A few weeks ago, The New York Times announced that they reached more than 1 million online subscribers. Given the complicated shifting process of traditional written media into online news, it was clearly a great deal for the newspaper as four years ago, everyone was deeply convinced that NYT would never reach this point.
Indeed, it’s quite a surprising turn of events considering the fact that we love having free access to content – especially in a period of economic recession. But in life, nothing is for free and the digital press have some great strategic tricks under their sleeve to make you pay for (good) content.
Creation of The New York Times Paywall
In an era where we can consume news online and for free, how can traditional media stay relevant and make a profit at the same time? To answer this challenge, the New York Times progressively shifted its online activities to a paid model. Put simply, they allow us to read up to 20 articles a month for free, leaving us to decide if we want to continue reading more – to discover more content, readers have to subscribe and pay $15-$35 to get their nuggets of information.
As mentioned earlier people really didn’t believe they would succeed, and here we are four years later with the NYT sitting smugly with their 1 million subscribers.
From free to freemium
For a long time, digital news was free. However, the economic recession, among other factors, changed things for the press. Indeed, when times are tough we cut on the advertising budget which is quite problematic for the press as essentially, it’s how they make their money.
For instance, between 2001 and 2011, the NYT advertising revenues fell by 45%. The circulation revenue grew by 9%; which was good news but not good enough to be sustainable for the newspaper.
According to Frédéric Filoux, there are 3 main consequences of low advertising budgets
- A rise in paid-for performance advertising
- A rise in alternative formats beyond traditional display
- A split between volume-driven and quality-driven digital properties
So the move from a free to a paid model was mainly a financial necessity. This shift introduced a new business model that several newspapers are following – freemium.
Freemium is a strategy by which a product or service is provided for free but if you want to have more features – or premium content – you have to pay.
That’s the strategy adopted by the New York Times which provides a combination of free-content (enabling to reach a large audience) and paid content (premium). This then brings in the bucks, thanks to new readers and targeted advertising.
This model is apparently working for the New York Times, but in order to get there the paper developed several strategies and tools that are worth analysing.
But first, let’s have a look at people’s news reading habits.
How we read the news
According to a recent study conducted by Pew Research Centre and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Facebook and Twitter users use both platforms as sources for online news.
Although the proportion of users getting news on social media is the same, there is a difference in the use of these platforms. For instance, the study showed that users generally follow breaking news on Twitter rather than Facebook. This data seems relevant giving that Twitter’s selling point lies in the 140-characters rule, which matches quite well with the ‘breaking news format’.
Moreover, the study shows that users reading the news on Twitter actually see a greater mix of topics in comparison to those consuming news on Facebook. This result, again, is not very surprising because Twitter’s feed is unfiltered.
Facebook is seen as a true commitment towards a news source. Users are more likely to engage with political or other in-depth content. Being able to share and comment freely and limitlessly allows readers to express their point of view and further define their identity. It is a way to let their circle acknowledge what their opinion on serious topics is, and to maintain a rather strict fidelity to a news outlet – whilst on Twitter, users will follow news organisations or politicians.
However, the study shows that neither Facebook nor Twitter are truly considered as first news sources. News users still consider media outlet websites as the most relevant place to fulfil their need for news items. Social media would only be used as a kind of “teaser” to deliver content and permit readers to define their identity based on their fidelity towards an online paper. If it is qualitatively and quantitatively strong, chances are the paper will gain a subscriber.
The NYT’s secret ingredient to gain more subscribers
From exploring this entire process, it is less of a surprise to learn that the New York Times mainly grasp their subscribers on social media platforms – and especially on Facebook. A few weeks ago, the newspaper publicly announced their collaboration with the start-up Keywee, an innovative company aiming to develop loyalty through social media. They indeed contributed a great deal in turning The New York Time’s Facebook fans into subscribers.
So, how does it work? The newspaper sends articles to Keywee which scans them to find keywords and topics. They then combine the collected terms and topics with knowledge about different channels to find potential audiences. Finally, they test several variations of paid posts, targeting the potential audiences to determine the most effective ones. The innovative system is put in place to reach the audiences that nobody thinks about at first. However, this is something we can all do. The key is to use a fine-tooth comb, and think deeper when targeting your audiences. There are plenty of people who might be interested in your content but they just don’t know it exists.
A concrete example that will probably ring a bell is the photo essay ‘Forty Portraits in Forty Years’. The piece written by journalist Susan Minot, was first published almost a year ago, on October 3rd. A few months later, Keywee gave it a new push by re-posting it on the NYT’s page, so that the people who were not targeted before, had the chance to read it now.
The classic targets, would be audiences gravitating around women, photography, photojournalism etc. However, fans following Museum of Modern Art for instance could have been interested in this essay as well. That’s exactly what Keywee did, and guess what? It was a huge hit.
‘Mobile Moments’ – new generation of ads
However, NYT’s rebranding does not stop there. They are about to launch a whole new advertising strategy (in September). ‘Mobile Moment’ as they named it, has nothing to do with the detestable, annoying pop-ups and horizontal ad-banners that keep you from reading the bloody article you want to look at in the first place.
Instead, they are implementing ads similar to the ones appearing on Facebook, like the sponsored posts. This specific form makes ads vanish into your news content. It’s like an in-feed placement. It doesn’t get in the way of your reading, nor does it need to be closed. You can just keep on scrolling to avoid it.
‘Mobile Moments’ also holds another important characteristic, which is customization.
The ads will be customized to the seven moments in a given day that are most important to readers – as identified through a 12-month study conducted by the Times’ editorial product team. Those moments include the beginning of the morning – which accounts for 25% of the Times’ mobile traffic, per Mr. Tomich – lunchtime and the end of the day.
Besides being more reader-friendly, Mobile Moments might be an interesting tool for advertisers who will be able to buy ads according to time of the day they want to target.
If the accuracy in practice meets the theoretical expectations, Mobile Moments might hold the secret to stop the infernal circle of annoying and inconvenient advertising for readers, by offering a better tool for brands.
It’s not surprising that the New York Times succeeded in increasing their online subscribers. For the past few years, we have seen a change of mind-set; today it is not totally unthinkable to pay for content – look at Netflix or Spotify.
Generally speaking, it seems that audiences start to believe that paying for good content is worth it. A trend confirmed by the latest annual World Press Trends of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers saying that ‘global newspaper circulation revenues are larger than newspaper advertising revenues for the first time this century’ – a surprising spot of news in an era when everybody keeps saying that the press is dead.
Even the New York Times’ new advertising strategy shows a change of mind-set. They are putting the readers / users at the core and making sure they always provide quality and relevant content – because, that’s how you make money.