Dan Fink, U.S. managing director, FT Specialist, has always taken pride in the company’s well-performing content. We conducted a Q&A with Fink recently over email to learn more about that content and the revenue successes that the Financial Times B2B media company enjoyed last year.
SIIA Media Alert: You had your fastest growing new launch of a subscription news service ever (sold via corporate licenses) last year. What were the keys?
Dan Fink: In January 2024, we launched a news service covering the commercial property and casualty insurance sector. This was launched as a companion service to P&C Specialist, which covers personal P&C insurance (e.g. homeowners and auto insurance).
We started with a beta test where the content was free for about five months. Then we implemented a paywall and sold access via corporate licenses to companies that were highly engaged in the beta test. Most people feel it’s difficult to add a paywall on a service that was previously free, but we communicated all along to end-users that it was a test and that a paywall would be implemented if the test was successful.
This was the fastest growing product launch by dollar volume that we’ve had. The beta test approach should get a lot of credit for that, but there are a few more key factors. First and foremost, we always invest in producing excellent content. We also hone the content every week by analyzing data on reader engagement.
Andy Willmott, vice president, editorial product development, led this product launch and will be presenting along with Hannah Glover, editor in chief, at BIMS 2025 in New Orleans, March 26-28 in a session titled, Case Studies and KPIs For Optimizing Subscriber Acquisition and Engagement.
Second, we did an excellent job cross-selling the new commercial insurance service to existing subscribers of our personal insurance service. Cross-selling sounds easy, but it’s very nuanced and requires a tailored approach.
Third, we had an intense focus on optimizing email deliverability. In today’s world, it’s extremely easy to get blocked or relegated to the spam folder, especially for new brand names. That can be debilitating, so we took careful steps up-front to manage email volume, timing, and IP reputation.
Lastly, I give a lot of credit to the product having a well-defined target market, and our team doing an excellent job reaching that market through multiple channels. In the business of niche products, targeting is critical. Sometimes people hesitate to narrow the pool of potential buyers, but when you do this right, it allows you to make the product more specific and compelling—a real “must-have.”
Your events also had another surge. What were the main forces behind that and how involved is your editorial team in events?
We had 70%+ growth in our events business last year on top of 70%+ growth the year prior. Part of this is attributable to market forces—there’s certainly a lot of demand in our markets for live events. That said, our huge success last year was fueled by some deliberate steps.
One step was greater input from our editors on the topics and speakers. Our editors have a keen sense of what weighs on the minds of our readers—especially with so much data on reader engagement—so this sharpened the focus of the agenda.
That dovetailed with an intense focus on cross-selling the event to our paid-subscriber base. The percentage of attendees that came from our subscriber base rose by double digits, and the fast-growing audience stoked strong momentum with sponsors.
Lastly, we had a very good rate of return attendees and sponsors due to delivering an excellent experience the prior year.
What has your journey been like as a B2B media leader? Where do you get the most satisfaction at this point?
Leading a B2B content business in today’s world is certainly fraught with risk, and it often seems like the odds are stacked against you. That said, we’ve experienced steady growth every year, which has made my journey exciting and extremely rewarding.
For me, the biggest factor is people. I work with an amazing group of people. We work very hard, but we also socialize and laugh together. We still spend a third-to-half of our time in the office, and that helps build relationships that transcend “the job.”
Another huge element is change. If I were doing the same thing year after year, I’d get bored. But we have been able to launch new products, enter new markets, expand to new continents, use new technologies, etc, etc. etc. What I do today is significantly different from what I did five years ago, which allows me to continue learning.
On that note, I feel like I’ve learned so much over the years. I learn from the people I work with, the people I see at conferences, our customers, and our content. Learning, relationships, new challenges, and a fair share of success are the keys to staying energized and optimistic in my book.
Advertising has been strong on your lead-gen products. What is the process that has been so successful in creating those products?
Advertising has traditionally been a game of volume. Since my business is very focused on subscriptions, we’ve never had the biggest volume of site visitors and page views to offer clients. However, lead gen has flipped the script a bit. Clients are much more focused on quality when it comes to lead gen products. Our rich first party data, high reader engagement, and frictionless site technology helped drive double digit advertising growth last year.
Lead-gen products have some unique complexities compared to banner ads. Lead gen requires much more collaboration between teams, more interaction with clients, and more experimentation on how to effectively integrate these offers on your website. We’ve found that some delivery formats reliably produce a strong volume of leads, while others flop, and it’s not always what you would predict. But that’s why it’s important to experiment and have good tracking.
Once a client sees that we can deliver a stream of high-quality leads, we are able to build loyalty and increase their spend. Clients tell us they are counting the number of leads they receive, but they are even more focused on the number of leads they can actually send to their sales teams and use.
