The year 2020 has placed an emphatic bookmark in the history books to come. None of the living beings remains unaffected by this year’s theatrics. A turmoil this big, demands an equivalent need to remain updated with every moment among people. Looking at the total number of digital visits (desktop and mobile), it was not much of a surprise that the number of visitors across various categories was at the peak of the lockdowns. Though the numbers have declined over time, it is interesting to know that the numbers higher than what they were before the pandemic.
In this article, let us take a closer look at how an already declining audience of print media and paper-based journalism gets affected. The major question arising here is what’s next for such publication houses?
Its high time that journalists should accept and embrace the digital transition for news sharing and retain it.
Readwhere is a platform that helps you in three ways:
- Publishing your content to make it accessible throughout the nation
- Best ways to monetize your content
- Get the mobile/ web presence ready for your news content
But before that, lets quickly take a look at some of the reasons why people are gradually shifting towards digital forms of publications.
Why They’re Not “Among Us” Anymore
The Convenience
Our lives have been touched by technology in all its aspects in some form or the other.
Convenience is certainly one of the reasons people are readily opting to abandon the traditional ways of doing things. Be it ordering food online, or setting the mood by just barking commands to a speaker, which has become smart apparently. Oh! And it can also read the news for you as you fix yourself up with the first cup of coffee. Things have become easier, isn’t it?
The Options
Information finding has been unshackled with the increasing use of social media, to create and share all kinds of information. We are in a pool of information where we seldom know what to fish for.
You have a say
Who doesn’t like to be heard? With the meteoric rise in users of social media, people often find themselves involved in expedient dialogues with complete strangers over contrasting beliefs. So, what’s not to like with such a way of information consumption which gives you a complimentary sense of belonging?
Cheap Is Better Sometimes
Cheap is synonymous with compromise in quality. Getting your information people are inclined to avoid the fee, however small, altogether wherever they can. This seems like a fee they can opt-out of.
All of this is good, we’ve all experienced it, but have you thought of the flip side of the story?
Traditional newspapers and magazines are facing a very crucial time where they have to fight for their existence. It all gets even worse with a communicable disease of such scale around.
Everybody can get an insight into the level of penetration this thing called ‘Internet’ and, in turn, the things that accompany it have in our lives. We all know traditional newspapers and publication houses have to make a move towards a digital future, but what’s in it for them?
Okay, so we have made a website. We also have an application to run on mobile devices. Is the audience going to share our enthusiasm? Is it ever going to generate the revenue we expect it to do?
These are some of the questions we are trying to answer in the following paragraphs.
Whenever someone says “Monetization” for apps and websites, I hear “Advertising”. These words have become synonymous.
We dug a little deeper to find other ways of monetizing apps and websites for publications and newspapers.
So, here’s a summary of what we came across,
Ways to monetize News Apps:
The content:
You can either be an established publication house like ‘The Washington Post’ or one that is not a household name per se, like ‘Gandiv News’, which has its own audience of-course. The point being, in order to increase your monetization, you need the number of people interested in your journalism to increase first.
In order to that, you need to invest in a decent content strategy and a team to take care of it as you progress.
Tip: Some indicators to try your new strategies might come from reader feedback or a survey.
Partnerships or Sponsors:
It might be rewarding to partner-up with a popular face to promote your app, influencers on social media are worth checking out as well. In addition, a sponsor willing to bet on your business would go a long way when trying to establish a brand in a competitive, new environment.
Building a decent all-round ecosystem:
Every business these days knows the value of meeting their consumers on all possible contact points. Being a news publication, yours can range from your print copies to social presence and a half-decent website only adds to your authority. Being active on all fronts might be your next step.
In-app purchases of your anticipated assets:
All of the above points would hopefully bless you with loads of traffic, now, how are you going to turn these people into faithful customers willing to pay for your hard-work?
Our suggestion would be to plan out the hierarchical structure of your app/website in a manner that enables you to categorize your audience and then track them to sort the best performing content on your app/website.
As you might have guessed, the next step would be to introduce a premium for access to let’s say some of the highly anticipated writers to start with and then move on to a category or adapt as you go and allocate more resources to what performs best.
Email Marketing:
Mentioning this technique feels like calling a veteran back to a tour. One thing you cannot underestimate though is the experience and reliability of an old man.
Once you have some traffic rolling through the doors, you can count on customized forms to lure people into signing up in exchange for some perks and when you have enough number of loyal signed-up customers, this list of people may come in handy when you are about to introduce a new feature or starting to cover a new domain, you get the idea. It might also be used to promote products or services that your partners have to offer (just a thought).
Subscription Models:
‘The Washington Post’ offers yearly access, which is the most economic of them all, to their digital content at subscription that costs around 150$, ‘The Hindu’, a more familiar name, going down a similar road offers a subscription worth around INR 2400.
Once you have a readership and the content they approve of, people would not be bothered while paying a one-time fee for the expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness you have established through your print daily and now online.
We hope it was worth your while and don’t you worry we won’t be charging for any of the great advice. What we have in store for you is a peerless way to digitize your publications and newspapers. Place a bookmark on Readwhere’s website to satiate all your reading thirst, newspapers, magazines, books or comics you name your poison and we have it packed in a bottle for you. Read everything on the go or in your cozy place, we are available on all platforms – Web, Android and iOS. Get in touch with us to discuss your digital future.
