Enhancing Publisher Revenue & Brand

Goals

TNMs aim was to cover trustworthy news stories without confining journalism behind a paywall. To accomplish that, they conceptualized TNM Connect, with two main objectives :

1. Ensure free and universal access to news stories.
2. Monetize engagement with editors and reporters to fund good journalism. 

TNM Connect is a project funded by Google Innovation Challenge run by the Google News Initiative.

The idea was to build a community of readers who could afford and pay a membership fee to be part of this initiative. Members can interact with the editors and reporters at TNM around specific news stories published on the website. 

Challenges

Some of the biggest challenges of building a membership site with a globally spread out audience are: 

• Accepting overseas payments
• Accommodating large traffic
• Creating a thriving and engaging community

Requirements

Apart from addressing the above challenges, it was integral to build a platform that would fulfill TNM’s requirements, which were:

• Simplify onboarding, payment, and management of the membership.
• Enable members to pay using various options, maintain, and renew their membership.
• Facilitate single sign-on using TNM ID to access the mobile app, website, and discussion forum.

• Exclusive content to the members like:

  • Advertisement free access to the TNM portal and mobile application.
  • Access to a membership directory and personal profile.
  • Automatically subscribe to a member-only newsletter.
  • Creating a contact database to ensure TNM can communicate with its members selectively.

The News Minute wanted to give its privileged paid members access to an ad-free platform, the weekly newsletter, digital community, events, and more.

Solution

To create a platform that helps TNM achieve its goals, Zyxware consultants analyzed several CRMs. Various options were presented and discussed with the client to reach a mutual ground. The ideal platform needs to support login systems on mobile devices and laptops. It should restrict ads where entailed and support payment gateway to facilitate online payments. The platform should also provide discussion forums that give members a space to voice their viewpoints and concerns.  This should result in a stronger engaged community building brand loyalty.

I've found the digital consulting services provided by Zyxware Technologies to be extremely insightful and have helped The News Minute in our community development initiatives and platform development.
Vignesh Vellore, CEO, The News Minute.

We implemented CiviCRM on Drupal 8. As per our recommendation and clients approval, we enabled:

• Member sign-up
• Member profile
• Membership renewal reminders
• Contact database for the administrator
• Easy communication with the members
• Ad-free experience for members
• Flexibility in payment gateway

Furthermore, Drupal 8 would ensure single sign-in so that members can seamlessly sign in through various devices, from any location and any time.

An open-source platform, Discourse, was chosen as the discussion forum since it offers a clutter-free community experience. Discourse works well with groups of various levels of complexity, from small to large, from peer to branched, from horizontal to vertical, which is perfect for scaling a community.

Project Outcome

Zyxware Technologies created a membership site to further engage TNM loyal visitors and turn them into brand ambassadors with a sustainable revenue business strategy.

TNM website has

TNM Connect leveraged its community’s power, launched its membership site, and received praise for the same.