Role: Brand Strategist and User Research Lead

Thurrott.com, a popular technology blog under BWW Media Group, faced a critical business challenge:

Need to monetize high-quality, free content by Paul Thurrott without alienating a 10+ year loyal audience
Implementing a paywall for a site with over 1 million monthly pageviews
Balancing business sustainability with audience retention

My role was to help facilitate a comprehensive user-centric approach:

- Orchestrated a multi-part research study with loyal readers
- Conducted in-depth interviews to understand user preferences, content value perception, and potential resistance to paid content
- Supported in-person branding workshops with the owner and primary writers
- Together we defined the mission, vision, and unique value proposition for a potential premium subscription model
- Aligned premium offering with existing content capabilities and audience expectations
- Analyzed research findings to inform prototype design
- Created a prototype front page for the premium subscription model
- Conducted user testing with previously interviewed loyal readers to refine the offering
- Co-developed a pre-launch campaign strategy to incentivize early adoption
- Assisted in crafting messaging to communicate value proposition to existing audience
- Implemented a feedback loop for continuous improvement
- Applied insights gained to future redesigns of parent and sister sites

- Transitioned to a paywall with minimal audience loss
- Achieved high conversion rates through the pre-launch campaign
- Maintained audience loyalty with minimal negative feedback
- Successfully communicated the value of premium content to users
- Proved the viability of a subscription model for high-quality content
- Established a sustainable revenue stream for the business
- Gained valuable insights into audience needs and preferences
- Developed a replicable process for user-driven business evolution
- Applied learnings to multiple redesigns of parent and sister sites
- Established a culture of continuous improvement based on user feedback