Did "no paywall week" work?

Can you DROP the paywall and get MORE paid subscribers?

Turns out you can.

Escape Collective just ran a “no paywall week” experiment ahead of the Tour de France. Their thinking was that since it’s the biggest cycling event of the year AND their biggest traffic spike, it was a great time to give a wider audience a little taste of what it’s like to be one of their members.

Escape’s Head of Membership, Andy van Bergen, called it “one of our most successful member acquisition periods to date.”

How did they do it and what exactly worked? That’s what we’re getting into today.

—Lex

Why drop the paywall now

Escape Collective now has a “hard paywall.” Most of their stories are members-only.

They used to have a metered paywall, which means that you’d get a few free articles before hitting the paywall, but they ditched it earlier this year to basically paywall everything.

This was a bold move. One that I applaud because I think paywalls are pretty damn useful for indie publishers who want editorial independence, but Andy described it as “a hand-wringing decision.” (Read more about this change in their Transparency Report.)

It seems to be working for them, but it does mean the team has had to get more creative with how they bring in and convert free readers into paying members.

While many publications center their free readers, Escape has always prioritized building FOR and WITH their members. They launched with a core group of founding members and their current membership base doesn’t just pay a subscription fee, they also volunteer to moderate the community, fly out to join international trips and light up the comments regularly.

That said, Escape Collective still needs some entry points for casual readers to learn why they should become super fans. The annual Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes became the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the most interest they get all year.

This newsletter is produced in partnership with Outpost 🪐 

Escape Collective uses Outpost to sell and retain members.

You can use Outpost to automate welcome sequences, upgrade prompts and cancellation prevention. It’s a super useful tool that Ghost publishers love because it reduces their marketing overhead.

If you’re spending too much time on marketing your membership, you should try Outpost today.

How Escape ran this campaign

“No paywall week” ran the week before the Tour de France. It was 7 days of free access to all brand new stories, plus lots of emails during and after the free preview.

Giving existing members a heads up

The Escape team is really good at enlisting their current members in helping them grow. The week before the paywall was removed, Caley Fretz (editor in chief) sent members an email inviting them to share the Tour de France coverage with a friend.

The positioning in this email was that no paywall week is a value add (you get to share with a friend more easily) rather than a value lost (we’re giving your perk to everyone else). It immediately planted the seed that this free preview week benefits members too.

What free readers experienced

Escape swapped the paywall for a registration wall (reg wall) which just requires an email sign up to access a story. They did this mainly for future content, meaning the stories they produced DURING the free week.

The editorial team stacked the free week with a thoughtful line up of stories that would entice new readers to want more once the paywall was back up. Editors also handpicked a few older articles to make temporarily available and they promoted those to their individual audiences as a bonus.

The reg wall had messaging about this being a special preview and it included an active countdown of when it was over. The “Start my free week” button made it feel like you’re beginning a trial, and even though Escape wasn’t taking credit cards, it set a very clear expectation that an upsell was coming.

Throughout this free preview period, new visitors who gave their email received both regular newsletters and upsell emails encouraging them to become paying members to keep getting live coverage. Escape Collective uses Outpost to upsell free readers on becoming a member and they modified their standard automated welcome sequence to be more relevant to their Tour de France audience.

What happened when the paywall came back

The paywall returned the first day of the Tour de France.

Escape Collective’s new free readers got lots of messaging that no paywall week was ending so they had plenty of warning that they were about to start hitting paywalls.

Once the paywall was back, the team had an even better set of stories in the queue to keep their momentum going with all their new readers. They also made sure to have plentiful and persuasive calls to action that outlined all their member benefits (which are pretty spectacular.)

Did it work?

Andy said this was “one of our most successful member acquisition periods to date.”

What happened for Escape Collective:

• Gained 2k+ free readers and email subscribers

• High conversion rate from free readers to paid members in the first 48 hours after turning on the paywall

• About 50% of the new paid members chose annual plans

Compared this to last year’s Tour de France when Escape gained a much smaller group of paid members, most of whom were on monthly subscriptions and 80% of whom have since churned. This year’s cohort has a higher rate of uptake on annual plans so strong retention is built in for at least a year. And the bonus of that timing is that next year, as renewals come up, it will be the Tour de France again and who’s gonna cancel then???

Thinking of trying this strategy?

Andy flagged this success story to me because he thinks it’s worth considering.

That said, you need a few ingredients to get this right.

1. Something that’s driving a lot of EYES to your site (like an event)

2. Content that people will PAY to read

3. Upsell sequence/calls to action that PERSUADE free readers to go paid

Editorial played the biggest role here. If people don’t care to get behind the paywall fast, the switch from no paywall to paywall won’t convert them. You’d need to slowly build up stories and withhold the most interesting ones for post-paywall return. The upsells are important but they can’t succeed without really good stories.

I also really like the strategic removal of the paywall on a couple past notable stories for the purpose of re-promoting them. That could be a great one off experiment if you don’t have the equivalent of the Tour de France to build a campaign around.

Escape Collective’s paywall dropping campaign teaches us that paywalls are not binary. They don’t just have to be on or off. They can behave however you want them to behave for whoever you want to welcome into your world.

Find your writers community here