Author: Minal Bopaiah - Page 52 - Subscription Insider

The Guardian Earns £1.4M from Subscriptions to iPad App

I alluded a few days ago to the fact that The Guardian is not the bastion of free content it claims to be, garnering subscription revenues from many of its mobile and tablet apps. Well, here are some numbers to back that claim. While the company posted a £44.2 million loss recently, buried in that financial report was the fact that 17,000 people pay for the Guardian’s £9.99 a month iPad app, while an unspecified number pay…

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Online Subscriptions Spur Print Magazine Launch for Bloomberg

Industry Announcements, News / Minal Bopaiah

Contrary to popular belief, online content doesn’t have to cannibalize print. In fact, in some cases, it can spur new print publications. This week, Bloomberg LP announced plans to publish a glossy, 32-page print magazine during the Republican and Democratic national conventions. The publication, called Bloomberg Insider, will pull content from the media conglomerate’s various website properties, including Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Businessweek, and its latest brainchild, Bloomberg Government (which has an annual subscription plan of $5,700…

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Phone-Based Subscriptions May Oust Mobile App Revenues

Industry Announcements, News, Subscription Apps / Minal Bopaiah

Successful subscription and membership sites know that it’s best to diversify revenue streams. One of the more lucrative ways for paid content sites has been through mobile apps sold on a subscription basis, such as the crossword app created by The Guardian (contrary to popular belief, The Guardian is not the bastion of free content its PR department wants you to think it is). But recently, Verizon announced plans to bundle separate gaming apps into one…

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Piano Media Expands Into Poland With National Paywall System and SMS Billing

Industry Announcements, News / Minal Bopaiah

The most popular (and only?) national paywall system, Piano Media, launched in Poland this week, putting content from 42 websites behind the new paywall (including 10% of content from Forbes.pl). Piano Media is known for its previous success in non-English, single-language countries like Slovakia and Slovenia. The one-bill, one-login system will charge Polish readers $5.85 a month (19.90 Polish zlotys) or about $58 per year (199 zlotys). The company will have to work with some interesting national…

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Tips and Tricks to Amp Up Your Trial Offer Conversions

On-Demand Webinars, Subscriber Only / Minal Bopaiah

Take a deep dive into trial offers with this 30-minute video hosted by Insider Editor Minal Bopaiah. Discover how you can optimize your trial offer landing pages for different visitor traffic source, get people who abandoned your form to return, and optimize debit and prepaid card processing. You’ll also learn how to create guarantees that work and how to get more trial-takers to sign up for annual v. monthly plans. Plus, lots of screenshots and creative samples to inspire you!

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Why a Two-Part Conversion Funnel is Best for Subscription Site Trial Offers

News, Subscriber Acquisition / Minal Bopaiah

Last month, I wrote about how a $1 trial can often be better for your bottom line than a free trial. But regardless of whether you’re offering a $1 or free trial, you’re going to want to make sure you split up your conversion funnel into at least two parts. The first part should only ask for an email address — no credit card, password, or additional information. Hulu Plus does this nicely on their site: The…

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Why Retention is More Important Than Sales for Local Online Papers

News, Subscriber Retention / Minal Bopaiah

Poynter posted a misleading headline this week, stating that “Half of first year’s paywall revenue comes in first three months.”The story was based on a study conducted by Our Hometown, a Web publishing company that specializes in small community news sites. And technically, it’s true: the case study shows how one news site got 49% of its first-year cumulative revenues within the first three months of launching a paywall. But the Poynter article doesn’t seem to…

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YouTube Video Shows iPhone Users How to Download Paid Content Without Paying

News, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

A Russian software developer recently posted a video on YouTube showing iPhone users how they can buy products within an app, like a magazine issue, without paying. Apple swiftly responded, getting YouTube to pull the video (I’ve embeded it below, where you’ll only see static and a notification of the take-down). But as The New York Times reported, the video apparently showed the software developer tweaking his iPhone by installing certificates and altering the Wi-Fi settings.…

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Is Your Subscription Site Prepared for Outages and Other Disasters?

News, Technology / Minal Bopaiah

Digital technology, doomsday prophecies, and hyperbole seem to go hand-in-hand, especially on slow news days. While it’s unlikely the Internet will ever fail completely, the recent DNSChanger malware attack is a good opportunity to review your subscription or membership site’s emergency preparedness. After all, crashing is bad for for free sites, but it can be exponentially more damaging for paid sites, leading to cancellations and lost revenue. If you have a temporary outage due to malware,…

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How to Design a Navigation Bar That Converts Visitors to Paying Subscribers

News, Subscriber Acquisition / Minal Bopaiah

Most of us assume our navigation bars on our paid content sites should simply list editorial departments or types of content. But WritersMarket.com took a different approach. As you can see below, the site poses a question at the top of the nav bar — What Would You Like to Accomplish? It then divides its content by solution. This is a super smart way to not only engage visitors, but get them to see how your…

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Insight to drive subscription growth

Minal Bopaiah