I’ve been ranting and cajoling for long enough about our annual Prime sign-up drive, that I wanted to share some great news: We made it. As I’ve shared with you, we started on September 21st kicking off our annual sign-up drive with a goal of signing up 3,000 new members. But it was more a private goal and it seemed hard to figure we could get to that number, even with a great response. But starting about a month, when we were at about 2200, it started to seem at least possible. And then at some point on Christmas Eve – appropriately enough – we got there. It is no promotional hyperbole to say that I really did not think we’d be able to get that number.
We’re currently at 3017 for the drive. And, yes, if you’d still like to sign up, by all means do so. But we set the goal and we got there so no more harping from me. Just to give you a bit more context, this put us at just below 9,500 Prime members – about 500 of whom are monthly subscribers and the remainder annual subscribers.
So truly, thanks. Thanks for being readers and thanks for becoming members. Our goal at TPM is to create as diverse a group of revenue streams as possible, for the simple reason that it makes the business more stable, predictable and viable in the face of what is an inevitably unpredictable business environment. Just to give you some context, back in 2011 and first half of 2012, roughly 2/3 of our revenue came from the highly volatile direct advertising sales part of the ledger. We’ve a great deal of time since then both bolstering direct sales while building other sources of revenue to make us less dependent on any one alone. And Prime is an absolutely critical part of that. I cannot stress that enough.
Our goal going into next year – on the Prime/business side of the operation – is to keep all of what is now public TPM public (that’s always been our plan) but continue to build in improvements, additional features and special content specifically designed for our most devoted readers, which is of course who is most likely to be subscribers. And that, as I said going back three years ago now, was and remains the core idea behind Prime.
If you’re a Prime member and there are additions to the site you’d like to see, things that might not be a big thing to casual readers but would add to the TPM experience for you, by all means let us know.
For now, just thanks. The fact that you keep coming day after day, in many cases year after year, simply means the world to me and the whole TPM team. So thank you.
