I read earlier that the New York Times will start charging readers to access their website. Previously, though you had to register to log in, reading the online content was unlimited and free.
http://www.slate.com/id/2242085/
Suddenly changing that situation is probably not going to change their fortunes in the way that they hope.
Now, I don’t know the newspaper industry very well, but this got me thinking about the information marketing industry that we’re in, and I think you’ll start to see this here, too.
After all, paying for a newspaper subscription IS information marketing, right? Newspapers are losing money right along with other businesses, and I understand the need to try and come up with a way to make a profit.
The problem is, if you’ve been giving away your product for free, and then you suddenly put a pricetag on it, all people see is robbery.
Bait and Switch!
Why does it cost something NOW, when it was FREE before?
If there’s no added value to go along with the cost, get ready to lose a LOT of readers. And it’s going to be even more of a problem since what they sell (News) is still available everywhere else for free.
The Times doesn’t really elicit enough brand loyalty from me to make it more worthwhile to pay than to just go read a different news site. I’m guessing I’d be in the majority there if you took a public poll.
So what’s this got to do with OUR businesses and the way WE market?
Well, as someone who has been known for “moving the free line” as a marketing tactic, I have to say to the NYT: “You’re doing it WRONG!” 
I think it’s really underlining the way that the internet has completely changed the way information flows in our society. The old mainstays of advertising are disappearing as technology allows people to get what they want while essentially SKIPPING the ads.
Big Media simply doesn’t know how to cope. They have HUGE overheads, and need to hit HUGE targets to please their shareholders.
And this is part of the reason that even in this economy, the internet presents a TREMENDOUS opportunity for the average Joe to make a living online.
How?
It’s reported that the NYT site network has 40 MILLION unique users, yet they can’t seem to make enough money to support themselves without charging?
I literally CHOKE thinking of what kind of marketing and sales I could generate with that kind of audience. I know people who regularly generate millions of dollars in sales with a mere fraction of that traffic.
With 40 million visitors I could make enough to buy a pony! Or a yacht! Or a yacht big enough to ride my pony on! 
NOT-A-DUMMY NOTE: I know that a newspaper has all kinds of journalistic guidelines and ethical interests to look out for. It’s not like they can start publishing affiliate promotions and compensated product reviews or anything. I get that.
The point is that big business continues to struggle to use the web, while advances in things like video, PPC, local search, etc. – These things all level the playing field for smaller buisinesses to carve out the same kind of REACH that newspapers USED to have.
The advantage is OURS and it’s GROWING.
And you can do it all on your own with a computer and some elbow grease. I mean, some effort. What you do with grease near your computer is your own business. 
Viva la Revolution!
Until next time,
Andy
P.S. Just out of curiosity, how would you feel if a free site you frequented suddenly started charging? Would you stick around and pay?
If you were the New York Times, what would you try to do to get more money coming in, rather than start charging readers? Let me know on the blog comments!
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You’re right on the money. When I heard they were going to start charging, I stopped visiting (make that 39,999,999 visitors… fewer sugar cubes for that yacht cruising pony of yours).
BTW – love your sense of humor… I consistently laugh myself silly when I read your stuff.
I agree 100% with you. I will stop visiting the site now that they are charging for it. I see no reason why they can’t do some related marketing to their lists. I wouldn’t want to bombarded with ads but surely so would be ok. Also why aren’t the selling PPC ads on their site? I’m sure there are a lot of ways they (and other papers) can generate income from their site and lists which wouldn’t violate journalistic ethics, would bring in income, would help defray the overhead of doing business without charging for site access.
I think newspapers, both print and online, are a necessity for a democratic society. It worries me that many have gone out of print. I hope those remaining can find a way to adapt to the new way we get our information, find ways of making money from them and thrive.
Betty
Andy..not to question your expertise..because I know you really know your stuff, but why isn’t this just the NYT way of adding “continuity” to their business?..isn’t that what all internet marketers end up going for at some point for long term and overall more cash flow?..With that many subscribers ,,even with only 10% hanging around and paying,,that still could be huge!..your thoughts?
This can not be monetised as continuity. Why? because everything that they report is freely available at other FREE! news sites on the internet. I know you might add that what alot of the guru’s use for continuity sites is also freely available on the net too; yes the majority of it is; but it is difficult or near impossible to find, therefore continuity works especially in the internet marketing world.
The NYT seriously have to rethink their marketing strategies especially with that number of visitors. Lets also not forget that the visitors they are getting, will also be spending time at the site and visiting numerous pages too.
No brainer.
Regards Paul
Walt, please ALWAYS question my “expertise” – it’s what justifies my drinking, etc.
To your point, I have NO objection for charging for content, but… When some channels are paid (Physical Paper, Kindle, etc.) but you allow your main readership to visit a web site and consume all of your content for free, you MUST have an incentive to charge anything.
Meaning, I would have gladly paid for their content if they didnt GIVE it to me for years and years. Its not a question of ethics or business practices or anything like that – it’s more along the lines of “How do we get this toothpaste back in the tube and charge for every future squeeze”.
I know PLENTY of smart companies that continue to drive BIG ad dollars and CPA, CPV, PPV monies by giving great content, and they ALSO offer premium services that I GLADLY pay for because they entitle me to… well… premium stuff.
So, this is just about their positioning. They SPRUNG it on their readers. They should have taken the path of “Rolling them over slowly” and rolled out Premium services first, looked at the uptake, then decided in what way they should proceed.
Yesterday’s toothpaste?
Sorry Andy, they’re not just selling the news.
They’re selling the newest news.
They’re also selling (via their brand & reputation) “the truth”.
The newest, truest, most important news.
Information is everywhere and free, so what’s important and who do you trust?
Who will sort through it all for you? For a small fee?
They don’t even have to spend time and content trying to convince the user or back every little snippet of their info up with charts and graphs…this has already supposedly been done…by them…for why would they jeopordize their reputation?
There’s watchdogs in place, and people’s jobs on the line, right?
When was the last time a news reporter tried to convince you of something?
They just TELL you what’s just happened. Gimme the good stuff…ahhhh
Up to the minute, occuring anywhere…all their information channels are in place.
Just like any 15 year old kid sitting on the youtube homepage hitting F5 for the latest posts….who noone’s listening to and noone would believe.
This is the only reason the information that’s broadcast still has any weight to it.
The disturbing thing is that it’s just gonna go up up up up up up up up up up in price for those consumers that believe that mainstream media is the only “true” source.
‘Cause really, the whole model of selling the advertising space that reaches their users and subscribers comes from them, so it’s not like they’re not doing THAT already.
I AGREE that their model sucks!
Love your stuff btw!
Mark
I agree wholeheartedly about now paying for information that was once free. I think they are completely missing the point.
There are so many different ways to monetize 40 million visitors, especially when they have a recognizable brand.
They could publish other more editorial style publications – focused specifically on the areas of the newspaper travel, life, business/movies, sports. For example, “The New York Times Presents – The reader’s guide to Fiji”. Celebrity guides. They could sell photographs.
They could ask for reader submissions, and compile those into publications they could sell.
They could do a video based membership site. There could be community contests, journalism trainings.
They could offer alternative services such as proofreading, copywriting, etc.
They could branch into whatever they want to with an audience that big, I just don’t get it.
With 40 million unique visitors you and your pony could have matching yachts!
Bad News!
I have subscribed for years but only glance at the headlines and read an occasional article. It is good to keep in touch with their news but I can get a lot of it for free on thedailybeast.com so will not pay to subscribe.
I am with you, Andy. If these morons can’t figure out how to make money with this many visitors / customers, they should just go out of business. Wish i had a fraction of this traffic.
I miss your videos – I miss your videos – I miss your videos – I miss your videos
Andy,
you are right on the money. As with all things on the web now, free content generates visitors, visitors can be monetised it just depends on how you market to your audience. In the case of the NYT they are oblivious as to how to monetise the web to generate the revenue to subsidise their content, and unfortunately for the NYT they will soon succumb to the frailties they have shown, many a bluechip company has failed on the web, causing the financial markets into difficulties, it is now inevitable that the NYT unless it has a major rethink; or employs the right persons to run their online endeavours will soon become history, after all newspapers used to be the kings of paid advertising.
Kind Regards
Paul
Newspapers are following in the foot steps of the music industry, perhaps its hard to be forward looking when your head is up your backside. Maybe they are following the lead of the Wall Street Journal. After twenty plus years as a subscriber, the WSJ recently sent me a letter raising my annual print subscription from $109./yr to $120.03/quarter. For the math challenged, that’s $480.12 per year(I know, your probably asking yourself, how did they come up with $0.12?). It would appear the sleazy robber baron from down under, R. Murdoch, wants to drive subscribers to the WSJ online edition so he can charge as much as he can in a piece-meal fashion for access to the news.
From Obviousman: NYT needs exclusive, premium content to justify a fee.
From NotSoObviousman: Take a page from National Geographic and don’t get subscribers, get members to the New York Times Society.
as I clicked the link to come here an comment, I was thinking about that story someone (I think Rich Schefren) told…
…it goes something like this:
What if the place you worked at had free coffee, and then one day they put in a free vending machine that cost, say, 15 cents per cup…
…there would be outrage, choruses of “cheap bastards”, riots, etc.
ok, now what if each friday a guy brought in a starbucks for you and you gave him the money for it.
Some grande macchiato with half-caff de-caff cafferine zeta-jones-douglas with cream that costs $4.95.
It’s your friday ritual and you’re happy with it.
One friday, the coffee guy comes in and says he’d won $10 on a lottery scratch card so the coffees are on him.
Well, this guy is THE MAN! the best guy ever, when all along you’ve been paying for coffee and he gave you a free one, once.
So NYT is the employer that gave free coffee that’s now 15c.
does that make sense?
Maybe that’ll help Walt?
Generate income without charging subscription fees, to me it’s so obvious it’d be like walking into a street lamp cause you were looking right at it. Doh!
Charge for the appearance of advertising on free pages or visitor must subscribe to suppress the advertising. Doh! Doh! Doh! (that should hurt right?)
Yes I agree with Mike that it smacks of the music industry’s ignorance of changing times and what the hell to do with a gold rush under your nose. I worked as a senior exec in the music industry for a number of years and their way of thinking seemed to be very old-school protectionist-based.
Then along come Apple, who took full advantage of the gold rush and made it cool at the same time (Disclaimer: I own no Apple devices) – and who are unbelievably protectionist but somehow manage to mask that with “cool” hehe. But to their credit they made a comeback and worked out how to profit …
NYT needs to re-invent itself. As has been pointed out, from a marketing perspective, having a “product” that is easily available free elsewhere and that folks are used to consuming “free” (there are ads) doesn’t make for a secure business model.
If I were them I would be frantically surveying and researching while simultaneously and rapidly segmenting the 40m. I’d offer a “bumped up” membership, still free but with more content, based on permission to receive NYT exclusive offers as a starter.
And they should hire Terez, cos he/she has a smart list of options already compiled.
Oh – in celebration of my recommendation, Terez would offer me unfettered access to their segmented list of health-conscious subscribers so I can do me a mass-mailing and win myself a pony and a yacht.
@Mike: I’m from down-under and we gratefully disposed of “sleazy robber baron” and gave him to you in 1985. *washes hands of sleazy robber baron type behavior”
Nice stuff Andy, as always.
Robert
Of course you are right Andy and it just goes to show how at “big business” level there are many that still just don’t get it. I have given presentations to some very large corporate entities recently and when you start in on some of the basics of how to operate on the internet and what people expect you just hit a brick wall.
The amazing part is their sense of “rightness” in the face of no or diminishing returns!
Hi Andy,
Hope your “new” life is going well. Thank you very much for your informative post, as always.
Yes, I will definitely stop going to that site. It’s like a slap on my face. I agree with you that they could do something better than charging access fee with those 40 million users.
Sincerely,
Mike
The biggest problem with newspapers going “online” is they are still operating with a print publication mentality where the editors controlled the paper – instead it should be the reader.
They are limiting themselves by continuing to view the content they create as a finished complete unit (i.e. a daily newspaper once it leaves the printing press where a reader is forced to buy the whole thing, and no ones knows what articles they actually read and which ones they skip completely.)
When newspapers get out of this mentality it opens them up to do a lot of great things, like:
1. Paying journalists based on the performance of their article. If you articles don’t get any views, why should you get paid the same as someone who does generate traffic. (views means ad impression, which means revenues.)
2. Firing their old school editors and hiring editors that will consider # of page views per topic and reader comments when choosing what the paper writes about next. Your readers are the best editors you will ever had. Its message to market match in real time.
3. Stop viewing articles as complete once published. The article should be the launching point of the discussion not the destination. Readers comments should be treated like callers to a radio show. The ones with quality insight should be broadcast to the world and the original author should continue on from the commenters insights and take their articles to the reader generated destination.
4. Newspapers need to stop thinking of themselves as the old school teacher dictating the news and opinions of the day. And assume the role of the older intelligent local at the English pub down the way, ready to engage you in a thoughtful discussion where you don’t just listen but contribute.
5. Finally, newspapers need to get very aggressive about creating revenue arrangements with the top advertising agencies doing banner remarketing. Through the use of cookies for visitors to specific articles there is tremendous potential for extra revenue without charging a fee to the end reader.
The NYT actually has two problems. #1 is that their strong liberal “news” orientation is no longer sustaining them. problem #2 is part of #1. Their reporting overall having become suspect, and costing them revenue form the physical paper, they have to get money from somewhere. That somewhere, with the same lack of intelligence killing the paper itself, now wants to kill the website.
Just like Air America, what they are selling (political opinion columns and reporting) does not have a large market. The real market is for all the extras, like garden, travel, etc. Of course, by blindly following the old model, they will kill their Golden Goose. As marketers, we have to be careful that we don’t act the same way.
We cam make money, but only if we make sure the right things are where we charge people. It has to be the place where there is real value. It doesn’t matter whether electronic, or physical, the value is what we sell.
The NYT isn’t the average blogger. I think they have every right to charge for the product they produce. Those who value the information will be willing to pay.
My marketing thoughts would be for them to offer a limited free edition, but charge for the complete version. This tactic may lead the free readers into paying readers.
Hi Andy.
First of all I would like to complement you on your fine writing in your e-mail that piqued my curiosity that brought me to your blog. Hopefully I have learnt an extra trick for my own copy!
As the late Jim Rohn stated; “It all comes down to the value that we bring to the market place”.
NetZero started most of their marketing with the “internet should be free” and we don’t charge you slogans. Then, after they got millions of people using the service…
Sorry, we would like to charge you now. Forget what we used to say.
I would not give them two cents.
The problem is direction in marketing. At one point in time news paper marketing was simple.
The goals
1. Get subscribers
2. Sell the stories
3. Sell ad space by the inch or by the page and everything in-between.
The problem today is papers have lost focus they need to understand convergence, demographics and psychographic then capitalize using readership count. Do sell subscription to the end user, sell the end users eye time on your site PPV ads. The NYT can make money from users clicking on ads PPC or email updates with ads. Know your users and profit..
Problem solved please send payment to pay pal. Haha
Ger
The “big media” players, and newspapers especially, have to deal with a huge shift that’s already happened, where they didn’t keep up.
When there was no web, and I got a newspaper every day, I flipped through every page in the content sections of the paper, scanning for stuff I wanted to read. They got to show me ads on every page as I flipped through the paper. A lot of the content was of no interest to me, but enough was of interest to enough people to get them to subscribe, and all those extra pages were an opportunity to sell advertising.
Now, I scan the stories on news aggregator sites like Google News. I still read the stories that appeal to me, but the news “paper” can’t show me ads unless I read *their* story.
The big shift is over:
1) We find the stories we want to read in a different way – the newspaper is no longer the portal to the news.
2) The basic “unit” is no longer a page or a section of the newspaper, it’s a story – and everyone has the same news stories.
ESPN has a working model for premium content combined with free news content – their “Insider” membership is an easy, cheap decision for those who want all of the analysis, rumors, etc. News “papers” like the New York Times have the resources to create premium content, but the best way to sell that premium content is to relentlessly drive people to your free content.
ESPN has a number of advantages the the NYT doesn’t have, because unlike ESPN, NYT can’t repurpose the same content for television, radio, and web. NYT has one channel (print) that’s shrinking and bleeding money, and they haven’t figured out how to make money on the web.
But damn, how hard could it be? They only need to make few pennies per visit, no?
The NYT, despite also losing readers due to filtering their news more and more ideologically, could make money on their web site by simply packaging a variety of content into high quality eBooks and selling those to their 40 million viewers.
Guy Kawasaki collected up blog posts and published an entire book of those blog posts. He says considerable work went into this and I believe him, but the essence of the book (titled: “Reality Check”) was repurposed blog posts.
NYT journalists and analysts could come up with some repurposed or even hybrid content that would be “all in one place” i.e. an eBook. With an enormous staff of creatives, NYT could fairly easily and quickly include appealing layouts, images, perhaps even a bit of audio or video INSIDE the eBook.
Many possibilities here that their readers would pay small change for ($7 up to $147 perhaps) but with so many readers and this marketed correctly, they should make some decent $ on this. Their existing viewers and not shunned away by charging for content overall and those who want quality content aggregated with an appealing look will be okay on paying for it.
I’m choking too on the possibilities. Stop trying to solve your money problems NYT with broad strokes and appeal to what folks want on the net by slicing and dicing your way back to viability. Not sure why I spent the time here helping them solve this as I (and millions of others) consider their news ethics to have eroded. But hey, Andy asked…