It has not been an easy ride, but the The Financial Times is beginning to see the benefits of its strong campaign to charge for content, and to get the audience to go along.
The lessons learned are obvious ones, but sometimes easily dismissed by publishers everywhere.
Recently, John Ridding, CEO of the FT, spoke about his company’s strategy, which has subscriptions that start at $350 per year, and, he says, readers are buying. He says that today 900,000 of FT’s subscribers are digital customers and subscriptions have overtaken advertising as the chief source of the company’s revenue.
How did they achieve this?
I find it interesting that Ridding cites the obvious again, and a point I make to my clients everywhere: people will pay for content that is unique and essential to their lives. I ask publishers and editors to ask the question: what do we do in this publication that is special, different and needed? That’s what people will pay for.
In Ridding’s words:
“A lot of the industry was too quick to dismiss the ability to charge for content. My view is that if you have something that differentiates you, something that makes you special — it could be a brand identity, it could be a columnist, it could be a sector of coverage — you have the ability to charge.”
That something that makes you special could be the way you cover high school sports, or a certain columnist that has a following, or your original recipes.
And, in fact, the more that you marry content across platforms, the more that your audience can rely on your publication to navigate through life, and especially within local communities, the more chances that people will pay for your content.
For the complete article:
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Mario’s Speaking Engagements
April 18-19, 2018-–Newscamp ,Augsburg, Germany.
June 3-6, 2018—The Seminar, San Antonio, Texas.
June 7-8—WAN-IFRA World Congress, Lisbon, Portugal
June 12-14, CUE Days , Aarhus, Denmark
http://www.ccieurope.com/news/6738/Video_What_is_CUE_Days_2018
August 2, Digital House (Facebook workshop), Buenos Aires
October 6, 20, 27–King’s College, New York City
The Basics of Visual Journalism seminars
December 6, El Pais Conference, Montevideo, Uruguay
A series of conferences and seminars for El Pais journalists, invited professionals and communications students: The future of journalism.
Garcia Media: Over 25 years at your service
TheMarioBlog post #2814