 'Super-serving' subscribers The Information employs a famously strict paywall, often limiting the number of articles a non-subscriber can view to zero, in the hopes that curious news-seekers may feel compelled to pay $39 per month or $400 per year. The publication achieved profitability in 2016, three years after its inception, according to reporting from The New York Times. In February 2020, Lessin predicted it would generate $20 million in sales by the end of the year, though she declined to share current revenue figures with Adweek. Non-subscribers who visit The Information can sign up for its newsletters for free and access one article before hitting the paywall. As such, the publication is using its newsletter program to add value to its current subscribers’ experience and generate revenue, rather than as a tool to build habit in free readers. Adding in-depth, niche resources to its subscribers helps The Information reduce churn. By giving them more for their money, the publication hopes to keep readers subscribed for longer, an effort Lessin calls “super-serving” its readers. With a product as expensive as The Information, reducing churn by even a fraction can pay dividends on a balance sheet, said Dan Oshinsky, a consultant for the email consulting group Inbox Collective. Rather than seeing new subscribers as the end goal, smart publishers see it as the beginning of a new kind of relationship: One where the publisher focuses on retention rather than acquisition. “It is really worth investing in products that are geared toward keeping customers loyal, not just for a period of months, but for years on end,” Oshinsky said. “The bigger the scale, the more valuable retention becomes.” Expanded partnerships While The Information does not run ads on its website, it does weave them into its events, newsletters, surveys and other products. As The Information builds up its roster of niche newsletters, each catering to specific industries and reaching senior tech executives, it could fetch a higher price for advertisers trying to reach these groups, Oshinsky said. Higher-than-average open rates are enticing for advertisers. “Brands want to be in front of very specific, very passionate audiences, but those opportunities are so elusive these days,” Lessin said. “Luckily, that’s what we specialize in.” Mel Magazine to Launch Paid Newsletters

Newsletters

The Information Launches Newsletters to 'Super-Serve' Readers and Deeply Report on Niche Areas

The tech publisher's newsletter open rates fall between 30% to 40%

Mark Stenberg

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Stenberg