Newsletters aren’t business models

The Rebooting and BlueConic recently completed research to examine the state of subscriptions at publishers. One of the key findings was that, for many publishers, subscriptions have moved from being another incremental revenue stream to being the fulcrum of audience-focused businesses, accelerated undoubtedly by changes in social and search traffic patterns. The challenge many have is how to integrate their subscription business with other revenue streams, most notably advertising.

Newsletters aren’t business models

Email newsletters aren’t new. They’ve been the bulwark of many digital publishing models for a long time, particularly in niche areas and B2B. I’ve lived through a few waves of email crazes, dating back to the pre-CAN SPAM Act Wild West days when email lists were brazenly traded in open-air markets.

In recent years, they’ve gotten a second look based on the “overnight” success of Morning Brew and Industry Dive, which appear all the more impressive when set in the post-scale apocalyptic landscape of zombified brands sent off the the SEO glue factory, shriveled distributed media operations.

Email is a handy alternative to all that. It’s cheap, builds a direct connection with an audience that’s less intermediated than other digital distribution channels, and gives off useful first-party data as exhaust. And in a world of algorithmic crap, email newsletters have emerged as a form of human media that’s often an antidote to the over-optimized world publishing. But email is still, at its heart, just a distribution channel, and no publisher should build around a single distribution channel.