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Tough Times. These are not easy times for almost everyone right now, and we know this at Singletrack as individuals and as a business. Let me exp ...
By charliedontsurf
Get the full story here:
https://singletrackmag.com/2023/02/its-not-easy-being-singletrack-please-help/
A bit added to me yearly digital sub as I spend most of my working day on here and I've been with STW from issue 1!
Is the business model working though? These requests seem to be more frequent and there is a lack of the normal response to this particular request.
Is it time to shed a couple of staff to get through? I know there was a comment a week or two ago about having great staff but it's got to be better to have a less staff in a job than all staff be out of work for the sake of being nice. Nice is great, but sometimes not affordable.
Done. When do I get my blue tick?
I sympathise.
I closed three free newspapers over the last few weeks due to a lack of advertising revenue.
Now I realise I should have just asked the readers to give us money.
Now we know how many paying subscribers.
How many free members are there?
Done
Now I realise I should have just asked the readers to give us money.
It's worked very well for The Guardian, they raised £76.1m from donations last year..
It's not easy being anything these days! The only way to survive is to adapt, not just charge more for the same thing.
Apologies if any of the following sounds harsh, but if anybody external and independent with commercial acumen looked at this, they would probably say the same thing.
We all love this site and the support that it provides through good times and bad times, but these requests are becoming more frequent and the place has more of a whiff of a charity than a business.
There are loads of good web only bike sites that don't have the added burden or producing a mag. As emotional as it is, surely the time has come to review the business model and whether it can actually support as many employees as it does? Let's exclude the emotion and focus on STW as a business as well as a bike hub. The writing is on the wall for printed media guys - evolve or die.
Saddens me, but that's the harsh reality of running a business. I have worked in a number of business facing a similar existential challenge and the questions is ultimately 'would enough people to keep you running miss you if you weren't there tomorrow to keep you alive'? If not, change the model so that enough people do care to keep you running. The web is full of the same stories - declining sales in the bikes industry, cost of living, death of printed media. You can only swim against the tide for so long.
IMO this sort of transparency is useful. We've seen enough LBSs and other shops just disappear with no warning - had you known they were struggling could you/would you have gone there to buy your gloves/socks/shiny thing rather than getting it online?
I've just tried to up mine but it looks like in addition to the increase it want to charge me a sign up fee. is that correct
It would be good to know the percentage of Full/Digital/free members
A lot of people think that print is our problem. It really isn't. Advertising is the problem. Programmatic in particular, which has no connection with print at all. We've seen a 65% drop in programatic revenue in the last 12 months. This is not an issue restricted to just us. It's much wider than that. The solution is as Charlie stated above - to shift from chasing the big traffic numbers and ad revenues and focus on the members. Many of these issues have resulted from large tech platforms changing their policies and strategies that have radically changed the media landscape and the ability of any media to generate revenue from traditional sources of digital advertising. The part print plays in all of that is minor and in fact our print revenues are pretty stable (That's revenues from traditional print advertising and print memberships).
To be fair none of this is a surprise. It's been coming for several years and we've been working towards adapting to the new media landscape without reliance on the big tech platforms (Facebook pulled all its publisher specific tools and revenue streams with a few weeks notice late last year). The thing that's brought on a greater sense of urgency about our path is all of that coupled with the cost of living crisis and how that is affecting not just us joe public and how much we have to spend but also the bike industry itself, on which we also rely for revenue and material.
Call it a perfect storm of cost of living and large digital media shifts perhaps, but it's unfair to blame it all on print.
@tracey The so called 'sign up fee' (Built in - horrible term) IS the reconciliation for the rest of your membership.
There are roughly twice as many print members as digital only - although everyone gets digital.
Evolve or die - whatever the cause, the same thing applies (but surely print can't be helping - the mag and content doesn't come for free and print media circulation isn't exactly on the up). The mag might be a revenue generator and arguably fundamental to the STW brand, but if it didn't exist you could reduce your overall overheads? Plus, look at BearGrease's comment below. Your mag is only as good as the last edition and keeping it relevant in a world where news is here one second and gone the next is increasingly difficult.
A community of 6,000 paying subscribers + non-paying traffic that generates ad revenue generates income X. Costs = Y (where Y must be < X). If that isn't true, something has to change. Getting more from the paying community of 6,000 feels like a sticking plaster cure when the real issue is an over reliance on a dwindling and increasingly regulated pot of ad revenue. You have to fight harder for the big pot of money (advertising), not rely on a small group of dedicated loyalists (or if you do, reduce your costs accordingly). You can't afford to run a multi-channel business on niche, specialist revenues.
Increasing X is an increasingly difficult task for any industry right now as the tide is falling. Making money when the tide is rising is relatively easy. Unfortunately the cost base has to be reviewed if there isn't a sustainable way to increase the top line. That's the long and short of it. No emotion, whatever is unaffordable will drag you under. No pet projects, no emotional decisions. The world is littered with failed passion projects that we really loved by their creators but didn't work commercially.
Sounds doom and gloom, but it isn't. The future may not look like the past, but there is a strong future for STW given the demand for its product, albeit that demand might not be quite as healthy as it once was. However doing the same things and charging more for them when there is decreasing demand is a fool's paradise.
Take a look at the Pinkbike model. Their traffic generator is YouTube. Their content generates revenue via YouTube as well as directing traffic towards their site. YouTube generates more impressions than the printed media ever will, thus providing a more attractive place for advertisers. You need to get more eyes on the site to be more competitive as a place to advertise. To use an old-school example here's no point doing this through a sandwich board when you competition are on TV!
Sorted Mark
Worth every penny
I think there's still a market for specialist print publications*.
The only printed magazine I subscribe to is Motorsport Magazine (£5.50/month) as it adds so much more than the web motorsport media.
The only reason I don't have print STW is because I don't ride anymore.
I have seen some local free advertising mags go to the wall recently though. The advertisers are still there but print costs have rocketed so they're no longer viable.
*no - not that sort, that really has been killed off by the web! 🙂
So I resubscribed. I'd let my previous subscription lapse in a huff about being bitterly disappointed with the pre-Christmas issue. I've got over it.
Take a look at the Pinkbike model.
Singletrack has managed to stay independent and focused on original content, where as Pinkbike has been consumed by Outside and relies on recycling old content from their other "channels" and publishing outside PR pieces. Now, who should be looking at whose model...?
My point was not to sell to Outside and adopt the whole Pinkbike model. I would never hold Pinkbike up as a model of quality, but when it comes to quantity (which is what drives traffic and therefore advertsing $), they are more competitive. My point was that in order to drive more traffic to the site in order to generate a bigger share of the available ad revenue, a media channel such as YouTube is more effective and scaled than a printed magazine.
Having said that, not all of Pinkbike's material is recycled or low quality. Ben Cathro's series, their behind the scenes and technical stuff and their reviews are all good, and not something that STW can match.
I whole heartedly agree with your comments about Pinkbike's content. I am not advocating that at all. As I mentioned above, the STW 'product' is outstanding. But that doesn't matter if more people flock to Pinibike when it comes to where brands target their media. Quality, philosophy and altruism won't beat sheer numbers in a race to attract advertisers in the kind of numbers that are required to sustain the STW model.
I really want to see STW thrive, not just survive or disappear, and to do that there might be some commercial vs philosophical trade offs.
Oof, some tough love responses on here.
The old cozzy livs is hitting us all and I can't put my hand in my pocket, sorry 🙁
Take a look at the Pinkbike model. Their traffic generator is YouTube.
It's easy to guess the problems with someone else's business and say to fix them by "pivoting to video" (cheeky quote from Succession there), but PB has BY FAR the biggest audience in MTB media (and arguably the most-coherent editorial offering). Thus they'll have advertisers beating down their door. YT will be one of their revenue streams but it'll be a piece of the puzzle, not the magic formula for their success.
I dunno if you work in media Solarider but I did many years in print & digital, and I got out of editorial because it was so insecure. FB and Google were hoovering up all the advertising money and it always ended up with employers cutting costs (aka jobs).
If there was a simple answer that didn't involve cutting staff then I'm sure Mark & co would be doing it already. Telling him to make people redundant is a bit distaseful IMO.
Telling him to make people redundant is a bit distaseful IMO.
Not sure I have said that? There are many ways to reduce costs before you get to that stage, but if any business ring fences their biggest single cost (people) and treats any attempt to raise the subject as 'distasteful', they have a real problem.
I would never hold Pinkbike up as a model of quality
You should.
They are pretty much the best in the biz, unless you favour print-style long-form features or the embittered ramblings of NSMB.
Not sure I have said that?
Sorry that was another poster above.
Yeah cutting headcount is a glaringly obvious solution and I'm sure Mark has to face that prospect, it's just me saying I don't think it's cool for forum users to tell him to.
Posted without comment.
I've no idea why Pinkbike is so popular - it's always looked a bloody mess to me.
That's right Ped.
After years of being a subscriber, I had to make some tough decisions about renewing this year. STW wasn't the only mag that I dropped. I kept Cyclist but that's it because it was ultimately more relevant to me than Singletrack, but STW is far better than Cyclist as a website (surely that is quite telling?).
Does me not being a subscriber somehow diminish the validity of my responses or make me somehow less entitled to post? Do you also subscribe to the argument that because cyclists don't pay road tax they shouldn't use it? It's a remarkably similar reasoning. Does my decision not to subscribe for financial reasons somehow exclude me from still wanting to see STW thrive?
Making judgements about the validity of an opinion when you have no insight into the financial reason for not subscribing is unfortunately neither big nor clever and certainly won't help the very real challenge that clearly faces STW. Am I somehow meant to put the financial needs of my family bhind the future of STW, or otherwise retreat from the site and never post again? Apologies if I missed something in the small print about the benefits of being a subscriber and the indirect cost of ending a subscription. If you want the site to be some sort of exclusive club for subscribers only, then the 6,000 users will not be enough to keep it afloat for sure.
I would argue that the contribution that I make to the traffic to this site through my regular visits and consumption of the advertising is of equal value to my subscription since it generates advertising value. Simply being here, being active and consuming media helps the business to generate revenue. If you aren't familiar with that model, hopefully it gives you some insight into how the business works. Do you think that the advert that you are probably looking at right now doesn't help to fund the site, or that the value that it generates is directly proportionate to the number of times it is seen? The world of advertising is a cynical cruel world, but make no mistake, you are part of it and your very presence here is valuable to somebody whether you subscribe or not.
I consider my membership fee (print) as paying for a service.
I'm happy to and fortunate to be able to do that.
As with most services no matter what it is there is likely a fee for that service even if small.
Of course I understand that some people can't pay for every service but I also think that some people don't when they perhaps should.
Really difficult situation for so many people right now.
To the STW team - Keep up the very good work. Take care.
How does website advertising work now? Is it still the old way of you only get money if someone clicks on the advert? Or are sites paid just for displaying them?
And I really don't understand the 'local newspaper' approach to web-pages - so much advertising you can barely see the article.
How does website advertising work now? Is it still the old way of you only get money if someone clicks on the advert? Or are sites paid just for displaying them?
It's a really complicated balance of algorithms, but what matters is firstly how many visitors there are to the site who have the opportunity to see (OTS) the ad (which is itself valuable) and the number of those visitors that actually click on the ad (the click thru rate or CTR).
Sites that can deliver a high OTS of the right demographic (and unfortunately middle aged dentists are more valuable than younger students in this respect because of their disposable income) have a head start. They can further enhance their value by their CTR.
Therefore what matters to STW is generating enough traffic to the site in order to generate OTS revenue, and hopefully generating a high CTR both in % and absolute numbers, which is where a high volume of visitors (whether they are subscribers or not Ped) is valuable as a starting point and where the printed mag is not as effective at driving traffic as some of the other options out there (YouTube for example, hence the Pinkbike reference).
I know STW is relevant to our hobbies, but it aint a charity, it is a business, and whilst we might not like to see it that way, it has to survive in a harsh and competitive world.
There are many other ways of generating advertising revenue, but these are the biggest and simplest to explain.
It is clear from the article linked by Charlie that the team at STW are throwing everything at this problem, and chapeau to that. I just hope it is enough, but if not there are still things that can be done.
Done. Looking forward to enjoying my shiny bell 😮
Every full member should have a bell.
Once upon a time simply viewing ads was enough to generate revenue. Now the pendulum has swung away from Pay Per View to Pay Per Click. The programmatic system pays us a eCPM rate. Ie effective rate per 1000 views but this is misleading. It appears that we get paid for the views but in reality the eCPM would be zero if no ads were clicked. Typical eCPM rates in this sector are around $0.7 CPM for programmatic ads. Much higher for direct sold ads from the bike industry and not through an ad network. so it takes 1000 impressions of an ad to generate us $0.7. That’s why you see more than one ad on a page. A year ago that rate was much higher.
We currently deliver around 3 million page impressions/month. For some scale.
despite what Solar keeps saying the return per reader is way way higher for print. It’s just that print comes with bigger overheads.
The problem isn’t print. It’s actually much more effective than digital advertising/user.
My point is that as a method of generating traffic to the site through advertising STW as a 'thing' the mag is less effective in terms of readership numbers (what is circulation these days - 10k?) than a YouTube post that can easily generate 6 figure viewership. The mag has a UK bias whereas the world wide web would bring you traffic from a much broader church.
Ultimately revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. If the mag generates revenue and traffic but at an unaffordable cost, is it really as valuable?
Serious suggestion BTW - would it help if we all just clicked thru 10 ads a day each? I have no need for a Bentley, some new shoes or a new internet provider but happy to look like I do if it helps!
I just subbed as a full Print member, one thing that isn't clear is do I get the current Printed issue or do I have to wait until April for that to start?
Media is increasingly tied to events and event ownership. Redbull pioneered this, as it gives them exclusive content which they sell to advertisers and consumers (some of those event tics aren't cheap). Other media companies, Lifetime, Outside Interactive, H5 and X-games/ESPN are engaging in similar event/media strategies. Pinkbike doesn't own events (well the "Academy" is a kind of event), but they do a LOT of event sponsorship and have a WC DH team so they can be inside events without owning them. Singletrack has a community that loves events and pays for them (Ard Rock tickets, anyone?) and would enjoy (exclusive is best) post-event coverage. Advertisers LOVE that type of engagement and it seems as though events still have plenty of sponsor dollars. Print is fading, my kids (one age 33) don't know what to do with print mags. The TIME and RESOURCE used for print and its longer term viability are the issues, not whether the ads pay for printing and mailing costs. Who here would like to go to a Singletrack event? Would you trade your paper mag subscription for discounts/special treatment at 6 events per year? Maybe even just 4 good ones? We're social animals, the STW Forum proves that. Give the people what they want: news and info on their device; ways to get together with other interested folks in the meat and virtual spaces.
And, fix the the hard paywall, so I can share a limited number of articles per month and grow your audience for you. ("It's really great content, but you'll have to trust me on that and pay first" isn't a viable growth strategy)
So if we all logged out once in a while and madly clicked on the ads would that up the revenue?
A bit like this:
[img] 
[/img]
For STW to say yes to that question would be almost fraud as a beneficiary of those clicks, but I can say it - YES!
So if we all logged out once in a while and madly clicked on the ads would that up the revenue?
Good point, happy to click on a few ads if it'll see a jump in revenue!
I don't really want to give STW any more money as I don't read the mag so my digital subscription fee is basically just an ad blocker service, but I have just logged out and clicked on five ads. If it's gonna help, I'll do it again every now and then.
I only renewed a couple of weeks ago as well. TBH I was struggling to justify it, but decided ad free is a better experience.
I just re-read the article. Final bit of tough love, then I will retreat. Please understand that this comes from a place of love and may not be universally well received, but it feels like you are seeing some writing on the wall and even if it just generates debate I am happy to challenge.
the costs of printing have jumped up almost 20% in 18 months
That is a simply unsustainable position if you chose not to pass at least some of it on. You can’t keep absorbing cost at that level or looking for ways of cost avoidance. No matter how much you want to avoid it, you have to increase prices. You have to believe that you are worth it (because you are).
Putting up the cost of a membership across the board will be hardest felt by those of you who can afford it the least
That may be true in relative terms and it would be a credible manifesto strategy for a left wing political party or a not-for-profit organisation, but not much good as a commercial model. Don’t be apologetic about the value of your product. Yes it might out-price some people (me included), but that’s life unfortunately. You already make a large part of the STW experience available for free, but those elements of your product that cost you something to produce should be sold, not given away.
we can afford a smaller margin on each thing we sell if we sell more of them
This is true in theory, but realistically just how many more subscribers would you need just to stand still in the face of a 20% increase in printing costs alone? You have to make more from diversification and other sources of revenue and pass on any COGs increases. Many business have failed by convincing themselves that they will sell more of something at a cheaper price. Maybe you are selling as many subscriptions as there is demand for and your product is price inelastic.
Singletrack is a community that has grown over 21 years to become more than just a business
Agreed, but you can’t have one without the other and you need to be selfish and realise your value. Even charities need income. If you are good at something, don’t do it for free, particularly if that something is your way of making a living.
profit is not the ultimate goal here
Have you seriously considered transforming into a registered charity with subscriptions that benefit from gift aid if break even is the only goal? And don’t make profit a dirty word or something to be afraid of. It’s the way that you will drive investment and stay afloat for years to come. Yes British Gas type profits are something to be ashamed of but making a modest profit that you are able to reinvest is the basic lifeblood of your business and will ensure that STW has a future.
My greatest wish right now is that we continue to be an employer
The only way to do that is to stay afloat and this might involve taking some difficult decisions. This isn’t a popularity contest - your employees won't thank you if you did all the right things and they still lost their incomes. Some of the things that sound counter-intuitive will actually help you deliver precisely the altruistic and admirable goals that you hold dear.
First of all, there’s a new look to the website coming
Seriously?! How much have you spent over the years on this stuff? The site looked great and functioned better several iterations ago. Yes I appreciate some of the updates are necessary rather than nice to do in terms of security and regulatory adherence but make sure you are investing in things that add value. Do you really believe that another new look website will deliver more subscribers, more ad revenue or more visitors?
I know it all sounds harsh and critical, and to some extent it is, but you ain't going to fix this through well meaning small donations from the STW loyalists. Ask Dan Stanton how the passion vs commercial equation works if you get it wrong. It isn't enough to be morally upstanding if the numbers simply don't work. And yes I can no longer justify the cost of a subscription, but that doesn't meant that I haven't enjoyed and don't still enjoy 'the bike site' as it has come to be known over the last 2 decades in my household.
If I understand Mark's most recent post correctly, the ad revenue generation of $0.7 per 1000 impressions multiplied by 3 million impressions per month converts to $2100/month which, using forex rate of 1.15 is c£1830/month.
This, I think, means that it takes 41,000 impressions to generate £25 - which is the cost of an annual digital only subscription; that's 1367 impressions/day - each and every day.
I asked earlier how many free members there are; Tracey also asked the same.
Any answer?
This is now the third time that Mark and co have made a direct appeal.
That should send out a very clear message.
Frank has it.
we really appreciate the ad clicks but it’s not you… it’s them. Clicking the ads won’t shift the needle. There’s nothing you can do on that score and it’s just a waste of your energy. Ultimately the revenue that flows from advertising is the result of purchases made and we are never going to ask you to make unnecessary purchases. Forget about these meagre fractions of pennies. The elephant in the room is what Singletrack could become if we went from 6 to 10k members.
there’s currently 130k registered user accounts.
I’ve had beers now. I’m probably over sharing 🙂
Send them all a ‘We’ve been watching you for months’ email and extort them for Bitcoin!
and done by me. This place, both the forum and the magazine, makes me very happy. I particularly enjoyed 'Reyt Good Time' in the last issue, seemed to capture the feel of riding really well
what Singletrack could become if we went from 6 to 10k members.
Well, if that's what you need (a mere 67% increase in subscribers!), then that's got to be the aim. Everything else is just window dressing. You won't get any near that revenue through ads given your stats, or through getting a few goodwill donations from your current subscribers.
Looking at it in a more attainable way, an extra 4k subscribers means converting just 3% of registered users. That sounds eminently achievable.
Or, if you increase the cost of subscription by 10% (only the current level of inflation afterall), you would only need an additional 3,400 subscribers. Less, obviously, if you go for a 15% increase.
You will only achieve that through a carrot (incentivising subscribers through enhanced content) and stick (disincentivising non-subscribers through diminished access). It's a big goal for sure, but you won't achieve it incrementally. Needs something radical, but if you are really sounding the early warning signal here, doing nothing isn't an option.
A free bell is nice, but have you considered rewarding length of subscription? 1st year at full price, 2nd year gets you a small discount, 3 year more and so on. Filling a leaking bucket where you only gain subscribers at the same rate as you lose them is a soul destroying job. Retain the ones you have too.
Oh, and YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO PUT YOUR PRICES UP! Sorry, I know you don't want to, but you really don't have any choice. That might mean only increasing the price of the printed version if production costs are the single biggest component of your total outgoings, but something has to give. Everybody hates putting up prices, but you would be far from alone in the current climate.
130k registered user a/cs of whom 6k are paying subscribers; that's 4.6%.
So 95.4% of the site users are free members.
If 'only' 5% of the free members took out an annual digital subscription that would be additional revenue of £155k at the full rate - don't forget the special offer in Charlie's post.
I'm not privy to the managenent accounts and companies house information is limited but that conversion rate would probably be transformative.
Full price annual digital sub is £25 so equivalent to £2.08/month - less than one coffee or a half pint of beer.
Yes, I know some people are cutting outgoings and, in some cases, going without so don't need to be reminded of that.
Large part of why I renewed this year is because I want you to still be around, rather than the actual magazine. You're a bit of an odd bunch, but I like you and what you do.
I don't really understand (literally that; rather than being suspicious of) what you do with 12 people. I presume you aren't all full time, given the amount of content produced and the amount of content from guest writers in the mag and site.
To get more ad or affiliate clicks that result in purchases, perhaps you could focus on quality content like buyer's guides with links to buy. How often do we get threads in the form asking about what tyres, jackets, lights. It needs to be quality but also comprehensive, can't just be the last 5 tyres you happen to have done a full review of while leaving out other popular choices. You could also do kit check guides for particular activities or adventures, for newcomers or experienced people trying new things. Or tag it onto classic rides and other features, what kit did you use etc. Just bought my first proper MTB, what do I need? Going to a bike park for the first time, doing that southern long distance ride in a day, going up a Munro with a bike, refreshing your oldish bike... there is tons of stuff people want to do on bikes for which they need stuff/services.
Many people posted ideas here https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/a-members-forum/ about ideas of things you could do, that might attract or retain subscribers, or could be additional services.
130k registered user a/cs of whom 6k are paying subscribers; that’s 4.6%.
That's not 130k active users though.
I don’t really understand (literally that; rather than being suspicious of) what you do with 12 people
I run a business with a $30m turnover with 7 people. It's hard not to sound a bit judgmental, but 12 people for your turnover does sound like a lot of squeeze for not much juice and given your turnover I am guessing none of you are doing this to fund your private Caribbean island or massive yacht?
Reading between the lines of your P&L, your revenue sources seem to be subscriptions and advertising. Your subscriptions are static at best (particularly if you don't raise prices) and your ad revenue is declining. Your costs are mainly people and production. People costs must be increasing by a small amount and your production costs are seemingly increasing at 20% over the last 18 months. There's no way to sugar coat it - that is not a viable business model so you need to make some tough choices. Increasing your revenue when the bike industry is in decline and there is a cost of living crisis will be doubly difficult.
You have to charge more for your product and cut costs or you won't survive. I know that doesn't sit well with you, but that's the situation.
Think I need to ignore this thread for a while. I am beginning to sound critical rather than constructive and my intention couldn't be further from that. But if you raise a flag that you are in trouble and ask for donations, I guess you need to be prepared for some well intentioned advice too. Hopefully at least some of it resonates and gets you asking the right questions. I love your passion and I admire your principles but you might have to test your commitment to all of them if you are to achieve your goals. The question is which are fundamental to you, and which you might compromise in order to achieve your long term ambition to build a great community, keep people employed and enjoy the cycling lifestyle.
Can you poach Jo Burt from MBUK?* I’ve always thought his style would suit STW better.
And then you can give away a free key ring! 😀
(* I don’t even know if Mint Sauce is still in MBUK!)
I run a business with a $30m turnover with 7 people
The basic rule of thumb always used to be £100k turnover for every employee - think it’s more like £120k per employee now. For an average salary.
My digital subs price is £20, last renewed in December. If the current price is £25, I'm happy to match that. STW need to make sure paying customers pay the current rate - I exchanged a few emails with subs a while back, there was a policy of keeping subscribers on their sign-up rate, but this may have been changed since.
I think more on-line only content could increase traffic and sign-ups, maybe simpler articles (tyre group tests...? ☺️) that don't sit well in the print mag. Maybe a really cheap sub for this stuff, without magazine article access. Just a few thoughts.
I value the site, but it needs to be commercially viable without donations. I signed up for issue 1 via the Gofar forum before the magazine existed to help get it off the ground - I'm glad I did. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
sola – you say you’ve cancelled your subscription for financial reasons and/but are running a $30 million annual t/o company?
1) Running it for somebody else and owning it are 2 very different things! We invest a lot in the brand, we pay a large corporate overhead and make a decent profit for somebody else!
2) Cancelling something for financial reasons and not being able to afford it are also 2 very different things. 3 magazine subscriptions (Rouleur, STW and Cranked) used to cost over £200 a year and I didn't feel like I was getting £200 a year of enjoyment vs what I could do with that money for my son. It's the cost of his swimming club for a year as an example. He gets more out of that than he would out of my magazine subscription, and I get more enjoyment from seeing him progress than reading about somebody else's ride or a product review that I can get free anywhere on the web. I also felt that it was wrong to subscribe when most of the mag was subsequently made available online within days of the publication date anyway.
Your comment raises a whole different philosophical debate about value for money and affordability. Let's not go there right now! Since you don't know my financial position, don't be too quick to judge!
Sorry for the random ask without having a rummage, but is there still the ‘donate to STW’ thing from covid times? If so, is there an option for a monthly chuck in?
RM.
I’ve been buying Singletrack from the beginning and later as a member I carried on buying even after having to cut other magazines. The quality of the magazine is superb, the website is fun and informative, with the occasional glitch! I think the forum is different from others in that the chat forum is so informative in so many ways - legal advice, building advice, political views, appeals for help with health (mental and physical), wildlife and gardening, travel advice and just a wonderful community of people who mostly rub along and try and help people.
I don’t know how the number of staff could be cut as the amount of content produced, magazine, podcasts, articles and product tests etc would appear to be disproportionate!
I shall increase my subscription and buy some stuff from the shop. I’ll not be buying one of the recycled belts however, as the one I have is the only belt I have that isn’t too tight. It stretches throughout the day and I run out of holes whilst my trousers fall down! All my other belts run out of holes in the other direction…
Good luck you all and if it helps clicking on ads just let us know, I’ll have a couple of days of not logging in.
Don’t bother clicking the ads unless you really want to visit the advertiser. Clicking our affiliate links in articles and even posting links to deals you spot for the benefit of others is by far the best thing you can do. The ad supported model (programmatic at least) is what we are trying to pivot away from.
I’m thinking aloud
Is there a “click through to buy” area. If you got a % of all my wiggle purchases that would increase the revenue
Could there be a temporary subscriber button?
You click it and then click a button to pay say a pound via PayPal. That converts your membership to subscriber for 3 days. But you can only do that 3 times per year. Or each time you click it the cost doubles or the time halves.
Maybe only full subscribers can use the word “tyres” in the title of a thread?
Could there be a subscriber tyre review area?
There is a limit to how often you can post a question or reply per month, if you’re not a paid member?
You can’t ask Scotroutes a question if you’re not a subscriber?
I may have been drinking
I'm not going to go over the grounds that others have about cutting costs or increasing prices because there isn't much to say but in that article it's quite noticeable that existing subscribers are being asked to donate more (not unreasonable) but at the same time new subscribers are getting a 50% discount. At that rate you have to be making a loss on paper subscription sign ups. I get the point made about ongoing benefit but if things are so tight you're asking for donations to support then it doesn't seem like you are in a position to support a loss making offer, take your profit off it so you break even, fair enough but you're making a real term loss. You don't want to win bad business and that looks like it is, how many years at full price do you need to make up the loss you will have incurred?
I don't know whether you break down STW into cost centres but given you're referring to turnover generated by print and digital rather than profit I assume you don't. If you don't then it sounds like you're in a position where you need to. The print side may well generate more turnover but the associated costs will be way higher than the online. Only once you've got a handle on that and the fixed/variable opex splits for print and digital respectively you can make a decent assessment of where to go with aiming to increase membership.
The suggestion of a forum only membership seems sensible, you'd have very minimal increase in associated overheads so any income is nearly all margin and you might pick up existing users asking for the service. Assuming there is no uplift on the costs as the production staff are fixed then digital subscribers is good but you need to generate new subscribers that already have access to that option. Increasing print sign ups seem like the least effective position as any income comes with an associated overheads.
A forum only membership is really not a solution.
Forum only membership?
I posted about this on the other thread - or think I did!
Full price digital only is £25pa; I cannot see anything less than that making commercial sense - and even that is predicated on there being minimal/no set up and maintenance costs for a forum only option.
To be blunt, the issue is converting free members into paying subscribers.
Mark & co have an established membership/renewal structure; it's all about pumping more volume through it.
I'm all in favour of SMEs, have a long standing affinity with print media and like/admire Singletrack so...when Mark made his first appeal, I donated; second appeal, same again and also set-up monthly standing order.
It might have been more cost effective to become a life member!
One thought - canvas the membership to understand what they would buy from the merch shop, if only Charlie stocked it!
Market research, supply chain, logistics, pricing: there you go, you said you wanted and we can deliver; please pay non-refundable deposit of £nnn before we order as no deposit means no order.
Putting one's c**k on the block, so to speak.
Anyway, enough from me; others have said they're on the beer so...it's time I was!
The suggestion of a forum only membership seems sensible, you’d have very minimal increase in associated overheads so any income is nearly all margin and you might pick up existing users asking for the service. Assuming there is no uplift on the costs as the production staff are fixed then digital subscribers is good but you need to generate new subscribers that already have access to that option. Increasing print sign ups seem like the least effective position as any income comes with an associated overheads.
My hunch is that there are 2 mistakes here
Firstly, as I’ve said before, a forum only subscription isn’t cheaper. It cost nothing or next to nothing let some one down load the magazine and it generates ad revenue for the magazine.
I’m also fairly sure that the extra cost of a print subscription more than pays for the cost of printing and delivery
Why is there no option to pay monthly? If a digital sub is £2.08 per month, I'd happily pay £2.50 or £3 a month, but actually monthly rather than annually.
I know that £30 isn't much to pay out but £2.50 a month is a lot less....
For a full paper sub a monthly fee is even nicer than £50 or £60 as it seems it needs to be.
£45 a year for the magazine
£25 a year for digital
£5 a month for digital
Is there a reason that the monthly option is so much more per year? Do people join for a month, when buying a bike, read all the reviews and leave?
Take a leaf out of New Scientist's book when you offer subs. (Not saying cost, but their offerings - they don't do their offerings like that for no reason - there's science behind it 🙂 )
Anyway. It's about time I subbed, especially given the amount of time I'm spending effing about on the forum. I can't take the o/h out for a meal and a drink for 45 quid and that's transient and lasts for an evening.
All the people on here buy new tyres regularly. Just sayin'.
ads - there is an option to pay monthly for digital only access at £4.99.
My post was clear that the annual digital sub of £25 equates to £2.08/month.
ampthill - I would suggest that annualising the monthly option is irrelevant; as with many/most subscription models, the pricing is always structured to encourage long(er) term commitment - it provides some financial certainty and facilitates medium term planning with some confidence.
Back to CNN, beer and wine.
You're supposed to be running a business, but this is more like begging. (Hint - dogs, or pictures of dogs will increase your take.)
I subscribed for quite a few years previously on the basis that I found the content interesting and entertaining and thought that should support the site in the hope that it would grow and improve.
Nothing changed - the forum software continues to be a bizzare, home-brew affair, lacking in almost all of the features that pretty much every other, popular internet forum has.
As a result, I chose not to renew my subscription a couple of years ago.
Since then, the forum (& classifieds ) have become even clunkier and idiosyncratic (almost unusable in some browsers) and I'm convinced that the number of regular users and consequently the breadth and volume of postings has suffered because of this.
IMHO It's time to ditch the home-brew approach and the overhead required just to keep it rolling, let alone modify or "improve" it, just to reach the standard functionality of every other mainstream forum out there (I have previously offered MIG welding, Motorhome Fun & The Fretboard as exemplars). Park the content of this forum as an accessible archive somewhere and move on (I can't even underline the words 'move on' in this poxy editor!) - you can still integrate a 3rd party forum software into the rest of the site.
I would pay a 'forum only' membership (say £10/year) *if* the forum user experience was up to par.
I've subscribed again in response to the blatant begging, but won't be renewing again unless things improve. If the business won't support 12 people, you need to grow it until it will (hint - listen to the feedback!), or reduce the number of people - sorry, but that's business.
Begging isn't a long term model IMHO.
Motorhome Fun? In my experience it was anything but. Some Landrover sites when I owned one some years ago were also quite nasty places to be and full of wrong information. STW is clunky (I’m not sure what that means) but comfy.
Maybe against the general grain of the comments on this thread (but I think in line with Mark's points) I as a middle aged reader and many years subscriber to the mag (with very luckily some disposable income still despite the clusterfhuck management of the economy by this Gov) think the paper mag is the cornerstone of the business. Lose the paper mag and the whole foundations fall apart. Ditch the mag at your peril.
It REALLY doesn't have to be the race to the bottom that some are prescribing.
Keep up the good work (maybe spend less time and money on the moderating of moderate comments tho, some does definitely aliente... pick the right fights not each exceptionally trivial one)
ads – there is an option to pay monthly for digital only access at £4.99
Ah ok, I must have ignored that as it's ridiculously expensive! I'd be happy to tie into 12 months of monthly payments if it was the same price as the annual fee.
If the mag is the thing that drives this place then surely its magazine subs that need to increase in price. The 12 employees are working to produce a magazine. Some of that content crosses over to here, but lots of people don't read the mag, even though it's available to download if you are a member. Also it seems that lots of people don't read the front page articles either, whether or they are paying member though.....
Personally I don't read the mag, and I know Hannah has asked a few times for people to say why they don't read it or don't like the content, but I don't know why, well I do, I find it really boring, sorry. And I'm genuinely sorry about that as I've tried to read it and also tried to quantify why I find it boring but I can't. I guess I'm not into the style of writing I suppose, maybe it's that I'm not really into off road cycling (it's not really an MTB mag anymore is it) in the same way. It all just seems a bit inner circle, cliquey. Maybe I'm wrong and it's all on me, I'll take that, I know I'm a middle aged grump who is struggling to identify with lots of things at the moment.
I understand that times are tough for everyone, personally and in business, but I see you doing your jobs and having a fun and then begging for more money and just think, if you can't afford to do it either put the prices up or stop doing it. But maybe offer different payment options if the prices need to increase.
Begging is not a good business model though.
Don't they make YouTube videos? I'm subscribed to dozens of channels plus get plenty more recommendations via my TV. All have ads in them.
It's you only way I consume MTB content really, bar pinkbike and emtb forums.
I've never seen nor has YouTube recommended me a video by this place, so either they make weird niche content or they dont bother with YouTube.
One thought – canvas the membership to understand what they would buy from the merch shop, if only Charlie stocked it!
Market research, supply chain, logistics, pricing: there you go, you said you wanted and we can deliver;
+1. Ask people what they'd want to see in the shop. The shop needs a damn good clear out. Stick everything that's been sat around for over 12 months and not sold into a clearance section to separate out the chaff and focus on some core elements. Every time there's an appeal I have a browse, but come away uninspired. Currently (IMHO) there's lots of overpriced mugs, some casual T shirts and random chains (what?). There's also a good selection of relevant books, though. I'd be up for a technical clothing collaboration like CTC have with Stolen Goat, but I don't know whether that would be a good seller? (The current ST / Hackney GT shirt looks like it's identifying with a particular cause, which maybe putting some people off 🤔).
As for converting free membership into paid, the Guardian* basically guilt tripped me into paying for a sub with semi regular pop-ups asking to support their journalism. Don't know whether that's been considered/ tried?
* I also weave my own yoghurt 😉
There’s 10 of us by full time equivalent. Not 12 btw. Soon to be 9. We aren’t begging. It’s an appeal. It’s not donations we need it’s members. We aren’t asking or expecting something for nothing. The Guardian does a fine job of asking for donations to support its journalism. This job is often fun but it’s also stressful and not without its significant pressure (I’ve been treated for depression and anxiety for the last 5 years) - just like lots of other jobs. As for the business model - we are in transition from the old to the new. The old was traditional ad funded model. The new is member funded. Well, at least in majority proportions. The old was chasing huge numbers of passive visitors and extracting fractions of pennies from each. The new is serve a smaller but highly engaged audience with a higher return per user. Prices are going up. We announced those in November.
I’m happy to answer questions here or where appropriate directly - mark@singletrackworld.com - in fact the business model here has always been an open and honest one with you all - that’s deliberate. I get that we are an unusual business with a non-typical approach to how we operate, but I guess that’s just a reflection of my own, perhaps naive, philosophy and I’m very much aware it can be a risky strategy.
I don’t want anyone to feel obligated to join as a full member. It needs to be a value exchange. If you like coming here and you like what we do then all we ask is that you consider full membership. If it’s too much to ask right now (we know how tough times are) then staying green is absolutely fine. But fundamentally it’s about openness with our members and making sure that any circumstances ahead are known by everyone who has a stake in Singletrack, members especially, so that we all get to influence what happens in our future before it’s too late. The best lesson I’ve learned over the last few years is to not let problems build up in isolation until it’s too late to do anything about them. Tell those around you when things get tough. We are telling you all now because you are an important part of Singletrack and you deserve to know.
My inbox is always open, as they say.
If you want members, don’t paint a picture of an organisation in existential difficulty.
People want to commit their hard earned cash to something they feel will be around long enough to fulfil its commitments rather than collapsing whilst holding their money.
Do what you need to do behind the scenes. Crack on with quietly and diligently delivering the new business model. But don’t ask for donations and sympathy (a sticking plaster over the wound) when what you actually need is in your own hands (a more fundamental root and branch business model change). There is such a thing as over sharing.
If you are committed to extracting the maximum value from a small base of members rather than building a broad base, go about that transformation deliberately, unapologetically and quietly. I think it is a high risk model as it assumes that there is a sufficient like-minded base of customers out there when in fact the 130k registered vs 6k subscriber statistic tells a different story - namely that there are more casual users than card carrying loyalists. Increasing your loyalist base by 67% is an audacious goal when you are preaching to the converted.
I appreciate that your current model puts you in competition for an ever decreasing pool of advertising revenue. You are seemingly admitting that the competition is too strong and you can’t compete on level terms in that space. It’s certainly a bold move.
Nevertheless, whatever model you choose, do it confidently, commit and communicate less to your customers about things that they really don’t need to know.
As one of the 130k majority rather than the 6k minority, I genuinely wish you well. The world would be slightly less entertaining without STW. The question is, what value will enough of the 130k people put on that? Based on your current output, the answer is not enough. Sounds like you have some plans to fix that and I am genuinely looking forward to seeing the output. In some respects you chaps are living the dream - doing something you feel genuinely passionate about. Not all of us can say that, but something has to pay the bills and to most of us cycling is something we do for fun, not for a living. There’s got to be a lesson there somewhere!
I guess where we disagree is the principal of doing it quietly. I see that (it’s obviously a personal view) as keeping things hidden from the Singletrack community. I suppose I’ve kind of done that for the first 20 years. I’ve decided not to do it that way anymore. That’s a choice but I do respect that it’s not how you would do it. That’s cool 🙂
You are seemingly admitting that the competition is too strong and you can’t compete on level terms in that space
That’s your interpretation but it’s certainly not mine. My view is that advertising as a principal model of media is not sustainable. A more balanced mix of revenues that focus on membership and user generated income is a far more solid foundation for any media brand right now. Certainly that’s how the media industry is refocusing, especially the independents.
Indeed. The beauty of this place is a coming together of very different people united by a common interest.
Things often get a bit heated but in the end it’s just about fannying about in the woods on bikes!
The difference with this particular topic is that some of us have genuine professional skills in just the area that you are struggling with and whether the advice is well received or not, hopefully a different perspective might prompt some consideration and provoke some thought.
In my experience diversity of thought creates a better outcome. Ultimately you make your choice and focus your team on delivering it. Sharing a carefully edited strategy with your customers always makes sense but telling them everything can be dangerous.
It’s not donations we need it’s members.
And, fix the the hard paywall, so I can share a limited number of articles per month and grow your audience for you. (“It’s really great content, but you’ll have to trust me on that and pay first” isn’t a viable growth strategy)
These two things don't really add up to me.
If you're not a member then the site is terrible with the adverts, at least it was when I last used it when not logged in.
For anyone looking on here the promise of
"the site's a bit crap because you're not a member but it'll be better when you pay a subscription"
doesn't really strike me as a business model that'll attract new members.
Yeah. We hate the ads too.
Mark - take a look at your homepage right now.
Imagine you are either new here or you are one of the 130k casual users.
Ask yourself the question ‘what here is worth paying for’?
Now do the same on any of your rival sites where most of the content is free. Plenty of videos (people like that), plenty of inspiring riders doing inspiring things, advocacy, mixed news. And the lead article on STW? - life’s tough, we are in trouble, please subscribe, and a random article about Jack’s apprenticeship. Again, sounds harsh but that’s what your prospective customers see.
The elephant in the room is that your current content is not of a high enough quality to entice enough people to pay for. Very targeted, very niche but enough to entice the kind of numbers that you need?
Take the latest ‘member only’ content. Hers is the exact wording:
This month for Back From The Dead we’ve got plenty to get through! An update on how Jack’s progressing with his apprenticeship; a couple of tools I’ve made (and one Jack’s made!); a few new cool tools in my box that I like and dislike ; then finally a tale about playing a Cycling Community Chest card and ending up winning second place in a beautiful hammer contest! We’ll start off with young Jack and a bit of an update on his apprenticeship. Since I last spoke about Jack he’s had his first few meetings with Adam his assessor from Activate Learning...
Now read that from the perspective of a non subscriber. Why would I pay to read more? What is ‘Back from the Dead’. What does the zombie imagery tell me? Who is that man in the picture? I have no idea who Jack is or why I should care about his apprenticeship. I am not sure that seeing the 2 new tools that you have made are worth paying to see. And a random story about your hammer holds no interest. It just feels like a geeky party and I am not invited. Not only that, but I actually have to pay to be invited.
As a prime example of preaching to the converted, how will this type of content attract new paying subscribers? The kind of stuff that is broadly relatable is free. The kind of stuff that has a very limited audience sits behind a paywall.
The rest of the homepage is littered with random stories. The inconvenient truth is that most of us come here for the community and the forum. The regular tongue in cheek comment of ‘wait, there’s a Mag too?!’ is not so far from the mark.
Genuinely useful reviews, broadly relatable content, and a sense of community beyond a very niche exclusive club feel has got to be worth trying. Rid yourself of the emperor’s new clothes. Take off those rose tinted glasses. If you want more fee paying members, you have to provide content that is worth more people paying for.
We are all a bit biased perhaps, but take a look at your competition and ask what STW provides that is worth paying for. You need more people to think that the content is relevant to them.
OK that’s genuinely it now. I genuinely don’t want to cause offence but you really need to take an unbiased look at how others see the site, not just the card carrying, subscription paying loyalists. You already had them at Hello!