Capitalizing on Content

You’ve probably already heard the saying that on the Internet, “Content is King.” Web sites use content to attract and retain an audience, and if you produce your own original content, you know how much time and resources can go into creating it. Back in the days when advertising revenues compensated for such efforts (or at least that was the plan), the horizon was golden. Now, with ad revenues on the decline, sites are faced with turning elsewhere for dollars, and leveraging content is the idea leading the pack at the moment.

Some premium sites have already been charging for access to their content. The Wall Street Journal and ConsumerReports.org are two of the forerunners. Both offer a certain amount of free content, but then charge for access to more in-depth information. The Economist and Variety.com offer their online content for free to subscribers, but online-only users must subscribe for access to premium content.

On the other hand, you have the web sites that have been giving away their content for free all along and are now trying to make the transition. Salon.com for example, is taking an interesting approach to converting loyal readers over to their paid-for Salon Premium service.

Salon.com has actually made their user experience worse for those users who want to read content for free by adding multiple pop-up windows and more advertising. In order to read Salon’s editorials and use their highly acclaimed audio section without being served such intrusive commercial messages, readers now have to pay $30 a year for Salon’s ad-free “Premium” service. The Premium service also offers exclusive columns, pictorials, and downloads. It will be interesting to see Salon.com’s conversions to this paid service — certainly the top online content sites are keeping their eyes Salon.com’s success (or failure).

3 Things You Can Do To Help Generate Revenue From Your Content

Following the lead of the Internet “old timers” when it comes to paying for content, here is some helpful advice:

1. Charge for Your Archives: If you’ve been producing content for over a year, you likely have a nice library of archived reports or articles. Why not charge a small fee for lifetime access to such archives? If not lifetime access, there’s always the alternative of pay-per-view: charging an even smaller amount for access to a single article or report.

2. Members Only: SearchEngineWatch.com has had a password- protected section of its site since its beginning. Even if you do not want to charge directly for your content, if you force users to register, you can use registration data to sell for other marketing purposes (be sure to disclose this fact in your privacy policy).

3. Incentives: As in the Salon.com example, if you’re going to start charging for your content, give users some added bonus — ad-free viewing, ebooks, downloads, software, promotional give-aways — as a reward for converting.

Of course, converting to for-paid content has its hurdles. For one thing, if you’ve been giving it away for years, loyal readers might express anything from dismay to outrage at your change. There are statistics to back this up:

• According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 49 percent of consumers surveyed oppose paying to download digital content from the Web.

• Jupiter Media Metrix reports that 69 percent of consumers are unwilling to pay for content on the Internet.

Regardless, the fact remains that businesses, online publishers especially, have to generate revenue to remain afloat. People have been paying for print publications for years — segueing to paid-for content is the only natural next step..

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