Strategy+Business Turns Free Web Content into Revenue-Generating Apps

Booz & Co. created Strategy+Business as a content marketing tool with a free-to-view website, but the publication has boldly began charging for the convenience

Booz & Company created Strategy+Business as a content marketing tool with a free-to-view website, but the publication has boldly began charging for the convenience of viewing the same content through mobile and tablet apps. Publisher Gretchen Hall spoke to us about why the site decided to bundle all of its digital offerings into one package and how social media sign-on has helped registration. Plus, learn how you can get the customer info you need from app subscribers, even when Apple refuses to provide it!

Company Profile

Founded: Parent company Booz & Company founded Startegy+Business in 1995, and the website launched a few years later. In 2009, the site had a major overhaul and launched its paid digital editions. Apple apps launched in 2011, Android apps in 2012.
No. of Publications: 1 Website (with 5 newsletters), multiple apps
Employees: 10 full-time for Strategy + Business with many freelancers, 3000 for Booz & Co.
Business Model: Hybrid (subs, ads, events, one-offs, including ecommerce)
Paying Subscribers: 5000 digital; 30,000 print
Location: New York, NY
Website: http://www.strategy-business.com/

Target Market

In line with the mission of international consulting firm Booz & Co., Strategy + Business primarily targets senior, global decision-makers at big companies around the world. Most of their readers have household incomes above $250,000 and are highly-educated (14% have doctorates, 55% have masters degrees).

Their secondary market consists of junior executives and MBA students who aspire to be senior executives.

Content

Strategy+Business is a management magazine focusing on strategy, marketing, operations, human capital, public presence, governance, and other domains. The content is mainly written by industry thought-leaders, as well as some staff writers and Booz & Company consultants.

The site publishes textual articles — including essays, exclusive research, and book reviews — on a variety of platforms, and is branching out into infographics and videos.

All of the content on the site is free to view.

Hall explained that this is because Booz & Company chooses to use the site as a lead generation device to widely distribute the consulting firm’s ideas and expertise.

However, the site charges for access to the same content through digital editions and mobile/tablet apps, making convenience the selling point (i.e., both print and tablet/mobile apps are more reader-friendly that desktop viewing).

Content updates are added weekly to the site, but on a quarterly basis to the print and digital editions. The apps, because they replicate the quarterly publications, also get updated on a quarterly basis but Strategy+Business is also exploring pushing videos to the app in between the issue changes.

Content production can take anywhere from a matter of weeks (such as book reviews) to months (e.g., in-depth company studies).

Hall says working with thought-leaders has been beneficial to their overall success. “If you have freelancers, you can go with the best of the best at any given time. Using freelancers allows you to turn on a dime if there’s a certain topic you want to focus on. But make sure you have the right senior leadership who can corral freelancers well.”

Revenues

Although Booz & Company’s total revenues exceed $1.3 billion, the publishing revenues are a fractional amount.

Using rough math, we estimate that the company makes approximately $74,000 a year from digital-only subscriptions (5000 subscribers x $14.95/year) and $114,000 from print + digital bundle subs (30,000 paying subscribers at $38/year). Note: The 30,000 print circulation excludes the 55,000 complimentary copies sent to Booz & Company’s senior executive clients and other global senior executives, business school professors, and MBA students.

Advertising (on the website, in print, and in apps) makes up 60-75% of revenues. Currently, web ad revenues are growing at a faster rate than print ad revenues.

Strategy+Business also earns revenues from newsstand sales, permissions and reprints, and list rentals (email and postal direct mail).

The publication offers the following subscription plans and pricing:

Originally, Strategy+Business sold its apps and digital editions separately. However, this led to a lot of reader confusion, so the site decided to bundle all its digital offerings into one digital-only package. Selling this package through the Strategy+Business website is advantageous for two reasons:

When subscribers buy the digital bundle through the site, Apple and Google do not take a cut.
Strategy+Business can capture more subscriber data, like email addresses, credit card numbers, and other marketing information, through their own site than the app stores. (Neither app store gives credit card information, but Google will give some basic contact information.)

If the subscriber goes through Apple Newsstand or Google Play, Apple and Google take a 30% cut from both single issue and subscription (yearly or quarterly) sales.

Marketing Tactics

In addition to weekly and monthly newsletters (which are shared among professionals), Strategy+Business uses the following tactics to drive traffic to their free site:

Social Media
Social sharing is enabled through social media sign-on, which allows visitors to register with a social media account (see Conversion Tactics for more on this). The social media sign-on lets users share via their social media preference or email.

Strategy+Business also has 70,000 Facebook likes, an interesting statistic for a B2B site targeting high income C-level executives around the world. However, Hall is quick to mention that most of their social media traffic is from Twitter, even though Strategy+Business only has 5,000 Twitter followers.

PR
In the past, Strategy+Business did low-touch PR marketing (i.e., a publicist issued press releases). But in the last six months, the site is concentrating on more targeted outreach when a specific articles post on the site, which has had a big impact. The editors and marketers cherry pick articles they think are going to have an impact and focus marketing and PR resources on those specific articles through blogger outreach, newsletter aggregators, and social media.

SEO + PPC
Strategy+Business had a spike in their organic search traffic when they did one round of SEO improvements, and thus, are about to do a second round.

The site is also experimenting with PPC, ads on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, and Taboola, a paid discovery service.

Apple Newsstand and Google Play Stores
The Strategy+Business apps are available in the Apple Newsstand (see here) and Google Play stores (see here). This is beneficial because the stores expose the company’s paid content to new prospects.

In the Apple Newsstand, apps are listed as “free” even though they are paid; this is because the app is free to download but the content is paid. (See more on this in Conversion Tactics.) Apple Newsstand “recommends” Strategy+Business’s paid subscription and single issue apps in a “Top In-App Purchases” box.

Conversion Tactics

Email Registration
Strategy+Business articles are all free-to-view through the homepage or search results. However, it a user clicks on an article from another article page, they are asked to register by email after one article view. Registered users can opt-in to receive marketing emails (along with newsletters) advertising Strategy+Business’s digital offerings.

Social Sign-On
In lieu of offering an email address, site visitors can use a social media account to sign-on. By using a third-party provider (instead of individually integrating each social media platform’s API), Strategy+Business is able to allow visitors to choose from a plethora of social media accounts — from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to Google+, Yahoo, and Orkut. This is smart since Strategy+Business is an international company and social media popularity varies by country. (For example, Orkut is popular in the Middle East and South Asia.)

The permissions and information available varies by social media platform. For example, Twitter asks users if they agree to let the publication/website post in their name, whereas Facebook and LinkedIn do not. In addition, Google+ gives less information, so visitors using that platform are asked to type in additional information, thereby causing more friction during the sign-on process rather than less.

Note: For more information on social media sign-on, check out our in-depth How-To.

Site visitors are also converted through lightbox display ads (see image below).

Apple Newsstand Conversion
If a prospect goes through the Apple Newsstand, the app is listed as “free,” which is a big problem for conversion. Technically, the app is free to download, and then users see a galley of issues available and two plan options. They can preview 8-10 pages of magazine, but must complete the purchase through the iTunes store, which means Strategy+Business doesn’t receive any useful customer information.

However, users have the option to opt-in to share their data with the publisher during the purchase process. Strategy+Business also has a link on their Apple Newsstand page for “strategy + business magazine Support” which asks app purchasers to opt-in to providing more info.

This then opens a new page, created by Strategy+Business’s app vendor, Blue Toad, which captures marketing data. There are obvious problems with this page (screen capture at the bottom of this article), which we discuss in our analysis, but it’s good that Strategy+Business is looking for ways to work-around Apple’s strict rules.

About Gretchen Hall

Gretchen Hall has worked for Booz & Company since 2000, first in on the consulting side. She moved over to the magazine division in 2006.

Her best advice is particular to medium-sized publishers: “It may be best not to invest too quickly or too heavily in new products or distribution platforms. You can often make wiser use of limited resources if you pay close attention to the revenue models and product enhancements that larger publishers introduce–and monitor whether they succeed or not. Sometimes it is better to be a prudent follower rather than a cutting-edge leader.”

Vendors & Technology

Website Hosting — Softlayer
http://www.softlayer.com/

Digital edition and apps – BlueToad
http://www.bluetoad.com/

Payment processing — Chase Paymentech
https://www.chasepaymentech.com/

Email management — In-house management with deployments done by web developer, Raven Creative.

Web design — Opto Design Inc.
http://www.optodesign.com/

Web development — Raven Creative
http://www.ravencreative.com/

Content management — Raven Creative has a proprietary CMS called Atlas.
http://www.ravencreative.com/web_services/content_management

Creative/Editing– Opto Design and a freelance infographics designer
http://www.optodesign.com/

Web Analytics — Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Subscription Site Insider Analysis

We applaud the fact that Strategy+Business is not just giving its app away, and are daring to charge for convenience. We’ve learned a few startling things from this case study, including tactics to get Apple Newsstand buyers to give you more marketing info and the fact that B2B readers and prospects are active on Facebook.

We think the site can benefit from some stronger SEO. The publication should also look to put every one of its subscription offers — print + digital, digital-only, app-store subscriptions — on auto-renewal. More immediately, it should pre-check the “best value!” auto-renewal offer for print + digital on its conversion page (instead of pre-checking the 1-year option). Lastly, Strategy+Business should create a more compelling reason for Apple Store buyers to offer up marketing data; “magazine support” simply isn’t compelling enough. And the publication should reach out to BlueToad to create more user-friendly page to capture marketing data. Specifically: