Magazines Bet on Memberships
Elle UK launched its first reader membership programme on Thursday, part of a broader initiative at Hearst UK to monetise its brands.
Elle UK's new membership programme, Elle Collective, is aimed at forging closer relationships with its readership while simultaneously creating a new revenue stream for the brand. (Elle UK)
By
05 October 2023
BoF PROFESSIONAL
Elle UK wants to invite readers into its club.
On Thursday, the Hearst-owned British glossy launched a membership programme called Elle Collective, aimed at forging closer relationships with its readership while simultaneously creating a new revenue stream for the brand.
For a fee of £149 ($181) a year, members will have access to exclusive content via a members-only site and app, special events, and discounts or early access to products and experiences like exhibitions on top of their standard print subscription. Founding members who sign up within the first month of launch will receive a discounted membership rate of £125 ($152) and the magazine’s beauty advent calendar, which retails for £149.
The idea is to give readers a taste of what it’s like to be an
Elle editor, the magazine’s editor-in-chief Kenya Hunt said.
“The world of fashion often seems so impenetrable and insular. For those of us who grew up in places that were far removed from the fashion capitals, you would follow it all from afar and have no idea how to access it; you would just read it and dream of it,” she said. “The beautiful thing about working as an editor right now is that we’re all participating in this shift, where we’re seeing those ideas really being flipped on their head.”
It’s part of a broader strategic initiative at Hearst UK to monetise its brands in innovative ways that feel relevant yet differentiated in a content-saturated world — following in the footsteps of rival publishing giant Condé Nast, which
launched Vogue Club, a membership proposition around its flagship luxury brand, in 2019. (Vogue’s programme similarly offers fans exclusive content and access to events and offerings in a tiered pricing model, starting at $300 a year.)
Elle is the third Hearst UK-run title to expand into membership products: in 2021,
Men’s Health and
Women’s Health debuted health and fitness-focused programmes. There are plans to replicate similar models at other titles in the company portfolio in the future, said David Robinson, Hearst UK’s chief customer officer. Down the line, it could open up new commercial opportunities with advertisers too.
“You’ve got customers who come back more regularly, that consume more regularly, that open and engage with your content at a higher rate than a subscriber or someone who’s just signed up to a newsletter. All of those metrics point to good success for
Men’s and
Women’s Health,” he said. (Hearst UK declined to share revenue figures for the company and its titles.)
The Search for New Revenue Streams
The emergence of these membership models comes as print magazines continue their slow decline — digital advertising revenue is set to overtake print at consumer magazines this year, according to consulting firm PwC — and publishers look for new ways to diversify revenue beyond advertising and foster reader loyalty.
“Business is really tough right now for these legacy titles,” said Amy Odell, a New York-based journalist and author of
Anna: The Biography. “The ad dollars are going elsewhere. A brand has a marketing budget; if they’re giving a lot of that marketing budget to influencers, there’s going to be less of the pie for magazines.”
The Hearst UK’s parent, New York-based Hearst Magazines,
laid off a number of editorial employees in the US earlier this year. “As we continue to produce the highest-quality content across all platforms, we made strategic decisions that position the business for long-term growth,” a Hearst Magazines spokesperson said in a statement to BoF.
Hunt
took over as editor-in-chief of
Elle UK in March 2022, with a vision to grow the title’s revenues and reach by broadening the diversity of the readers it speaks to and more consciously interrogating the broader questions and debates in the zeitgeist. She hopes Elle Collective will be another vehicle to bring this vision to life.
With her team, Hunt has set about curating a programme that is an “extension of stories that we already have going up on our site or the magazine; conversations that we’re having, we’ll be opening those up to our readers to join us,” she said. “This just adds an extra layer to it and makes it feel even more three dimensional in a sense.”
The initial events roster includes a “School of Makeup” workshop with Chanel Beauty, a live discussion with Olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya, and access to discounts on jewellery brands like Aligheri and Otiumberg. There are also plans to host more intimate dinners and talks with writers, designers, creatives and entrepreneurs featured on the pages of the magazine.
An added benefit to programmes like this is that it gives editorial teams a chance to get closer to their readership and learn more about what they want. But events that the magazine will host along with the technology Hearst is developing will also provide an opportunity for readers to connect with one another, Hunt said.
“That is one of the most compelling parts of being in a community, particularly during a moment like this when we are seeing a bit of a loneliness epidemic,” she said. “It’s very much in the spirit and the values of
Elle to foster that sense of solidarity among women in our communities.”
