MCMA Event Recap Panelists Shahzad Abbas - Define Media Group Moderator Tony Silber - Long Hill Media Consumers are used to finding information on the internet for free. But is there a way to use paywalls and pay meters for a good effect? Tony Silber (Long Hill Media) led a panel at MCMA’s March education meeting about subscription revenue and how to move beyond the idea of relying entirely on driving organic or social traffic and making money off ads. Panelists included Jelaine Johnson (Hearst Media), Jay Kirsch (ALM Media), Beth Ulman (NPS Media Group), and Shahzad Abbas (Define Media Group). “Twenty percent of all digital advertising spending is spent on fraudulent advertising, where you’re not actually getting delivered to a human being.” — Tony Silber (Long Hill Media)The assumption is that there’s not enough readership to go around to justify paywalls, but there are ways to move forward and get premium content to work for you. Downsides of PaywallsIt’s true that paywalls can create barriers to your readership. Requiring visitors to pay in order to access content can turn them off, and it can reduce the traffic to your website. However, regardless of whether you use a paywall or not, you still need quality content. Being able to provide useful content is necessary. Additionally, while a subscription or pay-per-article arrangement might turn some readers off, the good news is that there isn’t a punishment from Google for having a paywall in place. With the right code, Google can still crawl it, even though consumers have to pay. “Publishers have not had an organic search hit from the implementation. Google gives you the tools to do that without being penalized.” — Shahzad Abbas (Define Media Group)You can alternatively use a metering system, in which non-paying visitors can read a set amount of articles for free. Once they reach their limit, though, they need to pay to access other content. If you decide to implement a paywall, make sure you do it right. Double-check Google guidance to implement it correctly so you aren’t penalized for adding subscriptions or premium content. Implementing a Successful PaywallIn order to implement a successful paywall, it’s important to understand the audience and which content is appropriate for premium. There are different models for implementing paywalls or metering:
Understand the content model and what does brand stands for at a high level. Some brands give, and others are based around providing premium information. “[We need to be] able to offer more value to our members as they subscribe.”
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