Medieninsider: from subscriptions to memberships
The independent trade magazine for the media industry was founded in 2020 and has since then built a strong community with a diverse portfolio. Their partner Frisbii Media provides the subscription management platform and inspiration with various monetization functionalities.
Product
Media
Region
Germany
Industry
Publishing
Medieninsider: How it all began
Medieninsider is an independent trade magazine for the media industry and offers digital articles, reports and online as well as offline events.
Medieninsider in numbers:
- Founded August 2020
- 2 Founders
- Ca. 2500 articles in the past 6 years
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Customer data:
- 87,5 % Conversion rate (stay longer than 1 month)
- 56,4 % Conversion rate (stay longer than 3 months)
- Customer lifetime value (CLV): 43,77 € / month
- Churn among new acquisitions: 38,8 %
- Retention: 377,28 days
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The magazine was founded August 2020 by Matthias Bannert* (CEO) and Marvin Schade (Editor in Chief). Since they wanted to test their business model first, Medieninsider’s initial setup was very lean with a WordPress solution that also included a billing workflow. However, this turned out inadequate since it was not able to cover all processes and requirements.
Matthias Bannert decided to research subscription management platforms for publishers that were also suited for smaller organizations. Many specialized platforms deemed Medieninsider too “small”.
Eventually, Medieninsider found a comprehensive and strong platform for publishers of all sizes with Frisbii Media. It met all of their requirements, while Bannert and Schade particularly valued the collaborative partnership with Frisbii’S experts, who provided support and consultation during the implementation and setup of the platform.
Six months after Medieninsider was founded, Frisbii Media was implemented to support structured subscription management, billing/invoicing and transparent VAT across the DACH region.
*Connect with Matthias on LinkedIn.
Advantages with Frisbii Media
- Reliable, compliant invoicing
- Clean VAT for national and international members
- Simple integration of a payment solution
- Detailed reports and forecasting via opensubs integration
- Simple and direct subscription management
“It was easy to integrate the platform with the WordPress-Plugin from Frisbii Media. We did not have any coding or expert technical know-how but still mastered the few technical settings of our payment workflows thanks to an intuitive platform and excellent support.”
Matthias Bannert
Co-Founder and CEO Medieninsider
A different view of the audience: Medieninsider turns subscribers into members
As trade magazine for the publishing industry, Medieninsider is not ad-financed and has built its business model on a strong community concept. That’s why the founders do not talk about subscribers but about members and memberships.
Matthias Bannert and Marvin Schade decided early to plan events that would offer networking opportunities to their members. While 2020 was in the throes of Covid, the first Q&A events had to be organized digitally, inviting industry experts to share their knowledge with participants.
With the success of the digital event formats and the loosening of Covid-restrictions, Medieninsider soon expanded their events to live formats. The “Director’s Club” is a Q&A evening in cozy atmosphere. The “Insider Tours” visit local publishers in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich to talk about and experience current trend topics such as AI in real publishing houses.
“We greet new members before we send the first bill. A member has clear advantages with a subscription, whether that’s a free event attendance or a significant discount. We ask for feedback and also see cancellations as a message. Our members have to feel that we value them for their loyalty.”
Matthias Bannert
Co-Founder and CEO Medieninsider
Flexible offers for diversified revenue streams
The flexible yet intuitive Medieninsider portfolio is heavily influenced by the functionalities of the Frisbii Media platform.
Initially, memberships were only available for individuals until Medieninsider discovered the option to add company accounts. For a trade magazine, this is an attractive option, since publishing companies can offer their employees access to Medieninsider articles that way.
Currently, 38% of Medieninsider customers are corporate accounts.
Another attractive feature was the wallet functionality that helped expand the portfolio.
Medieninsider had noticed that many members only subscribed for one month to read a single article and cancelled immediately after. Bannert and Schade were looking for a solution that would enable readers who didn’t want to become subscribed members.
Frisbii Media’s wallet functionality was introduced as the perfect offer for one-time payments.
Medieninsider’s pricing for the single article purchases can be seen as quite risky, since one article costs as much as a one-month subscription. But the gamble pays off.
“We didn’t want to cannibalize our memberships when we introduced article purchases. But we were still surprised how many readers still opt to pay this price for a single article. But in the end, the price has to match the quality and work that was put into each article.”
Currently, almost half of all Medieninsider customers are using the wallet functionality which can also be used for events.
“We’re equal partners with Frisbii which is very important to us. We’re part of a community and Frisbii takes our ideas, problems and suggestions seriously. We profit tremendously from the exchange with other Frisbii customers. And I really value that we have a dedicated account manager who we can reach quickly.”
Matthias Bannert
Co-Founder and CEO Medieninsider