130: Be brief, but does that sell subscriptions?

Concisely tell your audience what they need to know. But does that sell subscriptions?

Bo Sacks distributed an article in which Axios co-founder Jim VandeHie gives his advice on “smart brevity.” That is, getting to the point and eliminating unnecessary words.

It’s a good article, and you should read the whole thing – I’ll provide a link below – but here are his major points.

Think of your audience before you begin.
Start with your most important point to grab reader attention.
Keep it simple and eliminate fluff. Use visuals where appropriate.
Write as if you’re speaking to someone.
Stop once you’ve delivered the important information.

That’s all great advice, and it reminds me of the old “inverted pyramid” model of writing, where the lead paragraph (lede) contains the most essential information – who, what, when, where, why.

I don’t know why, but some newspapers trended away from that format and we started getting articles that began with a bunch of irrelevant fluff. As if you were reading a novel.

Mr. VandeHie’s says “the average person spends 26 seconds on a story or update, which isn’t much beyond the first paragraph. That’s why we decided we weren’t going to waste people’s time with long prose, and smart brevity was born.”

Right. So this method is designed to attract “the average person.” Obviously there’s some benefit to that approach, but it reminds of the topic I mentioned yesterday, which is that the tactics used to make a popular and profitable website – an ad-driven website – may draw an audience that isn’t inclined to purchase subscriptions.

Are people who subscribe different than “the average person”? I asked ChatGPT, and the answer is yes.

They’re older.
They have higher income.
They’re more educated.
They consume more media in general.

Which makes me suspect – again … I spoke about this yesterday – that if you want to sell subscriptions, you shouldn’t design your site to attract “the average person.” And that trying to sell subscriptions to an audience of average people is going to frustrate you.

The question then becomes, how do you write articles and design a website to attract the sort of people who do subscribe? And this is where I fear the entire web-based ecosystem is tilted against you.

Google is going to prefer websites that are written according to their expectation of free content supported by ads.

So if you want to create a website to appeal to likely subscribers, you might have to break the rules. You might have to come up with a new way of thinking about a website, and a new set of metrics. Because all the standard methods and metrics are going to bring you that same audience that isn’t really keen on subscribing.

Resources

Co-founder of Axios advises journalists to write audience-first
https://www.inma.org/blogs/innovative-advertising-solutions/post.cfm/co-founder-of-axios-advises-journalists-to-write-audience-first

Maybe you can’t sell subscriptions because the people who are driving your traffic have the wrong goal
https://krehbielgroup.com/2023/10/23/maybe-you-cant-sell-subscriptions-because-the-people-who-are-driving-your-traffic-have-the-wrong-goal/