The great payment model debate...

While publishers are still searching for a consensus on charging for digital content, there are some encouraging signs for those who have already taken the decision to put content behind a paywall.

A few months ago we helped Britain’s biggest-selling evening paper, the Express & Star and its sister publication the Shropshire Star, put some of its content behind a paywall, using our digital content management and publishing system, Knowledge, which manages content production for print, web, tablet and smart phone.

The Times  and Sunday Times recently announced that it was up to 100,000 paying customers on their websites and other major news organisations are heading down the paid-for route.

What counts here in revenue terms, of course, is whether the sites are making as much from subscribers as they were from advertising when they were free to view.

The suggestion is they are – more in fact – and the numbers are growing steadily month on month.

Others are not so keen on charging for content, online at least – but they’re reaping rewards in other ways. The Mail Online is reported to have topped more than 77miillion unique browsers in May, making it by far the biggest UK publisher online and possibly pushing the BBC into second place at home and challenging the New York Times worldwide.

Figures for the Guardian, Telegraph and Independent were all up for the same period, too.

The Mail does charge a subscription for its iPad app after an initial trial period and the numbers seem to be holding up there, too.

As yet, though, nobody really seems to have settled on a definitive payment model with publishers still exploring a range of revenue opportunities, from joint print and digital subscriptions to digital only to part free/part paid-for.

Another unknown is the likely effect of news sales aggregators like Zinio and the forthcoming Apple Newsstand one-stop-shop, which will perform a role not unlike a high street newsagent in offering a number of titles under one digital roof, as it were.

Although this sort of arrangement should make subscription easier for the subscriber, it will still mean publishers conceding a fair slice of their revenue to Apple.

The arrival of the Financial Times’s HTML5-based digital publication presents an opportunity for publishers to try pushing their own model particularly if it was allied to the sort of digital subscription piece we offer through our NCS product.

Web apps through HTML5 are something we’re keen to embrace, partly for that reason, but mainly because it gives us the chance to offer publishers an even easier route to digital publishing – with or without print – that  will maintain the look and feel of a brand across multiple digital platforms.

Other ideas include charging only for specialised, long-form journalism or collections of historical or subject-specific material, and there’s even a model which attempts to give individual articles a market price and charges on the number of times the story’s read.

Interestingly, we might have a web app for that, too...   

The younger generation - representing the future of business...

As the father of two teenage girls, one just about to go to university and another entering sixth form, I sometimes feel that young people are given a bit of a hard time by their ‘elders and betters’ – particularly those who seem to think that everything’s too easy for a generation of kids who have no drive, little ambition and almost nothing to offer prospective employers.

Maybe I’m lucky because neither of mine lacks that bit of get up and go which means one’s get-up-and-going to study medical neuroscience at one end of the UK or other (grades allowing!) and the other can’t wait to get-up-and-get-gone when her turn comes.

They do – and I’m sure will continue to – make me proud, but they’re not the only ones.

At PCS we’ve taken a strategic decision to encourage young people to join the business because what’s good for them is good for us.

We have a group of under-25s who represent the future of the business over a number of departments – whether that’s in programming and support; marketing and design; or even in accounting.

They come from a range of backgrounds and abilities, but we value all of their contributions. We’re not making it easy for them, they’re responding to a challenge.

Some employers might just think that ‘young’ equals ‘cheap’ – and let’s be fair, while they’re learning their trade, our young guns shouldn’t be breaking the bank financially. For us, actually, that’s not the point – although to be fair, it helps...

For us it’s a chance to bring people into the business to learn its culture and hopefully pick up good habits in terms of everything from customer service to an appreciation of what it takes to keep an operation like ours moving forward.

It’s an investment – and we can already see it beginning to pay off with some of the key contributions they’re making and have made. Some have come as apprentices or interns and we’ve been happy to convert them into full time roles.

Some of what they do is very visible – in our marketing materials or the way we present PCS to the wider industry.

Some of it is hidden, maybe within lines of code that users never see, but without which they couldn’t do what they do, and some of it is seen by only a handful of people when they call down for some hands-on support as a deadline approaches.

They’re all here for a purpose, working in important roles, developing their skills and, hopefully, helping PCS to grow.

I see no lack of drive or ambition in any of them. At some point that may come back to bite us when they perhaps want to put their skills into action elsewhere, but in the meantime we can only encourage their development, for their benefit – and for ours.

Like it, but link it...

This week, I’m handing the reins of Above the Cloud to PCS’s Marketing Intern Matt Cole, who argues that social media is a useful tool, but should be just one strand of a company’s overall marketing strategy...

After sharing an article titled “How do you prioritise social media metrics” with the social media marketing group on LinkedIn and reflecting on some of the comments it generated, it got me thinking about the ways social media can, and really should be, utilised by all organisations and the reasons why.

Ok, so implementing and running a social media marketing plan is going to require a few hours here and there of someone’s time. However, as I once read, we managed to make room for emails when they first came on the scene, and now they are an everyday part of our office lives.

The fact that a social media marketing plan can be implemented with no additional financial investment, let alone the worldwide reach it can provide, should make it scream out to businesses as an opportunity that is too good to miss, whether that’s to raise awareness or actually make sales.

In fact, I think it is getting to the stage that if you don’t get marketing via social media, you really will be missing out, and not just through having a profile that sits there, but by really using the numerous channels on offer and engaging with your audiences.

Here at PCS, we are in the process of fully implementing our plan via Twitter, LinkedIn and this very blog.

On that note, I think there is a misconception at times that only B2C organisations can fully utilise social media. For me, B2B organisations can use social media as well as anyone; it is just that a different approach is required.

If we were a B2C organisation we would certainly be using Facebook within our integrated social media marketing. Due to the overall clientele it attracts and the way they use Facebook, it is a much more effective social media channel for B2C organisations than B2B organisations like ours.

For example, offering a 10% discount on a software system for the best wall comment wouldn’t really tie in with our operations.

We can use Twitter to build up awareness by providing news and information that is of relevance to our potential customers. We’ll then use this blog to go into greater detail about industry matters and finally we can use LinkedIn to join in or lead discussions among our relevant communities.

Making sales in the B2B world is a much more drawn out process than B2C sales; people won’t just walk to their nearest software supplier and purchase an editorial system off the shelf.

We have to add value to what we do - and being recognised as a thought leader in areas that are of interest to customers is important to B2B organisations and could really assist with sales activities. Or at least we hope so...

If anything, the engaging nature of social media could well be a more effective tool for B2B organisations, especially if it’s used correctly.

But it’s a big old social media world out there and it’s important to enter it knowing not only what you want to achieve for your business, but also what you want your business to achieve within that sphere.

The content you can deliver via social media, and the way you use it, can really shape how your business is seen by the world so it is important to ensure your social media activities tie in with your overall business activities, so, targeting is very important.

They say there are more than 600 million Facebook users. Twitter is expected to reach 200 million users by the end of 2011 and LinkedIn has also passed the 100 million user mark.

No single organisation is going to try to target each of these users, and B2B organisations are going to be much more niche in their operations. So for social media marketing to offer an ROI, it is vital that content is aimed at relevant target markets. It is important to stay on track and continue to focus on those targets.

Now PropertyNet, PCS’s property advertising creation system, is allowing estate agents to get in on the social media act too, enabling property listings to be displayed on agent’s Facebook pages and via tweets from their Twitter accounts.

In terms of marketing potential, it’s a great fit. Given the nature of buying houses and the number of people on social media, there’s a huge, real time market place for agents to promote their properties.

It’s an example of using social media to actively promote and sell. And maybe this approach couldn’t be completely replicated by another organisation – it would depend on what the organisation wants to do, how it goes about its business, what it sells and who it sells to.

There is a great opportunity to be had with social media for organisations to market, but this opportunity needs to be harnessed in the correct way that is right for the business, because to be most effective social media should first fit in with the overall objectives of the business.