How Niche media use text channels
Ten use cases and lessons learned
There are many reasons to create text channels: Texts have a 90% view rate, compared to the 30% email open rate many niche publishers report. Receiving information on the phone also adds immediacy to breaking news such updates on weather, fire and financial events, sports scores, political or legal developments, and even peer-reviewed research on particular topics.
But increasingly, media are experimenting with other uses: charging for exclusive connections with columnists and editors, communicating with event attendees, and supporting e-commerce.
“It does not have to be local news. It could be someone who covers beer in Portland, or a national vertical,” said David Cohn, who leads the team at Subtext, a platform that supports media text channels. He sees the trend reaching into other markets, such as life coaches, chefs, and fitness coaches.
Subtext’s platform (NicheMediaInsider has no affiliate relationship with this company) is a good option because it comes with a subscription model so that insider reports can be sold directly and bundled into other offers. There is also a built-in sponsorship module and a dashboard that organizes text into campaigns, like email, and the Subtext team has a track record of success working with niche publishers.
Finally, when users text back to an editor, instead of going to their phone, the texts go into a dashboard so anyone can answer messages from an iPad or computer.
The platform was developed by Advance AlphaGroup, a technology incubator arm of media company Advance Local, as part of its aggressive leap into digital. The cost is either a 20% revenue share or licensing fee based on number of subsribers. Each publisher puts the opt-in field on a page of the website.
Here is a walk through how and why 10 publishers built niche text channels on Subtext and lessons learned from their experiences:
• Creating a premium subscription service
A direct paid subscription to text channel is typically $3 to $10 a month. Inc. Magazine, offers paid text channels to its writers and kicks most of the revenue back to them. An example is Minda Zetlin, a well-known author and writer for Inc. Magazine, who advises on career self-care with topics like, “Wharton Psychologist Adam Grant Says This Is the 1 Type of Relationship You Should Avoid” (note to self: it’s frenemies who are the most psychologically destructive). Inc. provides her with an author page, where readers can sign up for her text alerts for $4.95 monthly. 
For niche media hoping to attract authors with their own following, this is also a way to incentivize their contributions.
Inc. writers have told us that freelancers may not get paid, but in return are can develop a platform of their own.
Another example is sports handicapper MMA Shark, focused on Mixed Martial Arts. The company started as a Facebook group where the founder gave his picks for MMA competitive outcomes for free.
Other media use text to build engagement with reporters around a particular niche. The Washington Post, for example, powers a “text course” on learning how to de-clutter, created by Marisa Kashino, editor of The Washington Post’s The Home You Own section. The course includes the ability to contactKashino directly by text, an increasingly popular way to connect well-known editors and columnists with readers.
Here’s their promotion:
“Instead of endlessly searching the internet for advice, sign up for a four-part course in which you’ll get helpful info sent straight to your phone. Marisa will text you curated guides to cleaning, organizing, taking care of your houseplants, and fun DIY projects.
You’re in control of the topic and the pace. Text Marisa what you want to learn and keep texting to get more advice or take a break when life gets too busy. If a topic doesn’t seem relevant, skip it! Need extra help? Reply and ask Marisa.”
Users immediately get a text and can start interacting by replying 1, 2, 3, or 4 to get better at cleaning, plants, clutter, or a fun DIY project.
The New York Times has also launched a “cooking text line” for instant recipes.
“Text a fruit or vegetable emoji to 361-COOK-NYT today. And prepare for another season of delicious recipes at nytcooking.com.”
We can see the convenience of having the phone with you in the store or farmers market when spotting a fruit or vegetable that just came into season, and it’s a nice add-on to the cooking niche they are building.
The Triangle Business Journal has a text channel that connects subscribers with the editor. People who sign up receive texts from the editor with breaking news, and they can also pose questions for upcoming interviews and participate in local business polls.
A recent morning’s text reads:
Good Monday Morning. Sougata here and goes on to deliver a couple of “Fun Facts” about multi-family mortgage rates and how the increase in the price of gas has exceeded the increase in crude oil prices by 50%, in a conversational voice: Yeah, no price manipulation there.
• Communicating with event attendees
Another use of mass texting that we think has tremendous value is communicating with attendees on the day of a big event.
Morning Brew uses mass text as a way to contact attendees on the day of their yearly Marketing Summit, The Brief.
The Morning Brew events team collects the phone numbers during the ticket sales process, which are uploaded into Subtext, which also has a CSV upload feature.
Then they received a welcome text and an explanation that text would be a primary “communication tool throughout the event.”
The Morning Brew team relies on the text on the event day to share the schedule, for session reminders, wifi passwords, prompts for attendees to submit questions to speakers, notification agenda changes, secret giveaways, contests, surveys, and timing updates.
A minor wifi issue early in the day was promptly met with a text to attendees about the issue and that it would soon be fixed.
We can see how this capability can reduce the paperwork and workload overall and make it easier for attendees.
Dillon Dyer, Senior Marketing Manager at Morning Brew, even concluded that “Subtext was a game-changer at our in-person event, The Brief: Marketing Brew Summit. With almost 500 attendees on-site, it allowed us to communicate with everyone in a timely manner.”
Another event successfully using texting is the IronMan Triathlon, hosted by the World Triathlon corporation. During this event, almost 100,000 athletes compete in 55 countries.
For free publications, text is one way to offer a paid service. Politics is often a place to start. San Francisco political columnist Joe Eskenazi sells his insider report for $4 monthly, and Banghor Media has had a political channel.
But a rising star of political reporting is Punchbowl, which built text alerts into premium subscription sales. The initiative started as an extra benefit to help retain its $10 million in subscription sales, according to Axios. The two-year-old start-up is hyper-focused on covering Congress with 3 newsletters daily, five days a week. The texts are then used for breaking news as it occurs.
The text channel also helped replace subscribers’ reliance on Twitter for political news, Axios reported.
In addition to text, the Premium Membership includes VIP events, brown bag lunches, deep dives on policy, and “Canvass” a poll of political aids. Punchbowl charges $30 a month or $300 a year, so building an extra value was significant.
• Generating revenue from affiliate links
Forbes runs several “Wirecutter” style channels that drive affiliate sales, including Advisor and Vetted, which has Best Buy-style journalism on everything from insurance to mountain bikes. A disclaimer says that the product reviews are independent, but each is linked to an online store to create affiliate sales.
For a big Prime Days promotion, Forbes sent 22 texts over five days, “ranging from deals on big-ticket items like gaming consoles to mobile devices, kitchen appliances, home goods, and everything in between,” Cohn said.
Summary
So which media should look to mass texting? First, consider if there is compelling information. Many niche media have an exclusive, valuable audience but may not publish the kind of information that works in text. Here is a summary of the categories of compelling information in these ten case studies:
* Emergency news. Prominent examples are any media heavily impacted by weather events, such as local media in a tornado zone or an outdoor sportsman magazine.
* Need-to-know news. Financial niches can instantly report financial events to investors; associations or political organizations can report up-to-the-minute legislative or court filings that must be responded to immediately. Whatsapp was widely used to bring Russians into the streets several years ago. Day-of-event information also falls into this category.
*Large events
* Passionate interests. Some media connect deeply with people around an interest or topic, or a well-known columnist with a following may be able to attract and sustain a text channel.
*Affiliate sales
Creating a text channel for smaller media with limited resources also depends on company goals. Would a revenue stream be valuable or more of a distraction? Could it add definitive value to paid memberships or subscriptions? Can it deepen relationships, connect subscribers with writers or content meaningfully, provide a competitive advantage, elevate the brand, or compensate great writers?
Without a high-priority goal, it is easy to let an initiative like this slide due to inattention. However, if one of these is a high-priority goal. A text channel is a solid option to consider.
Many thanks to David Cohn of Subtext for contributing these use cases. Interested publishers can reach him at david@joinsubtext.com.
