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More Consumer Publications See Profits in Online B2B Space

Business Services, News, Subscriber Acquisition /

A few years ago, Subscription Site Insider published a Case Study on the Christian Science Monitor after they decided to ditch their daily paper for a weekly magazine and premium email newsletter. The decision boosted circulation by 60%. But like any Web-savvy publication, The Monitor didn’t stop innovating there. Today, the historically consumer publication has branched into B2B publishing, leveraging its roster of exceptional foreign correspondents to produce risk analysis and deep-dive reports on international settings…

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Tablets Helps Grow Subscription Revenues for Consumer Magazines

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscription Apps, Technology /

While 2012 may have been dubbed the Year of the Paywall for news sites, 2013 is shaping up to be the Year of the Tablet for consumer magazines. The tablet provides the ideal content consumption experience for many consumers — allowing them to lean-back and/or read while commuting, traveling, or other places without Wi-Fi access. Thus, while the consumer magazine niche has been the most reticent in embracing digital content distribution, it also has the most…

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Card-Not-Present Debit Spending on the Rise, as Interchange Fees Decline

FInance, News, Payment Processing, Technology /

A recent Federal Reserve report that compared 2009 and 2011 debit card purchases found that consumers spent more than $1.7 trillion dollars in debit card transactions in 2011, an approximate 24% increase. But meanwhile, chargebacks and returns totaled 373 million transactions and $22 billion in sales. Of total debit transactions, 11% were card-not-present (CNP) transactions, totaling $386 billion. Surprisingly, consumers were more likely to spend more via CNP transactions, according to the report: “The average value…

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Case Study Lessons: One Killer Tip to Increase Member Engagement at Sign-Up

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Subscriber Retention /

For most subscription content sites, email newsletters are one of the best acquisition marketing channels. But too many sites fail to see past their conversion goal of getting email opt-ins. As we’ve said time and again, retention marketing begins at sign-up, and the thank-you page after a new prospect signs-up for your email newsletter is the best place to start since 100% of email opt-ins will see that page. You won’t get those sort of open-rates…

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Subscription Prices Rising, Article Count Dropping, Ad Revenues Steady at Metered News Sites

News, Subscriber Acquisition /

Despite all the hand-wringing that launching a metered paywall can induce among ad-supported news sites, it looks like they’re actually pretty good for revenue growth. A recent study by Press+ of the company’s 400-ish existing clients found that the average monthly subscription price is now $9.26, up from $8.83 in July of 2012 and $6.66 in July 2011. That’s a 39% increase overall, and 5% in the last six months. In addition, most clients are lowering the…

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Using Public Data (and Great SEO) to Sell Prospecting Services

News, Subscriber Acquisition /

If you’ve checked out our Case Study on Equilar Insight, you’ll see that the company is incredibly savvy at taking public data and selling it as a subscription service simply by cleaning it up and using savvy Web coders to make it crunch-able, malleable and presentable for professionals looking for benchmarking data. But Equilar Insights has a sister site — Equilar Atlas — that uses the same technique (i.e., cleaning up publicly available data) to sell…

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Google Play To Sell Paid Content in Taiwan Again After 20-Month Suspension

News, Subscription Apps, Technology /

After a 20-month suspension and a lengthy lawsuit, Android users in Taiwan will be able to buy paid apps again through Google Play. In June 2011, the Taiwanese government passed a law saying that all paid content apps had to provide a free 7-day trial in order to comply with Consumer Protection Act that allow buyers to return a product they buy online within seven days. Apple complied, but Google pushed back saying its policy that…

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The Perils of Advertorials — or Native Advertising — for Subscription Sites

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology /

Trend-jumping, while almost universally endorsed by marketing gurus, is a risky business tactic. Just look at The Atlantic and their foray into native advertising. The legacy publication generated tremendous blowback a few weeks ago when it ran “Sponsored” content about Scientology, although the bright-sided piece was not seen as egregious as the marketing department’s ability to edit/delete comments, especially any ones critical of the piece. Of course, it’s also worth noting that the exact definition of native…

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Looking to Sell Your Subscription Site? Make Sure to Court Multiple Buyers

FInance, News /

Mergers & acquisitions take time — both before and after the sale. But subscription websites looking to sell shouldn’t feel they have to submit to a long and drawn-out courting process with buyers. As we discuss in this week’s How-To on Subscription Site Insider, it’s best if websites looking to sell court multiple buyers — and place a timeline on all prospective buyers to bid. This auction-style bidding process gives sellers the advantage since it’s all…

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Google Beta-Testing Newsletter Sign-Up in PPC Ads

News, Subscriber Acquisition, Technology /

I serendipitously came across this PPC ad for National Geographic through Google, which automatically inserted my email address into a conversion box for newsletter sign-up: After some research, I found that Google is beta-testing this features, and has invited a select number of websites to take part. So unfortunately, there’s very little data out yet on how successful this feature is in getting email opt-ins. On the surface, it looks like a great feature. It allows searchers…

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