Introducing the Freewall.
The Paywall has for years been the dominant tactic of News Media publishers’ strategy to monetize flyby traffic, attempting to turn article seekers into paid subscribers. While the market has evolved, the paywall has mostly remained the same, until now.
Chicago Sun-Times took a winning experiment and made it the new default acquisition experience across the site—we call it the Freewall. I suspect we’ll soon see many more publications embracing this approach.
Visitors to the site are presented with the option to become a member or watch a video to get free access to the article they want to read. The video is about the Sun-Times itself, its commitment to the community and the quality of their local journalism, all the reasons why supporting the publication with a membership contribution is good for everyone.
I can’t share the precise numbers yet but the results are staggering, a huge increase in new members and corresponding value through contributions.
📰 It starts with a familiar article engagement…
🎥 The video conveys the value…
😍 And the options capture new members…
How this works…
For those not familiar, News Media has been struggling for years to build a more sustainable business model, challenged in a few specific ways:
Post pandemic subscriber numbers have declined
Search and Social traffic has effectively collapsed as those platforms increasingly avoid news content and retain users with zero-click
Younger audiences are proving harder to engage
Highly discounted intro offers have increased churn
Advertising revenue has been unpredictable
Chicago Sun-Times is a brave category leader, recently dropping their paywall and opting for a voluntary donation-based member revenue model because they believe in the necessity of free local news. In short they’re putting their audience first and building something people are willing to pay for.
HoK has been engaged to help expedite member growth with experimentation that’s rooted in an audience-centric and product-led approach. We started with audience research to root out the core drivers of member value and collaborated to develop a series of experiments to meet the needs of the audience, and the business, for sustainable growth.
The Freewall is one of these experiments, so far, one of the most notable because it truly disrupts the paywall status quo by putting the audience first and proving the rewards for doing so.
We’re incredibly proud of this collaboration resulting in a valuable industry-first innovation. Our clients at the Chicago Sun-Times continue to move the industry forward with the courage to experiment. And the HoK team brings the breadth of our experience with subscriber growth to go from strength to strength.
