As MoneyWeek celebrates its 25th anniversary this year the title continues to find a profitable audience for its financial advice.
Established 25 years ago, the weekly title covers investment opportunities, financial advice and market analysis with an aim to help readers “grow and protect their wealth”.
The magazine has a circulation of 43,000 (18,832 in print and 24,174 digital, of which around a half are via all-you-can-read services such as Apple News+). This total was down 9% year on year.
While the website is free, MoneyWeek sells digital-only and bundled print/digital subscriptions which provide access to the digital edition of the magazine and the MoneyWeek app.
The MoneyWeek website claims to attract more than one million unique users per month. It has an editorial team of more than 15 including writers and editors.
It publishes two free email newsletters: MoneyWeek (which comes out twice a day) and Look After My Bills (published four times a week).
Here Andrew Van Sickle, who became editor of MoneyWeek in 2018, answers Press Gazette’s questions about the magazine’s editorial highlights, revenue diversification and being under the ownership of Future PLC since 2017.
What is MoneyWeek’s editorial focus and how is it filling a gap in the market?
We provide a comprehensive overview of the best investment opportunities, drawing on analyses and opinions from a wide array of experts.
We have always prided ourselves on presenting financial concepts in plain, jargon-free English and looking out for the best interests of private investors, not the financial services industry.
What’s the business model?
Our business model has always been, and will continue to be, built on subscription revenues. The direct relationship we have with our readers has been at the core of our business for 25 years.
More recently, strong growth among our online audiences has fuelled our digital advertising business.
What are your revenue streams?
Over half of our revenue comes from subscriptions, with advertising (both print and digital) providing a strong secondary stream. The remaining portion comes from diverse areas such as newsstand sales, licensing and events.
To adapt and grow, we will continue to diversify our revenue streams by expanding our advertising partnerships and developing our events business.
How has being part of Future PLC changed MoneyWeek’s strategy or financial performance?
Overall, the business model has remained unchanged with a continued focus on driving subscription revenue. However, MoneyWeek has benefited from Future’s digital expertise, which contributed to the significant growth on the website since the acquisition.
What have been some of your biggest/best stories in the last 25 years?
Given the core value proposition of our magazine, our best stories have been when we have picked good investments. We have liked gold ever since the current structural bull market began in the early 2000s. We warned readers that a credit crunch was materialising in July 2007, and told them to sell the banks in March 2008.
In late 2015, we suggested that they adapt their portfolios to a new era of populism, anticipating the ascendancy of Trump and Corbyn. Recommending that readers avoid Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust and predicting the post-pandemic surge in inflation were two further highlights for the brand.
Are you experimenting with new revenue models?
In the coming years, we are cultivating new growth avenues through new event formats and an expanded focus on video content, positioning the business for long-term, diversified success.
What is MoneyWeek’s approach to use of AI?
We see AI as a powerful tool to assist our journalists, but it will never replace them. While AI can help with research, every piece of content published by MoneyWeek is created, verified, and approved by a human journalist. This commitment is fundamental to the trust we have with our audience.
One of the biggest challenges we face, and one reshaping the wider media industry, is the shift AI is bringing to how readers discover content through search. We see this as an opportunity to strengthen our direct relationship with readers, accelerating our long-term strategy to complement print-based reader revenues with digital subscriptions.
What’s been most effective in converting readers to become subscribers?
Online newsletters tend to be most effective in encouraging readers to pay for content online and subscribe to the magazine. Future is extending this strategy through the introduction of its personalised newsletters online.
What have been the highlights in terms of growing MoneyWeek?
The pivotal moment for MoneyWeek was in the mid-2000s when a sustained marketing campaign helped us reach a critical mass, sending subscriptions up sharply.
In the digital realm, we have seen tremendous growth by focusing on SEO. Our expertise in this area has helped us grow our digital audience by 130% over the last three years.
We are building on that foundation by launching newsletters to continue our growth. A paywall is something we’re actively exploring as part of our longer-term strategy.
How do you cope with increased competition from the likes of Substack?
What Substack has shown is that the market is swinging back towards quality over clickbait. People are willing to pay for informed analysis and in-depth content that helps them make better decisions.
This reinforces our own strategic move towards personalised newsletters and digital subscriptions.
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