Summary

• Readly is a digital platform, similar to Netflix, but for magazines.  For a fixed subscription, 1,600 magazines are made available via a tablet app
• The business has been using Google and Meta for its marketing campaigns to date, but growth was slowing down considerably, and there were concerns over rising acquisition costs and the use of discounts to acquire consumers
• Channel 4 Ventures invested £2m initially into the business as a convertible loan note, and then went on to invest a further £2m in follow-on rounds 
• TV helped drive totally new cohorts of consumers to Readly, changing investor perceptions of possible growth.  These behaved differently to prior cohorts, with new cohorts of consumers from TV showing stronger engagement than previous cohorts  
• Readly went on to raise €40m in further funding and went public in 2020 

Objectives

Readly had already been operating for several years before approaching Channel 4 Ventures for a media-for-equity deal. They had been growing nicely but were hitting a plateau. Readly were worried about customer acquisition costs on digital and had never been on TV before. They had limited cash resources and were concerned about using cash. The media-for-equity route was an attractive option.

Readly’s objectives were to re-ignite growth into the overall business.

TV Strategy

Channel 4 Ventures invested £2m into Readly via media-for-equity. It was the first ever media-for-equity deal completed by Channel 4 Ventures.

Results

• Users from TV were more loyal (i.e. more engaged, lower churn) than prior cohorts acquired via digital marketing campaigns
• New digital marketing look-a-likes were found, driving better efficiency of the existing digital marketing campaigns 
• Overall revenues began to grow again, driven by new cohorts from TV.  This increase in growth of revenues led to further rounds of funding of €40m and eventually an IPO
• Existing users also started to re-engage with Readly; the number of issues being read doubled for existing users post the launch of TV

Why did this happen?

Readly’s TV campaign increased the reach and awareness of Readly in the UK market driving new consumers to the platform.  Many of them may not have been reached by the prior digital marketing campaigns. 

Digital marketing tends to only reach consumers who already showed interest in the proposition, or based off “lookalike” profiles, which might be difficult to totally new propositions. These consumers were also often incentivised to join through discounts and promotions. 

The customers acquired through TV, joined without any incentivisation, and had stronger intent to use the platform after finding out about the proposition; it may have been solving a problem they had thought about. These cohorts were also more loyal - the TV campaign were a discovery tool for them, and they subscribed with a higher intent to use the platform.

As for the existing users who re-engaged with the platform, TV has proven its impact to improve trust between brands and consumers.  This is one such impact; the higher awareness might have reminded existing users to use something they already subscribe to.