Keep iterating

Developing reader revenues has been a goal for many publishers over the past few years, as advertising revenues have slowly declined.

In September 2020, TTG, a B2B title in the travel sector, launched a new membership offering, TTG+, charging people who had previously had free access to its content and offering them a host of extra benefits to encourage them in.

Two years later, at last week’s PPA Independent Publisher Conference, TTG Media CEO Daniel Pearce gave a progress report.

It had not been the transformative event they had hoped for. They were continuing with it, but the project was not getting the priority it once had.

The main challenge they faced was the fact that the travel sector is awash with huge amounts of easily available free information. Getting people to pay is a challenge.

On the plus side, they had learnt a huge amount about the dos and don’ts of creating reader revenue streams.

The lessons learnt included:

1. Every publishing market is different, so think twice before you try to replicate someone else’s success story in your own market.
2. If you haven’t started a paid-for strategy yet, then start now but be prepared to keep iterating.
3. Link your membership to your business / values proposition; people don’t buy into what you do, they buy into why you do it.
4. Give your paid-for strategy the resources it needs.
5. Keep it simple… In hindsight, Daniel says, they over-complicated the offer.
6. Give very careful consideration to what you put on either side of your paywall. TTG initially put news and their supplier directory behind; these are commodity items which they have since moved out in front.

Also, have realistic expectations. Daniel was very honest in saying that, so far, the scheme had not met theirs. Reading between the lines, that probably says more about their initial expectations than the scheme itself.

TTG+ might not be where they would have wanted it to be right now, but the learnings they have accrued along the way will ultimately be worth their weight in gold.