Optimizing reader revenue model
Vineet :
Alright. Hello and welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us today. This is Vineet Punjabi with Quintype and we are very excited to launch our first master class on how to optimize our reader revenue models. To know what's the way ahead for publishers. This is our third episode in the Quintype Webinar series. A few months ago we did one around Impact on Google's core web vitals and how to get ready for that along with Hive minds. And before that we had done one on programmatic ads, one-on-one with AndBeyond media for the session. Today we collaborated with Ankit Dikshit and Meduit labs. I'm going to start by giving a quick introduction about Ankit. You know besides being a very dear friend, and a veteran in the industry. He's the founder and principal Consultant at Meduit Labs but more importantly in his past lives has been a trusted advisor to multiple large enterprises, corporate publishers including the likes of Bloomberg Quint, India Today, Inc 42, FirstCry.
But interestingly his work around growing the subscriber base for Bloomberg Quint on WhatsApp to about half a million subscribers in a very, very less amount of time was published as a case study on Harvard Business Review. And he's very kindly agreed to do this master class with us where he's going to answer some very key questions for publishers who are somewhere in the subscription journey or beginning their subscription journey or have been in the subscription journey for some time. You know where we'll cover different spectrums around, you know how we identify the target audience.
You know, what is the subscription funnel and flywheel? What are the different paywalls and types of subscription models that you could be running as well as key metrics, the lifecycle of the subscriber. And last but not the least, you know whether or not there's a product market fit or how to find that product market fit. But just some couple housekeeping details before we get started. It's a master class. We expect a lot of questions to be coming through while we will make room to take some of these questions through the course of this presentation, please do type in your questions as and when they keep coming up in the Q&A window that you might see on your screen. We would also be launching some polls throughout the presentation. I think, you know, without Much Ado I'm now gonna turn it over to Ankit.
Ankit :
Thank you. We need that's so gracious of you. Thanks for setting up the stage for discussing optimizing readers' revenue model, I think it would be good to connect with the folks in the industry and you know share a story or two. So I'm very excited for this conversation today.
Vineet:
Awesome. Great. So I'll, I'll let you drive it on from here Ankit.
Ankit :
Great, I'll take it from here.
I would like to discuss who should attend this webinar. So this webinar is for the publishers in various stages of the funnel, so in the live stages. So it would be let's say if you're in an offline or online magazine or newspaper publisher or if you're a TV newsroom, if you are an online news publisher or you have already launched a subscription business or let's say you are a non news publisher.
So this webinar would make sense to all of you and there were various ways to present how subscription businesses can build and like I've been into this industry especially the subscription business for the last 3 1/2 years now. So I thought that we can start with the flywheel.
So let's discuss this at its core. Before we move on, I would also like to run a pool and see how the audiences are today.
- Poll -
Interestingly you know as we are seeing the results so far there is nobody who has you know from from the subscription, existing subscription business. So most of the folks are either from most content publishers or are from offline or online with existing publication.
Vineet :
Correct. And I think our audience today would be interested in knowing, if they're not already in the subscription business, what are some key things that they could be looking at you know because they might be planning around their content going behind paywalls. Should we, should we not take that step, how would it impact the traffic, the growth. So it'll be nice to hear your thoughts around that.
Ankit :
So, let's start with the fundamentals of why we subscribe, why as a customer we subscribe to any services. So there could be let's say you know and and fundamentally I could narrow it down to three reasons either it could be a FOMO or a greed or when I'm looking for you know better word is ROI and the third is belongingness. And on the left side you will find the reader and on the right side you will find the value that I'm seeing. So it could be like content value added features.
So when I say FOMO, let's say. We all are social animals and we are part of our community. So when we talk to our friends, when we talk to our people and you know I've seen that a lot of times, we discuss articles we have read and just to feel a part of the community, we subscribe to similar things. The other reason is where I have specific, you know, tangible ROI related to it. So let's say here I put some money and on the other side I find that, OK, you are helping me to take, let's say, stock market, better stock market decisions, Better Business decisions or you help me upgrade my knowledge so that I can perform better in my profession and so on. So there are tangible benefits.
The third is - belongingness. You have a publication or a media house which sinks in with your ideology, with your thought process and which has a lot of people who are following them and who are like you. So in that way you even if you are not, you are not feeling FOMO. You're not feeling greedy, but still you because you feel that you belong to this, you know this tribe and that's why you are willing, you're open to contribute and why we are discussing this is because if you are planning to launch the subscription business, maybe you can look at this framework where that which. I think this framework will really help in taking that first step - to identify the reason why you are launching the subscription business and going forward as well.
So I'm going to discuss those things which are very fundamental but also practical in nature. So moving on to the next concept which is the subscription flywheel. So if you look at this concept, this starts with the content and features. So if you look at let's say let's imagine any media house where you have the core proposition, your content and feature and you start building on it. So you are finding what works for you, your audience, you work on that direction, you find let's say, if you want to work on ROI, you can find that, OK, I'll work on in depth content and this is going to be our unique proposition. And then from here we move to digital products which are the website, mobile app, any campaign management tool, your other digital stuff. The first one is non-digital stuff, second one is your digital stuff, third one is your brand marketing, how you're positioning yourself, how people are seeing your brand. And the 4th one is how you're distributing these content and features. So if you look at these four and this is going to be the gist of today's this conversation that you know, if you see that, if you improve content, if you improve digital product, if you improve brand marketing and then you improve the content distribution, it is going to increase the size over the time and let's say the monetization that you do after content distribution will help you invest more into the content in feature and that will help you enable better digital product and so on. So it's a flywheel that grows. A lot of companies are designed and built on this model. So for example Netflix is built on the flywheel model or Amazon for that matter is built on flywheel model. But I think subscription based media businesses can also opt in for this.
These are the concepts and we already know that, OK, content exists, digital product exists, brand marketing exists, distribution exists. But the idea is to have this piece in a framework and have that process in mind that, OK, we need to work in this way. And we know that if you work on these four in a specific fashion, they will grow, they're bound to grow. So it is to bring their framework into play.
So now moving on, I'll be discussing. I will be discussing this in detail as well. So moving on to the next slide where we will be discussing the content and the feature. So the first and foremost thing I think from where we should, if you are setting up your subscription business from and let's say you're transforming your traditional operations, I think digital first thinking is what we all should focus on. So when I say digital first thinking, our editorial team should be aligned, our marketing team should be aligned, our production team should be aligned, let's say everyone.
Our team should be aligned to think digital and also think in the fashion that yes from here you want to drive subscriptions where right now it is not just news, it is the value that people would be seeking into your content now and from where you have to where you have to drive ROI. So this, this thinking is really difficult. Like I have seen multiple newsrooms and you know digital media companies where to inculcate this habit, inculcating this thought process takes time but it is very important. You know if you're a business manager or if you're driving this PNL, it is very important for you to align this and again keep this framework in mind.
So I would say that you know, you can have a weekly tracker for this, what you are doing specifically to make this happen, what are your next initiatives. So this is just a tip of the iceberg that in the interest of time it would be very difficult to get into details about every topic. But the idea is to have this in such a way that you have a framework in place and when you start implementing you just have to think on these lines and start to start working on those.
So moving on to the next which is a value proposition. Value proposition is once you have digital first thinking inculcated and you know that, OK, now you have, you have, you have aligned the team, your team is ready and team is at least agreed to move to and move into that direction. What are, what is the value proposition, what exactly do you want to deliver, what is the so is it? Is it in depth content? Is it analysis? Is it research? Is it, let's say, a kind of knowledge bank that you want to share with your audience or so on. So you have to decide.
Select from where you want to start and what is your what is what are different stages that you want to focus on.
Next would be a differentiating proposition. So also I would suggest that you should definitely have a competitive benchmarking. Understand what your competitors are doing and especially if they're into subscription business, what exactly they are trying to do, what they push on a regular basis on their platform along with their let's say when they are, when they are communicating about their subscription. Because that will also indicate that what has worked for them you will understand on one side you should always try to see what is differentiating the proposition.
For which you know a subscriber would come to you you know and which is not available in the market right now. So it is very important to start to find your niche. And the last but not the least in this framework is the data-driven approach. So even if you have let's say you have inculcated the digital first thinking, I think data-driven approaches are even more important and that's why in this model it is at the core that if your editorial is not data-driven, if your marketing is not data-driven, if your product is not data data-driven. If your customer experience is not data-driven, there is a there is definitely you don't know where to move in which direction to move and I think we all in the media industry should learn this from ecommerce. Ecommerce is already 5-6 years ahead in this. They have proper processes regularly. You know regular reporting proper analysis that is done. So they know what is exactly going right and what is exactly.
Doing wrong in your business on a daily basis and they can take those actions. But I think the media is moving into that direction. But there are a few more years to get into that where you have let's say your web analytics combination of web analytics, your subscription analytics and everything at one place and you are seeing the overview of your business as a CEO, as a business head, as a marketing person, as a product head. So I think this is, this is very, very important.
Like say if you if, if you don't focus on this and if you if you focus on everything else, I think you will not be able to get the results that you would if you are focusing in the right manner to set up your data-driven media business.
Now covering you know would be covering the next, you know, next part of this which is digital product where let's see our website would come, your overall overall digital experience would come. So the first part of it is - Paywall and we will be discussing paywall in detail. The next is pricing, subscription models, service and support, service, reviews, promotions. So if you discuss paywalls.
Yeah, so. So there are various types of paywalls. Let's say there's a hard paywall where you know, you don't, you don't allow your readers to read anything if they're not a subscriber. So it's a hard paywall. In metered paywall, let's say you set a limit of three or five articles. So let's say in a month that readers can access, and after that they will have to pay. The third model is the freemium.
You have some of your content behind the paywall. Some of your content is available for free, so it's a mix of free plus hard of people. The 4th one is hybrid hybrid table where you have all three hard beta, premium, free paywall in one business. And the last one is dynamic paywall where your paywall is not of file is not either full but let's say basic customer profile or bases, you know customer behavior that let then let's say if I am consuming more content around let's say markets for example. Now you know, you know that I like markets. So if I'm visiting more market stories, you would have, you would put a paywall and you would talk in terms of let's say you know we have more content around markets and if you want to access more you, it is better that you subscribe. So this is dynamic paywall and we have seen that dynamic paywalls work really, really good if you have this.
Right, set of technology again coming to the next topic which is subscription models, here we talk about various types of ways you can start your subscription business. Let's say membership and privileges. So where you are tying up, let's say you are giving various types of you know content as well as along with content you're giving experiences. There were, you know, not just the you, you don't get just the content, but also some of the experiences or experiences either from the you know, either from them either from the publishers or also or it could also be from their partners. Patrons is where let's say The Guardian is a pioneer in patrons. They have more than one million 1,000,000 subscribers. And here you find that people believe in your concept, in your journalism. You don't put a paywall, but you still request it.
Free is another model where you know you're saying that OK, you will not be giving, you will not be applying the paywall, but you will just giving, you will be giving an ad free experience and a lot of people buy for that as well because I mean in the end media, media would be at least to cover the cost and a lot of people believe that at least to cover the cost and if I don't want to interrupt my experience it is I'm OK to pay for the ads though it could be a minimal amount.
And the last is where you are bundling with foreign, foreign publishers. So here we can take an example of live mint where they have tied up with the Wall Street Journal and there are other public I think Business Standard was there, they had it with the Wall Street Journal earlier and I think later later it moved to live mint. So there could be multiple ways that you can select your model.
Again talking about pricing, a very important aspect, you know a lot of I've seen a lot of publishers you know asking this: what should be our optimal price, can we copy our comparators? Yes, copying comparators in benchmarking with their industry is 1 good way. But I can also say that you can still find your niche and I have you know I have run a lot of experiments and where we have increased 20%, even 30% pricing.
For a publisher you know from where they were doing it for the last one year, we could find out with the help of experiments that actually they were charging less and then now this publisher is charging more from the members. So very important that you know that I have seen that in desperation and to increase the conversion rate a lot of publishers reduce the price, give a lot of offers and see that yes people are more people are buying but I think you should also value your content you're offering.
Next is again a very underrated function which is support service and support. So I think this subscription is a retention game, it is not an acquisition game for sure.
Most of the publishers find that the first transaction amount that they get is usually their CAC. CAC is customer acquisition costs. So they start making profits from the second or third year onwards. So in that case obviously even if you have brought a subscriber for the first year and if you are not making profits out of it, it's not, it's not a right proposition and you cannot, you know if your services, your support is not up to the mark, you will not be able to give a better customer experience. So with my experience I would suggest that you should. You should definitely have a dedicated team. You should definitely have a dedicated infrastructure to have this piece in place. And I think you know CEOs you're managing, editors all should be on, you know, all should be keeping this in mind and you know and motivating the team to handle the support in such a way that people don't feel bad about the experience. So this is the core. Again, like data is the core, this is the core of the customer experience. So even if you have good content, you have good features and everything. If your support is not up to the mark, if you're not giving a good experience, if people are frustrated with your response time for example, you know they will not come back to you. So please be very very cautious about this then surveys and reviews are also very important aspects of surveys help you.
Understand what you are doing right, what you are doing wrong. So you should continuously be doing good. Doing surveys and reviews I think are very important. Don't miss any chance to capture testimonials from your customers. Whenever they say good things about you, capture that. Share it with your audience.
Like with BloombergQuint we have identified that not just giving you know you should not be just giving money discount but you should also be trying giving extra validity and not I mean this does not hamper your cash flow. So you can try and find out the various types of experiments that would help you.
Vineet :
Here I actually wanted to stop you for a couple of questions but you know, I got engaged so you know, I couldn't. But just a couple of questions. You mentioned that, you know, customer support is quite an underrated function. You know, if you could just for the broader audience over here, you know, help us understand with a few examples like how can a publisher make the most out of this service and support function?
And the second question is, especially when you're in the early stages, how do you find what is your sweet spot on pricing? Is it just that you throw a dot on the board and see if it sticks?
Or or is there more math and science that goes behind? You know, figuring out what the pricing strategy should be.
Ankit :
Sure, sure. So I'll take the first question first. The service and support one. So you know, so if you are setting up you know service and support. So what we did with one of the publishers is that we are able to add close to 55 sales, subscription sales setting. So there was no subscription support setup there when we started and then obviously we advised them that you should have a support function.
And then a dedicated person who can handle the queries you know and and then we made you know we built a proper channel from where you can get, you can get queries from all the channels. Let's say if you're working on emails, if you have opened up your site chat, if you have opened up your site form or let's say Twitter or other channels. So you can get all the queries at one place and then you have a proper process where the let's say team is following slash.
So on the one side there is when you have a right set of support you are finding opportunities to increase your sales while on the other side so this is 1 opportunity that that one should not never miss the on the other side we need will also find that you are when you are improving the customer experience and let's say if I merge service and support with reviews for.
Yeah. So the moment you turned a dissatisfied customer or designated customer into a delighted customer, this is an opportunity where you would want them to, let's say, post a tweet, we'll talk about their experience and then you can go all out and publish that, that experience that, yes, you know, we have transformed this experience from here to here or directly like, you know, this is how our customers feel and you can join this community to feel the same. So that is another way you can device service and support and I think also service and support talks about your core brand values, your reason for existence. So this is the opportunity to talk about, talk about everything. So for me it is also your brand center, where the brand is speaking to the individual without and and you are creating an impression at every touch point. So it is quite important to focus on support. Now we need to come to your other question.
Which is - what is the sweet spot to identify pricing. So I think if you look at this model where we talked about which membership, which is a subscription model that you want to go into, which is the category that you are into and what is the audience size that you have, what are the competition that are available to you.
Let's say if there is a competition who is already into subscription what is the pricing? So basis all these combination you will identify that OK, this is the price point that I want to try and test out with and then you try with a smaller audience rather than going all out and announcing and it's especially in media space I've seen that we are, we are very you know we go we want to, we want to, we want to tell a thing to everyone without and you know before experimenting at a smaller scale.
Like ecommerce, do we want to go all out when we have started the, you know, let's say subscription business. But I suggest you always be smart, always start with your limited audience and then go from there.
Right, right in it. Does it answer your question?
Vineet :
Yes, yes, absolutely and very crisp. Thank you. So there's definitely some math and science behind it. You want to start small and then you want to start increasing the base as you get feedback, checking from markets, competition, local, international, what are people doing, you know, are there any takers for that sort of a product? And like you said, what category is it ad free, is it membership, is it, you know, premium content?
Ankit :
Yeah. So now moving to brand marketing, again a very important function where you know you would, this is basically how people would perceive your brand, your subscription brand and would make people pay for it. So, so far in our industry, the media industry, we have seen that people come, people come to the website, they consume content, but like we're not asked to pay even if you look at the previous generation like 20 years back when people used to pay for news.
Newspapers and today also people do, but I'm saying when everyone used to pay for newspapers, they're also, you know, it was a brand value that you were giving to me and that's why let's say I would, I would subscribe to Indian Express over Hindustan Times. Everyone had their own reasons and this is again very important to form that aspect of how people are perceiving you so quickly sharing the framework here that on the one side to create the brand marketing. To create this perception, you have to set up an editorial team of influencers. You talk about your content on a regular basis if you're able to build a community and.
Having both the points together, you know, editorial and influencers and community focus. So where you are able to build positive conversations or conversations that sink in with the ideology or with what they are looking into, what your customers are looking into at you, let's say is it. If it is for belongingness then your narrative would be that. If it is for the FOMO, your narrative would be around that. If it is for Roy or narrative would be around that. So again coming back.
That your core reason would remain amongst those three and then you will extend everything around that into all your functions. Again, brand narrative and design and identity is again how you are differentiating yourself from the rest of the rest of the publications. How you're designing your identities is also very important and it should reflect on your website. It should reflect on your emails.
You know how you are depicting, let's say, a specific point. So let's say if you want to say that there is a, there is a, there's a promotion going on for the next 24 hours. How you are communicating this, how you are adding that urgency level when you are writing it, everything is very, very, very important and it should sync into that one core message, that one core perception that you want to create. So that core, core, core brand marketing, thought of identity should never go away. It should be part of every customer's touch point, right?
Then the last part is how you distribute your content. So you know I would suggest that you start, let's say you know you can select let's say 33 channels to start with and how you can build these channel lists. Let's see, you selected one channel for example paid, and then you have identified that OK, these are the segments that I want, this is a goal that I want to achieve. Now this goal could be convergent and could not be convergent a lot of times. Let's say, if you're a new publisher, maybe you would not be chasing conversion goals at the start. Because if you do that, you will not be able to get success. Because people, it takes time to believe that yes, I am ready to pay for the content. So on the one side, let's say this country is slightly moving to pay for OT and you know the 13 more than 30 million people in India who have already started.
Playing for D platforms, while again if you translate this into the news industry, I would say there is still not more than 10% to the market and only 10% of what is there for OTT. So if you want to build that audience, if you want, if you want to convince them, convince them for small goals first rather than convincing them and you're expecting them to pay you right away. So achieve those small goals set, but you should have to set those goals right.
And last is you should experiment a lot. You should test communication, you should test design, you should test ctas, you should set test subject lines, you should test headlines, everything you should be testing. So you should have a framework in place that you know you are identifying that, OK, this specific type of thing works on a specific type of segment. If you're discovering that and creating your experiment logs, that would really help. And once you have this experiment log in place, I think that is A and you know that, OK, these are the microphones you could achieve, this is your limit. And I think then it is a time to scale up and invest more money onto that Channel and then you can move to scale to another channel. So I mean there is there so again there is a flywheel and then there is another flywheel within that flywheel which is all if you look at this. So everything is related and I would request everyone to look at this entire presentation.
I'll just do a quick time check on the kit. You know, we have about you know, we want to leave about 10 minutes for Q&A and I'm going to request the audience over here to please type in your questions either on the chat window or the Q&A session so we can pick them up towards the end of it.
Vineet :
And, and yeah, so Ankit, we're at about 3:40 right now. We'll have about 10 more minutes. If you need more time, you know, just let us know.
And it's quite interesting to see this data.
I am. I was going to say that, you know, it's interesting to see that it's quite an even split of 50: 50, you know, people being satisfied versus not satisfied you know, with their data analytics and reporting.
And even when we look at you know different subscription models that you know are most preferred, are features and content the highest, followed by membership privilege and followed by an ad free model.
Ankit :
So I think we also have a good sample representation from the entire industry, so good to see that question two tells us that we have representation from all the sectors within the industry. So that's again very interesting.
So good, thanks. Thanks for taking this, this poll folks. And now we are moving on to another very interesting concept. So this is another way to look at the scene discussion that we had. So there are various stages in readers' lifecycle and let's say it is your customer is new and they've just started visiting your website then they start engaging with your content and become active and you know there are a number of sessions. So let's say if the user is 1, the number of sessions increased from the same user.
Then the user is interested and they have even signed up for your content. That OK, I'm subscribing to your WhatsApp, I'm subscribing to your e-mail use letter. Please, please feel free to reach out to me with video content. The next is where I decide that will be your contest. Content is interesting and now I've started seeing paywall and there's something which is of my interest and I would like to subscribe to your service then either let's say even if I'm paying, I'm an engaged subscriber or I am a retained, I'm a non engaged subscriber, but a retained subscriber could be another possibility and the final is that, OK, I took that decision but I think I wanted something else, maybe it could be experienced product, let's say a digital experience is not up to the mark, your brand marketing is not up to the mark or your content of features are not up to the market. People have left it. But now why? Why are we discussing this? I think all of us would have a fair idea about this. But what I want to communicate here.
Because the arrows and lines that you're seeing here, these all you know are details. These all are various responsibilities that can be given to different individuals in the team. So let's say I can take this responsibility of converting new users into active users, I can convert active users into more users is a different KPI. So this slide is a playbook for any subscription business you can just focus on.
These arrows and see that there are various KPIs that the team can focus on and improve performance, you know, improve performance. So let's say I'm seeing a lot of users turning from, you know, being a member. So what is required to be done. So I'll try and find out various ways that I can reduce that job. It could be payment, it could be let's say engaging the audience. It could be reaching out to the audience on a regular basis or let's say you know talking, building conversations with the audience and or adding, improving your product features and so on. So you have these all are the execution notes that you can focus on while you're working or to improve your subscription business.
So maybe let's say you know the Wall Street Journal or for that matter Bloomberg Quint. We used to make calls to our subscribers and tell them that that hey you have subscribed and because a lot of those folks are not digital savvy though they want to consume that content and they are into market for a longer period, but they might not know your entire entire gamut of things that that they can avail. So the idea is to ensure that people are aware of what you deliver.
As a publisher and ensure that people are, people are aware of that. You talk about those propositions and you know whether through mail, whether through calls, calls are even better. I would suggest in this case that if you're calling booking at 10 minutes and pointment and talking about sharing all these things and let's say going on a screen share as well. A lot of people like that. And then on a regular basis, if you are, let's say, I'll give an example. So let's say for example I would say that to you know in the 1st 15 days specific customers should visit me at least. You know within the 1st 15 days I should have at least five sessions from our subscriber. I'm just giving a ballpark number, but I should have this benchmark done if I want to see that these are retained. So let's say we can also draw, draw let's say I'm seeing if I'm able to retain a customer or if the customer is churned on the basis of this if I draw.
The 1st 15 days of the user that how were these, these, these 15 days, 1st 15 days of users who who turned from our base versus who retained you would identify that let's say this is the, let's say these people were engaged from the start and that's how you could you could build that that engagement and equity with the brand. So these are the very important numbers that as a brand you should be choosing.
I'm not getting into detail because this is, this is a, you know, this could be a conversation for another webinar where we are just discussing how to engage the subscriber, how to ensure that the retention happens so that we can plan some other time we need to. But what I'm trying to say is that you should, your analytics should be in such a way your analytics and reports are set up in such a way that you get this visibility very clearly.
Cool. Coming to the, you know sharing one more experiment that we did with one of the one of the publishers which we call a price sensitive experience sensitivity experiment, right. So here is what we tested. So the thesis was that if we increase the subscription price and so subscription price increase creates more that leads to higher conversion. It was our thesis, right and then what we did.
There was a set of, you know, users. We divided them into 2 buckets. 1 User set was exposed to increasing price range while the other one was exposed to decreasing pricing. So increasing, let's say we start, we started with ₹3500 range and came down to 2500 within 45 days time frame while only decreasing, we started with 2500 and gradually increased that and interestingly we also mentioned.
In our increasing price bucket that hey, your price will increase and you know hurry up your price will increase. And this message was communicated on the regular basis in subject lines and in copies in around CTS and then we have seen some interesting numbers. So in the first phase we have seen obviously there would be a price point sensitivity anyways like more people would be buying data.
Let's say at A at a higher price and less people would be buying at a lower price. So you have seen that .8% people were converting through this. While on the other side we have seen that 3000 at the 3000 range, more people suddenly saw that actually what has happened we need this, this is written in a reverse manner. So if you see this.
You know 0.8% was for 3500. So let's leave this slide for now. I'll give a quick summary of what has happened: when you were increasing the price, people were finding that OK from let's say it has increased from 2500 to 3000 range and they have actually seen that you have increased the price. What happened in that case more people were bound to purchase. You know more people purchase thinking next time they will increase the price again and then when we move to the next time again people purchase and in the end we have seen that.
The 47% was the higher conversion rate if you're increasing the price range versus if you're decreasing the conversion rate was 1.9% from.
Vineet :
So I have one question on, you know, I know we're about 8 minutes out, so I think we'll park sometime for some of these questions.
First amongst them, being a publisher, I'm just going to take a very real case example. You know, we're writing content and we haven't really gone behind a paywall, or let's say we have just gone behind a paywall. What are those benchmarks that tell us if we are on the right track or not on the right track? You know, because sometimes you're halfway through and you need to realize that it's not working out and pull the plug. So what is, is there a benchmark? Is there a metric?
That says that all right, if I'm a million page views on my traffic, what should be my conversion to say is this the right business for us?
Ankit :
Good question Vineet, very good question. So, so if you look at this question I think initially when you you know I'll share from from from one of the publishers experience what happens is when you put up a wall you will see a steep drop in traffic because people let's say who are consumer consuming your content for free and let's say they start seeing the paywall as some of them would.
Could not come back to the website, so you should be ready with the plan of how you are ensuring that these people are coming back to that platform with some reason or other. You have to give them reasons to ensure that you don't drop that number. So let's say if you, if you put, if you define your loyal audience for example. So we would say before the paywall let's say you have 10 million audience coming to your site and let's say you have 1,000,000 audience whom you could say are your loyal audience because they have visited more than seven page views and have visited at least three times in the last 30 days and also spend on an average 5 minutes every session? So you know the audience definition of loyal audience could be anything in that you have to find out. It varies, right? Could vary from publisher to publisher. But let's say if you have this audience and you're seeing you would definitely see that your audience will dip. So what are the measures that you are going to take?
If you're seeing an increase in these matrices there is definitely a good sign that yes you are in the right direction right now. What you are doing to ensure that you know ensuring that all these people who are showing interest.
From your loyal audience, this is from your loyal audience. We unique visitors are slightly difficult at the start to get from half a percent of users converting. But yes, from your loyal audience you should chase half a percent and you can aim to reach 5, even 6% from this audience.
Vineet :
So there is a question that - I run a publication for chefs and hoteliers. My challenge is that the sector is so occupied that they do not have time to read free content unless it is very critical news. What if we lose our existing readers as we start charging, as it is an unorganized sector.
Ankit :
So thanks. I mean I think this question is quite interesting. So I would like to take this. So I think you will have to, you will have to identify your loyal audience from this. So first, if the sector is so occupied, you have to find out what exactly your audience is looking at in your content. So let's say if you're serving that content again coming back to the fundamentals, is it FOMO, is it belongingness or is it ROI? Let's assume in your case it is ROI where?
Let's say, let's say you're helping me understand how I can do my job better. You are helping me understand how I can manage, let's say my folks better, my customers better. How can I improve the experience better? Well, let's see. We're just collecting various chefs from the entire world and bringing them to one place and they're discussing their experiences and everything that that, you know, how they are experimenting with their customers or how they are giving new dishes or identifying new dishes.
It is where I think you can add value and it is a very niche you know niche area where definitely there is a scope of creating a community. So if you can take the Community route and where you are giving ROI at the same time it can be a good way. Now coming to your second question, what if we lose our existing readers. So see you will definitely see you should be ready for losing some of your readers but you have to like I said.
You have to ensure that you are engaging these customers on a regular basis, giving them various reasons to engage with your platform. So maybe you are just giving a free wall, you are saying that, OK, if you want to read this content, you're giving one article every week for free so that the audience that you are risking that, OK, they may lose them because of this, you would still be able to retain a lot of them.
Vineet:
I know while the questions are pouring in, unfortunately we're at the nick of time over here. So ladies and gentlemen, that was Ankit Dikshit for you. Thank you once again, Ankit, very helpful, very insightful, very informative. And for people on the webinar today, Ankit has very kindly agreed to, you know, offer consultancy services for publishers that are part of the webinar today. His contact information is right in front of you, so feel free to hit him up and, you know, schedule something that might work for. If you would like to download all the webinar series that Quintype has been arranging, you know, please hop on to quintype.com/blog. Our blog site would have all the previous two episodes. The episode from today should be up by tomorrow. And you know, if there are any questions at all, we'll try to take some of them offline and you know, connect with the folks one-on-one. But on that note.
I wanted to thank everyone you know for making the time today and thank you very much Ankit once again.