Do You Want to Build a Paywall?
Paywalls are everywhere right now. Whether it’s the successful pioneers and veterans or the new kids on the block, everybody is talking about them, considering them, or building them. That, and the membership model, which may or may not involve a paywall, of course.
Paywalls and Membership Models
One of the latest examples is Quartz’s new membership offering. Their value focuses on being “deeper than the news and faster than an MBA.” The membership portal currently houses only a few deep-dive stories, with more “coming soon.” The real value seems to be in their app, where Quartz members are granted access to a room of “cool kids.” Content from all over the web is being shared, discussed, and you’re rubbing digital shoulders with some top names in business and tech. It’s a cross between Apple News and LinkedIn.
Additionally, there has been a lot of buzz around New York Magazine’s digital subscription that was recently announced. New York Magazine isn’t launching a new product, but instead, putting up a dynamic meter around more than the 150 articles they publish each day. The same content they have–until now–distributed completely for free.
These examples are very different, but they are after the same goal; to increase digital audience revenue. And reader revenue is contingent upon one key factor: Audience loyalty.
You can publish 150 posts a day, but if you don’t have return visitors (i.e., the people who don’t want to live without your content), a paywall or content meter is useless. Similarly, you can launch a new subscription offering. Still, if you can’t convert at least a modest percentage of your current audience to members or subscribers, you will have an expensive uphill battle. If they don’t love you, they aren’t going to pay you to keep you. It’s that simple.
Understanding Loyalty
It’s not just something that former President Trump demanded of those around him, loyalty is your only point of measurement that will decide your fate in your quest for reader revenue.
And herein lies the challenge. The easiest way to gauge your audience’s loyalty is to launch the product or put up the gate and watch how your audience reacts. A scary proposal, indeed. No one wants to throw a party to see if anyone will show up, right? If they don’t, you’ve invested time and money in a product or technology when your audience was never there. It’s essential to know the difference between visitors and an audience when gauging loyalty.
So, if you want to build a paywall or launch that membership program, ask yourself these questions:
How often does your audience come back to see you?
Is your traffic coming from mostly passerby visitors? This is commonly signaled by consistently high new visitor numbers in your analytics and low returning visitor numbers. Or if your frequency of visit chart inside Google Analytics is bottom-heavy.
What are you bringing to the table?
Can you state definitively that your target audience can’t get from someone else what they are currently getting from you? Is your content more informed, wittier, more entertaining, and more crucial than that of your competitors? What sets your content apart from your competitors?
How committed are you?
Focusing your efforts on satisfying the reader–instead of satisfying the advertiser–is a significant shift in mentality for many publishers. And change is hard. It also means putting your brand and content on the line and being judged by quality instead of clicks.
Launch with an Informed Methodology
Before you build the P&L on your new reader revenue initiative, dive deep into your analytics and understand what content your readers are responding to and returning for. Engage your readers to understand better which ones are your audience and which ones are just visitors. Use these strategies, and you're well on your way. If you’re looking for help, let’s chat. Shoot me an email at melissa@twentyfirstdigital.com.
