Writing in the American Press Institute's Media Center Deirdre Veldon, editor of Ireland.com contributes an enlightening analysis of how the Irish Times has adapted it's online wing to a subscription model in recent years.
"From banner and animated advertising, to subscriptions and micro payments, and down through streamlining, downsizing and convergence, we’ve tried them all, only to discover that there’s no one killer app for creating a long-term future for this business."
Interestingly, she reaffirms the valuable role of the much maligned online advertising model -
"Advertising has been the subject of much bad press, but it remains an important revenue stream, in the same way as it’s an important revenue stream in newspapers. It will remain especially important in the areas of free content on any Web site. However, there is a view that paying customers are more valuable to advertisers, and certain types of advertisers will find this formula works better for them. Again, there’s still a lot of work to be done by the industry in educating advertisers to the benefits of online".
This is a very important observation for all micropublishers. Don't underestimate the value of a paying subscriber to an advertiser. We have learned this happy lesson on GlobalGreyhounds.com. Now that new members are paying for access we have found that our advertisers value our audience much more than previously. If your website audience is fanatically interested in your (niche) subject area, to the degree that they are willing to pay, then they are much more likely to be interested in and buy a targetted advertiser's products or services.
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