It’s not easy being Singletrack. Please help.

Send them all a ‘We’ve been watching you for months’ email and extort them for Bitcoin!

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.

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://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/a-members-forum/ about ideas of things you could do, that might attract or retain subscribers, or could be additional services.

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.

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.

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.

Thinking of paying moore, Roger?

: )

@mark what are you doing at work at this time on a Friday? I used to have to do it, switch off and relax! Have a good weekend.

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.

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!

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.

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’.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!