You’ve got great data and market-leading content. So why isn’t your B2B media brand attracting subscribers?

At a glance:
* AI overviews are having a drastic effect on the subs marketing funnel of B2B media brands by taking away swathes of incoming traffic 
* Businesses can fight back by tapping into their existing data and their compelling, original content proposition to rethink how they sell subscriptions
* Targeting your data with editorially led messaging is significantly more effective than pumping out sales emails, and it’s AI-proof

The adoption of AI has created a whole new suite of winners and losers, but one group who are undoubtedly licking their wounds right now are B2B media brands. Already alarmed at having their content digested and repackaged by LLMs, the advent of AI overviews on Google and other search engines has contributed to a precipitous decline in clickthrough traffic.

Across the board, overviews – which are triggered by 19 million different keywords on Google alone – seem to eliminate around 33% of direct site visits but the effect on publishers is often more extreme (summarising a news article is particularly straightforward), leading the UK’s Press Gazette to claim it is causing a “zero-click crisis” in the industry.

AI encroachment doesn’t have to be the death knell for brands, though it isn’t hard to see why it feels disastrous. It is only in the last 3-4 years that media brands, many of them born out of legacy publisher businesses, have been able to rebuild their revenue lines by focusing on subscriptions as the driver of growth.

According to one global study, 36% of B2B media brand revenues came from subscriptions last year, overtaking advertising for the first time in many years. That particular rethink of the revenue mix was, of course, necessitated by the gradual decline in ad revenues caused by previous tech revolutions (first the internet, then social media) and the failure to adequately replace the lost cash with bespoke advertiser solutions.

Common wisdom says the fall in traffic caused by AI is a disaster because it squeezes off the funnel subs marketers rely on to source new customers. But while that’s certainly bad news, it needn’t be fatal – most B2B media brands already have the two most important ingredients required to drive subs revenue, in the form of relevant customer data and great, compelling, relevant content.

The problem comes in connecting the two, and that comes down to internal structures and processes. Many brands have great editors who don’t see marketing as their responsibility and lack the time to take it on. Meanwhile, marketers know how to sell a subs product but lack the time or skillset to understand which stories lead most directly to buying behaviours and, critically, what it is about them that energises the audience.

The result is an over-reliance on traditional ‘sales’ messaging in content-driven subscriptions. Peruse the subs marketing literature of major B2B media brands and you’ll find plenty of talk of value, some genuinely enticing special offers, free trials and added extras such as data packages. But very little of it speaks to what really gets people clicking in the first place: exclusive stories, breaking news and original insight, tailored to your profession or sector.

In my work with a major global B2B media business I’ve helped the marketing team take a different approach. We’ve designed weekly emails to their database pushing relevant, timely editorial themes: concise, knowledgeable updates that explain the stories that are making the headlines, why they’re relevant to readers and why only one brand has the depth and heritage to deliver them. Only within the CTA are recipients ‘sold’ a free trial or discounted sub.

What does that look like in practice? If a brand has been reporting in depth about financial results in its sector, for example, an email can take a considered view of what the articles in question tell us about the direction of the market, emphasising the considered analysis and context that makes quality journalism more relevant and readable than dry, fact-based summaries. The resulting “What reporting season really tells us about the effects of AI on revenues” email is more likely to be opened and yield a revenue-driven outcome than just another marketing email.

I’ve seen the results first hand: the emails introduced by my client have improved open rates by up to 70% and can be directly linked to increased uptake of free trials and subscriptions. They’re also leading to a noticeable uplift in broader traffic to the brands in question – which makes sense, since the audience is relevant and the content strong. Potential readers just need to be reached and reminded what they’re missing out on.

Rethinking B2B media subscriptions marketing doesn’t need a new team, or a radically different strategy. Sometimes, it just means focusing on what you’re already doing well – and not letting AI knock everything off course.