12 Feb Is the Future of Online Content Paid Subscriptions?

You may have seen the news this week that TechCrunch is launching a new paid subscription service.  The service, called Extra Crunch, is aimed at “tackling a lot of the practical nuts and bolts issues that confront founders, entrepreneurs, analysts and tech workers.”  The service is $15/month or $150/year, and in addition to increased editorial content, it’s offering members benefits like discounted tickets to events and resources to help start a business.

The Latest in a Long Line

Extra Crunch may be surprising to loyal followers of Tech Crunch, which has existed as a free news platform for almost 15 years.  But they’re hardly the first publisher to make a move like this.  In January, Barstool Sports launched their premium Gold platform at $100 for the year.  Within three days they reported having more than 10,000 paying subscribers.   One of our favorite sites for tech and business news, Digiday, has a tiered subscription with a slew of benefits including a members-only Slack community.  Noted newspaper talent poacher The Athletic has made waves in the sports journalism world by staffing up all over the country.

Trying a Different Path

The past few weeks haven’t been kind to some of the big players in the publishing industry.  BuzzFeed and Vice were hit particularly hard early this year.  In 2018, plenty of brands took a nosedive after they tried too hard to play by Facebook’s rules.  When Facebook changed the rules, a lot of people lost jobs, and companies went under.

The bottom-line:  more and more publishers are turning to the membership model as a way to rely less on advertising and fickle algorithms.  In theory, building a paid subscriber model is great.  It keeps the lights on with a constant revenue stream, and it connects publishers directly with their devoted fans in a way that social media no longer can.

Content to Fill the Subscription Buckets

As the paid subscription space gets more crowded, it’s going to be harder for companies to compete for the end user’s dollar.  Paying for one subscription service is one thing; but what happens when all five of your favorite sites are suddenly behind a paywall?  Will you pony up the cash or just walk away?  Brands need more compelling content to keep people interested, and to hook new subscribers.

Meanwhile, the organic social space is also more crowded than ever.  It’s as hard as it’s ever been to reach your audience without paying on Facebook, and the cost of ads is out-pacing the attention share of the audience on the platform.

Solidifying Your Value Prop

What does this all mean for you and your business?  It’s more important than ever to know who your audience is, and what about your business they find valuable.  Whether you’re charging for your content or not, the competition for attention is fierce.  You need to understand what you’re good at, how it matches with your audience’s needs, and hammer that point constantly.

A great resource to help workshop this is Derek Halpern’s e-book on building a subscriber base.  It has some exercises that we’ve found valuable to go through, and some things you should think about before going all-in on a content strategy – paid or not.