The Financial Times has been broadcasting stories through WhatsApp for the past year as a way of reaching new readers, growing loyalty and driving people back to the FT’s site, where they are more likely to subscribe.

During that time it has honed its content strategy to push out more specific market-related stories, rather than general news, and has found that people who access the FT’s journalism through WhatsApp are more likely to return to its site in the next seven days.

For the last six weeks, after running surveys with its WhatsApp base, the FT has started posting one or two free-to-access market-focused stories a day. Some that have driven the most traffic have been “Why did the pound fall so fast?” “The five market charts that matter for investors” and “Banks begin moving some operations out of Britain.” Stories with charts also do particularly well.

More here:

https://digiday.com/media/ft-going-niche-whatsapp-drive-subscribers/