Paid Content Online--Can it Work?

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Permalink Reply by Ken Anderberg on March 12, 2009 at 8:23am

Another paid model you will see gaining significant traction is password-protected sites, where original content is accessed only after registering. The race for impressions is ridiculous anyway. No one knows who their visitors are, whether they are the "right" visitors. Online advertisers are coming to realize that it's about quality, not quantity. By having people register to read one time, sites will know exactly who is visiting and will be able to show advertisers value as opposed to zillions of meaningless hits. And if all media sites were to do this, the blogosphere might just crumble for lack of information.

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Permalink Reply by DiAnne Walsh on March 13, 2009 at 12:39pm

When I worked at the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin we had a free 15 days trial and then a conversion to paid. Our coversion rate was 20%. Like all marketing if the information provided is targeted and they do not have access anywhere else you can charge and be successful.
I agree with Ken that registration is the key as well as being able to capture some demographic information for adverstising as well as messaging.

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Permalink Reply by Qing on March 14, 2009 at 11:53pm

I think we must try and educate people that high quality contents should get paid. The value of content is unique, not other source where peopel can get. If prints have the same content as the onlines'( for free), there is no value that people pay for prints.

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Permalink Reply by Jose A. Sanchez on January 6, 2010 at 3:28pm

Paid content can work but an advertisement based model is also an option, just as in the offline world. Both products have different values and appeal to particular audiences. Either way, publications can experiment with both systems and then decide which one is more profitable.

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Permalink Reply by Jose A. Sanchez on January 6, 2010 at 4:50pm

I already posted this on a different discussion, but a recent study by SRG Canada shows that 18% of consumers are willing to pay for online magazine content and 14% for digital newspapers. This may give you an idea of the opportunities tat publishers have to make profit from their subscribers.

One of the problems is probably that people are already used to get the newspaper and magazine content for free.

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Godfrey on February 15, 2010 at 3:48pm

Another way to spin paid online content is to deliver it by way of disc technology. I have experience in producing multimedia CD-ROMs that were offered as a premium tier subscription to a print publication. Those who subscribed to both the print magazine and CD-ROM received access to areas of the magazine website that were "hidden" from those who could see the free areas of the site. The translation, if it's hard to follow, is that the sections of the website that were accessed via the CD-ROM were paid for by the premium subscription rate.

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Permalink Reply by Meredith Dias on March 3, 2010 at 4:11pm

Paid content is a difficult proposition. Some in the industry call free online content the "original sin" of publishers. For over a decade, users have grown accustomed to free content, and to reverse this would mean to invoke a massive shift in online reader preferences and behavior. No one will solve the online content profitability conundrum overnight, as publications have spent ten years spoiling their readers with free content. My hunch is that advertising-based models will be more successful; however, time will tell if payment platforms like Kachingle and Journalism Online's Press+ can generate revenue streams for online publications. In all likelihood, the future of online publication profitability lies in having multiple revenue streams -- there may be no catch-all solution.

Editors Only recently condensed former Editor & Publisher columnist Steve Outing's thoughts on the online payment issue. (The article is here: http://bit.ly/986vUe ) Outing has established a material connection with Kachingle in the past year, but his comments still have merit. He supports more of a voluntary crowdfunding approach than micropayments, as micropayments/paywalls create a barrier between the reader and the editorial content.

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Permalink Reply by Samuel Solomon on April 26, 2010 at 5:19pm

We actually have a FREE digital version readily available. More importantly however, we are finding that the input/output ratio really isn't adding up to the number of hits we are receiving as a result - SO we are going to head back to the drawing board and re-evaluate the market and the need/want to continue down this route for our demographic. Maybe it is one of those items where FREE doesn't add up to any value at all. So we have thought of a paid 'club' to provide the digital and some additional content/downloads for a small price in hopes that it ADDS to the value. Very Similar to what PASTE does. Some things translate well - and some not so much. We thought we had a winner (I mean it is free with Value Added Content)- but our readers and stats tell us a different side of the story.

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Permalink Reply by Len Latimer on March 12, 2011 at 3:16pm

The Wall St Journal  has 1.25 million subscribers - so yes, I'd say it works.  But the content can't be generic or easily available elsewhere.  Niches and special interests will be the easiest to sell.  Historically, many newsletters have and do charge hundreds and even thousands of dollars for subscription without any advertising at all.  Hard to get- can't live without content value-is the key.

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