Could email overtake the website for content delivery?

Do publishers even need a website? Is email the better method for content delivery?

I was reading an article about how La langue francaise increased their registered users by 450%, and half-way through I thought, “so why do they need a website?”

La langue francaise wanted to encourage readers to create a free account as part of the journey towards becoming a paying subscriber.

They looked to The New York Times and to Semafor for inspiration.

On Semafor, you can read a little of an article, and then it prompts you to sign up for the e-newsletter relevant to the article you’re reading. It’s super easy. You enter an email address and you’re done. There’s no password, no “click here to verify” or any of that.

La langue francaise created three different registration modules with unique value propositions for each section of their site. That’s smart, at least in the abstract – I couldn’t review what they’ve done because my French is limited to a few dialogues I learned in 7th grade, and I think I can count to 49.

Back to business. This “email only” approach makes the first step in the registration process very easy.

Unlike Semafor, La langue francaise does require the reader to confirm his email.

The next step is the dynamic paywall, where they took their cues from the Times. It’s based on how much content a reader has consumed, whether they’ve completed a quiz, or other things. They use Poool for that part.

The overall strategy seems to hinge on three things.

First, that giving up your email to read an article is a fair trade that many people are willing to do – especially since we all know we can unsubscribe or block emails that we don’t want.

Second, they apply a little pressure on the website to get people to take the next step to subscribe.

But third, even if a reader never subscribes, he’s still getting the e-newsletter, which has some value in itself – both to the reader and to the publisher.

Then the question becomes how much of the content do you deliver in the email itself. That seems to be a ripe area for testing.

The email could have …
A link to the article on the website
A summary of the article, plus a link to the website, or
The entire article.

Right now, publishers usually view email as a channel to get more subscribers on the website, but I can easily imagine a future where more and more content is delivered through the e-newsletter, and the website becomes more of a conversion vehicle. It’s the website that drives people to the e-newsletter in that view of things.

That would be an interesting model. You could even have a free and a paid version of the email, where free subscribers get five stories, and the headlines that the paying subscribers get – just to tease them.

In other words, email could become the dominant form of content delivery.

It’s worth a thought.

Resources

https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-la-langue-francaise-increased-registered-user-acquisition-by-450-thanks-to-a-bittersweet-strategy/
How La langue française increased registered user acquisition by 450% thanks to a “bittersweet” strategy