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Dow Jones Local Media Group Acquired by Newcastle Investment for $87 Million

FInance, News /

Newcastle Investment Corp., a real estate investment trust, acquired Dow Jones’ Local Media Group from News Corp. for $87 million last week. While that may seem like a strange buyer for the Local Media Group, which operates 33 local publications, including 8 daily and 15 weekly newspapers, in 7 states, Newcastle will actually hand off operational management to their publishing arm GateHouse Media. Both Newcastle and GateHouse are owned by parent company Fortress Investment Group. GateHouse…

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People Magazine Takes Subscription Bundling to the Next Level

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps /

Consumer magazines like People have been stalwarts in the print industry, only adopting digital editions recently, and mostly because of the tablet. And People was smart enough to price its digital and print editions equally, charging $112 for either or $132 for both. But now the most popular celebrity magazines (3.5 million paying subscribers) is adding a tiered subscription model. For the younger, more tech-savvy celebrity fans (who are also less likely to pay since they…

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Taboola Update Makes Content Discovery Harder for Publishers, But May Get Them More Qualified Traffic

News, Subscriber Acquisition /

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how paid discovery through recommendation engines can be a powerful alternative to PPC for subscription content sites. I also mentioned the major players in this space: Taboola, Outbrain and nRelate and compared their services in our in-depth, Members-Only How-To on Subscription Site Insider. Of the three vendors, Taboola had the smallest number of publishers hosting their recommendations on their sites (5,000 publishers versus 70,000 for Outbrain and 85,000 for…

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Metered Paywalls Become Popular Among South Korean News Outlets

Industry Announcements, News, Subscriber Acquisition /

In our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report, we documented how international markets are sometimes even more ripe for online subscription sales than the US or EU. Notably, audiences in the Asia-Pacific region are more willing to pay for news than audiences in North America: Given this data, it’s not surprising that the biggest business newspaper in South Korea, The Maeil Business Newspaper, launched an online subscription news service on Tuesday, and a number of other major…

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Case Study Lessons: Sell More Site Licenses with a Formal Word-of-Mouth Program

News /

While everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the best marketing out there, very few subscription sites take advantage of such endorsements with a formal program. SimpleK12, however, is smarter than that. The B2B professional development and eLearning site has a formal Ambassador program that leverages its incredible enthusiastic audience of teachers to get them to advocate for the site with school administrators and sell more site licenses. Ambassadors get a digital Welcome Kit full of electronic “goodies”…

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FRAUD ALERT: If You’re Not Sending Renewal Notices to Your Subscribers, Someone Else Will

FInance, News, Payment Processing, Subscriber Retention /

So for those of you who have been skeptical of my advice that sending a paper renewal notices is a best practice for boosting your bottom line, here’s incontrovertible proof. The Better Business Bureau has issued warnings about a subscription renewal scam run by a company called Associated Publishers Network, or APN. Apparently, subscribers to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have been mailed paper renewal notices and then asked to submit a…

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Get Ready for Your Holiday Subscription Sales

News, Subscriber Acquisition /

Now that Labor Day is over, it’s time to put away those summer whites and get ready for the holiday sales rush. Many subscription sites assume that CyberMonday and similar digital marketing events in Q4 apply almost exclusively to eCommerce sites, but that’s not the case. Both The New York Times and The Economist have been known to take advantage of the holiday buying bonanza to push digital subscriptions. And The New Yorker ties its gift…

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The Pros and Cons of the Time-Based Meter from Press+ for Online Video

Entertainment and Streaming, News, Technology /

Press+ announced yesterday that they’re launching a new time-based metered paywall for online videos, in an effort to help online publishers monetize video, a content type likely to see the most revenue growth in the near future. The new software would allow site visitors to preview a video for a certain length of time before asking them to pay (either single payment, package deals or subscriptions). Press+’s first client for the new software is Courtroom View Network,…

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3 Advanced Retention Tactics for Subscription Renewal Emails

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Retention /

Earlier this week,  I wrote about three great tips for mobile-optimized emails, an important topic for any subscription content site since email is the most cost-effective way to acquire new subscribers, according to our 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report. But email is almost more important when it comes to retention marketing (with one great on-site exception). That’s why we thought this renewal email from Carbonite was so effective — it had three advanced tactics that subscription…

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Subscription-Based Children’s Site Retains 75% of Subscribers and Gets $6.2M in Funding

FInance, News /

Last year, I wrote about A Story Before Bed, an innovative interactive storybook service for kids and grandparents. But they’re not the only player in the space, and Speakaboos is making headlines with its $6.2 million in seed and Series A funding. But what I find impressive is their 75% retention rate among parents and schools for interactive children’s storybooks, which means they’re able to retain the most attention-deficit audience — children! Speakaboos originally launched in…

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