So it's been a week since we launched our
big subscription drive, and a little over that since we pre-announced it. And I've got to say, it's been a crazy ride. Before I get into some stats from the campaign, here's the latest subscriber benefit:
As I noted last week, we're going to be rolling out three new downloadable ebooks throughout this campaign. Last week, it was the compilation Hunter on the Holidays. Today, we've added my very own American Taliban (which is still as relevant as it was when I wrote it two years ago) to the list. We've got another great book coming next Monday. Subscribers can download the ebooks by clicking on "downloads" in their user profile page.
Now about the campaign ... here's the thing—we had no expectations for this drive. I mean, times are rough, it's the holidays, people are tapped out financially and are swamped for time. Furthermore, every charity, political campaign and street Santa is begging for cash.
So we decided early on not to have any thermometer. This wasn't a fundraising drive in the traditional sense, trying to hit some predetermined target. Rather, we were phasing out the annual subscription and wanted to shore up our cash position so we could staff up early in 2012. So we decided to end the year with as much of a bang as we could muster, and we would do so by 1) selling the merits of a lifetime subscription, like faster downloads, a cleaner site, downloadable ebooks, and future bells and whistles, and 2) letting people know they could gift those subscriptions to their favorite diarists.
We had no goals or targets, but in my most optimistic dreams, I figured we might hit 1,000 new subscriptions by the end of the year—to add to the 2,000 pre-campaign ones. I also figured we might see a few dozen gift subscriptions.
Go below the fold for the latest numbers ...
As I write this, we're at 1,309 subscriptions, the vast majority of them lifetimes. That's amazing enough.
Of those, 328 are gift lifetime subscriptions, no doubt fueled by the tireless efforts of Dr Erich Bloodaxe RN. That means that the community has collectively spent $32,800 buying subscriptions for someone else! I've got to be honest with you, I'm having a hard time processing that.
And new subscriptions are still streaming in, to the tune of 75-100 per day. This means we're going to have the ability to be more aggressive than I imagined possible in the new year, and we're going to be able to deliver more improvements and benefits—in a faster time frame—than I hoped.
But as nice as the cash is, there have been some incredible side-effects that I never saw coming:
For one, it's been awesome seeing the community come together, looking out for each other and finding ways to lend a helping hand. Given the site's intermittent pie wars, we can lose sight of the genuine love and affection that binds us together. This last week has reminded me of everything good about this community.
In addition, we've seen over 1,000 people create accounts on Daily Kos over the last week—former lurkers who created accounts either to buy subscriptions, or because they were inspired to take a more active role on the site. For me, there's nothing better than seeing people take that step—because as nice as the cash from a subscription might be, there's nothing more powerful than an activated liberal fighting for the country she or he believes in. Indeed, it's the whole reason this site exists.
And what's more—engagement is up across the site this past week (at a time when people traditionally drift away until after the new year). That means more diaries, more comments and more recommends. We have reengaged users, new users, and existing users energized and motivated by the generosity of this community into becoming even more engaged in the site.
That's a whole lot of WIN!
Amazingly, we still have two more weeks before lifetime subs go away. But I certainly hope the warm fuzzies (and increased engagement!) generated this week last a heck of a lot longer.
Update: The problem with naming names is that more often than not, you forget to mention someone -- like Onomastic, who has also done yeoman's work in hooking up great community members with secret and not-so-secret Santas.
And speaking of that, last I looked, over 75 percent of gift subscriptions were given anonymously.