News and culture publisher The Atlantic launched the first group subscription product in its 167-year history last summer, which has so far focused almost exclusively on reaching college students through their universities.
Since going to market last April, The Atlantic has signed up more than 75 schools across the country to participate in the program, reaching more than 500,000 students, according to Mary Liz McCurdy, senior vice president of business development and strategic partnerships at The Atlantic.
“We went the academic route first because there is substantial pent-up demand for it,” McCurdy said. “But it also helps us future-proof our audience by bringing in a new generation of readers.”
The Atlantic is far from the first publisher to offer college students a discounted or free subscription product, noted Felix Danczak, global head of marketing at subscription platform Zuora.
But the opportunity to reach undergraduates as they develop their media consumption and spending habits for the first time is invaluable.
“Any subscription is fundamentally about balancing your cost per acquisition against the lifetime value of a subscriber,” Danczak said. “College students represent the best that ratio ever gets.”
The initiative reflects the increasing sophistication of publishers’ digital subscription strategies. As the market for reader revenue matures, publishers must constantly find new pools of untapped customers to target, and colleges represent a continuously refreshing source of emergent consumers whose educational background make them an ideal audience.
The Atlantic, which recently surpassed 1 million total subscribers and reached profitability, has also positioned itself as a thought leader in conversations around democracy and American history, giving it a nominal right to win in the space. In tandem with its broader push onto university campuses, the publisher is embarking on a new, three-college speaking tour called Democracy at a Crossroads, which kicked off May 2 at the University of Nevada, Reno. It will also make future stops at Morehouse College in Atlanta and the University of Michigan.
Pricing and product description
Unlike standard enterprise subscriptions, which are often priced on a per-seat basis, The Atlantic charges universities based on two factors: the length of their contract and the size of the school, according to McCurdy.
Contracts are either one, three or five years, and the size of the school is measured by the number of full-time employees it has. The publisher has struck some sweetheart deals to encourage early adoption, and it has also, in some cases, worked with sponsor organizations to foot the bill for colleges with less discretionary income to spend on the program.