Top 5 subscription trends in digital media
The way we engage with money changes everyday. As publishers, it’s important to look into a couple of different things to ensure that your readers are participating with the crumbs you want them to. So do you focus on technology, interface, engagement, social media, revenue, or ads?
It all boils down to subscription revenue. If you’re in the digital publishing space, you’re probably loaded with a couple of factors to focus on. It’s the subscription rates that’ll give you a fair idea about how your content is doing and what your subscribers want you to know.
The search for digitally mature audience
The United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, and Japan are some of the areas where media and entertainment companies are competing for digitally mature audiences. Seeking users that have had their digital presence for a while and have made interactions across various platforms. It also means finding users that interact with digital content through various devices and channels.
Seeking a digitally mature audience is focused on the rising demand for loyal long term subscribers. In areas with an urban crowd, this is more prominent.
Ads don’t have to be ‘all-or-nothing’
Often readers will subscribe to have an ad-free experience. And while that’s perfectly alright, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing with ads. Advertisements, after reaching their saturation point, started the concept of subscription for many platforms. However, the younger audience is prone to switching or canceling subscriptions. This could be avoided with reducing the cost. You can introduce plans that are budget friendly by keeping limited ads. This way you don’t lose out on the revenue and the users get to keep their subscriber benefits.
Evolution of digital Personalisation
Subscription automatically hints at personalization. Be it OTT platforms like Disney+ and Spotify or websites, success subscription comes with smart personalization. Ensure that you provide a smooth subscription billing process, extended services, new and relevant offers, and personalisation that encourages user engagement.
Providing custom content suggestions, paying attention to the user behavior on the overall website and sub-sections can help eliminate creation of gray content. This also improves customer loyalty and satisfaction. You can also provide one-on-one offers by tracking their browsing behavior and give customers the power to control their preferences on your site.
Hard paywall
Many publishers are following the path of The Wall Street Journal. The trend with setting a hard paywall can be witnessed by some of the more popular publishers as well as many new niche content publishers across the digital space. Setting a hard paywall means that all your content will only be accessible to subscribers or would only be accessed if paid for.
Geo-specific offers
Publishers are increasingly becoming sensitive to the local needs of readers and ditch the single crowd approach. The Washington Post and Youtube are also offering specific plans tailored to their audience in specific regions. As we get used to the globalisation of digital media it is important to narrow down and categorize audiences effectively. Setting geo-specific targets and giving audiences a refined experience is definitely going to get more popular.
Subscription revenue is always a telling factor of the brand’s initiatives and the quality of content they are putting out there. Growing publishing houses often focus a lot of effort into increasing their subscriptions but it would be more profitable to focus on other channels of revenue as well. Building a subscriber base is a painstaking process that requires many trial and error methods. The goal must be to find long term subscribers who are willing to recommend your content/service to others. As the netizens keep interacting with the digital space, the behavior is bound to change. Publishers can watch out for change by looking into interactions with netizens directly or by gauging their feedback for competitors or bigger content providers.