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Minal Bopaiah

Euromoney Institutional Investor Grows Group Subscriptions by 20%

Business Services, News, Subscriber Acquisition /

For the past eight years, B2B subscription site Euromoney Institutional Investor has been focusing on growing it site license revenue stream across more than 50 sites. “It’s a slow burn,” says Ben Eva, Global Head of Conversion Management at Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc. “It’s a long-term investment that you should make for at least eight months.” First, Euromoney Institutional Investor had to plan its approach. The company found that getting internal ambassadors was its best bet to…

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Are eBooks the New Subscription Revenue Product?

Business Media and Publishing, Business Strategy, News, Subscriber Acquisition /

Last Friday, I wrote about how paid content sites could take monetize editorial awards by selling the award-winning content as a brief eBook. But eBooks are not only for one-off sales — eBook subscriptions seem to be gaining some traction as a viable revenue stream for some online publishers. The UK bookstore Waterstones just announced the launch of Read Petite, a subscription streaming service for short fiction. And Amazon’s Lending Library lets paying Amazon Prime members “check-out”…

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Creating eBooks Out of Pulitzer-Winning Content

Business Media and Publishing, News, Subscriber Acquisition /

What’s better than winning a Pulitzer? Making money off of it. (OK, maybe not. But it’s a nice financial cherry on your editorial sundae.) The dark horse pick and winner of this year’s Pulitzer for national reporting was InsideClimate News, a nonprofit niche publication covering climate and energy news with a completely virtual staff. There’s a lot to be said for the small publication’s editorial coup, but from a business angle, the most interesting fact was that shortly…

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76% of Subscription Sites Have Bad Call-to-Action Buttons

News, Subscriber Acquisition /

Did you know that 76% of subscription sites are leaving money on the table on their conversion pages? That’s because, according to data from the 2013 Online Subscription Benchmark Report, the vast majority of paid content sites have poor call-to-action buttons. A good call-to-action button has three main defining features: Compelling copy that conveys an immediate benefit to subscribers. Contrasting color (i.e., not your brand colors. The button color should be eye-catching, but of the same value and…

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M&A Highlights for Subscription Sites in Q1 of 2013

Business Strategy, FInance, News /

The media, information, technology, healthcare and database sectors saw 353 M&A transactions in the first quarter of 2013, for a combined value exceeding $7.53 billion, according to a recent report released by the Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI), an independent investment bank specializing in M&A advisory services. The transaction volume represents a 6% decline compared to Q1 activity in 2012, and a 38% drop in overall value. Still, there are some notable deals for subscription sites: B2B…

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Is Your Behavioral Targeting Following Best Practices and Legal Guidelines?

News, Technology /

A growing trend online (and one more subscription content sites should be taking advantage of) is behavioral targeting, a.k.a. online behavioral advertising. In short, subscription sites can “cookie” site visitors. After those visitors exit and go to another site, subscription sites can run an ad on the new site. (You can spot an ad using behavioral targeting by the little arrow with an “i” in the top right corner. If a visitor clicks on this icon,…

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LinkedIn Acquires Pulse for $90M, Signals Shift to Publisher Role

Business Services, Business Strategy, FInance, News /

Subscription site LinkedIn has recently acquired news aggregator and app creator Pulse for $90 million, according to the LinkedIn’s blog. The acquisition allows LinkedIn to position itself more as a publisher than social media site. (Russell Perkins, Founder of Subscription Site Central’s parent company InfoCommerce Group, speculated last Friday that LinkedIn may be becoming the iTunes Store for B2B sites, and this acquisition only backs up this claim.) For those of you unfamiliar with Pulse, the app…

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UK Audiences May Have Upper Limit on Subscription Pricing

FInance, News /

A new report from Simon-Kucher & Partners has some interesting pricing insights for US and UK publishers. While the report’s main recommendations are fairly basic (do research, A/B test — stuff we’ve been covering for years on Subscription Site Insider), there was one take-away fact that I found interesting — UK readers felt a subscription became too expensive once in surpassed the £20/month mark. This was after the researchers had “been forced to think about the cost…

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Don’t Lock Out Dual Logins — Upsell Group Subscriptions Instead

Business Services, News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology /

Most publishers underestimate the importance of digital rights management (DRM), choosing to either protect too little (and lose money) or protect too much (and lose valuable marketing opportunities). In this week’s Members-Only How-To on Subscription Site Insider, we explain why DRM should be considered a strategy that helps you maximize revenues — not a necessary and burdensome technology. For example, many subscription websites automatically lock-out subscribers after a dual login. The assumption is that dual logins occur…

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Hulu Up for Sale, Ex-News Corp President Bids $500 Million

Entertainment and Streaming, FInance, News /

In case you missed it, subscription-based television and movie streaming site Hulu has been looking for a buyer since March. And this week, former News Corp President Peter Chernin made a bid of $500 million. Hulu is owned by both the Walt Disney Company and News Corp. Rumor has it that there’s been a dispute between the two companies about the direction of the site, with News Corp favoring a subscription-based model (already initiated through the…

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