Emma Gilchrist, the co-founder of The Narwhal, walks through key learnings about running a small membership-focused media outlet, including user research, the importance of branding, her publication's marketing funnel and how they approach measurement and analytics.

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Show Transcript

1:50 - Why Emma started The Narwhal

3:05 - Why and how to do member research

6:56 - The importance of branding and positioning

9:30 - How to engage with younger audiences

11:55 - Membership without a paywall

16:26 - Consistency in membership value

19:45 - The Narwhal’s marketing funnel

24:15 - The importance of email marketing

26:16 - Why their newsletter isn't about traffic

28:03 - Analytics and data

29:25 - Reducing churn

32:46 - The benefits of physical products for membership

36:34 - How The Narwhal uses Facebook advertising

38:35 - Why you need metrics before advertising

40:18 - How they use analytics

42:40 - Their craziest and most impactful A/B tests

43:26 - Tools they use for A/B testing

44:10 - Team structure for a startup news outlet

46:30 - How the team has changed over time

48:18 - When is it time to hire

50:15 - Processes for hiring

52:30 - One thing new outlets should do

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