BtoB Media Business - February 2011 - (Page 14)

SALES & MARKETING Sales & Marketing Finding a happy medium Business publishers grapple with monetizing apps for iPad and other hand-held devices BY MATTHEW SCHWARTZ AD VANTAGES M year, said Charlotte Gordon director-strategy edia brands are moving quickly to and marketing at IHT, a property of The New develop mobile apps for the iPad, York Times Co. She declined to comment on smartphones, tablets and other pricing, the number of initial downloads of hand-held devices. But publishers are using the app or if the app might be cross-marketed different strategies to monetize the content with other Times Co. products. streaming through their apps. (The New York Times is expected to adopt Business Journals, a division of American a metered model for its online content someCity Business Journals, is deploying a “freemi- time early this year.) um” model to market the apps for its titles, “There may well be opportunities for apps said Jeff Sauls, senior VP-marketing and busi- that are advertiser-funded, but I would fully ness development. expect publishers to want to create paid modThe apps are free of charge els around their core, premiand provide access to breaking um content,” Gordon said. news, but users have to pony “This is the direction the marup for premium content tradiket is already taking with tionally available via the compaid news apps and, increaspany’s weekly print products. ingly, pay wall models for the “Our product philosophy Web. This is understandable is we have a certain level of since quality content has our content that is always costs attached to it. That’s free and then we have other why we’re being clear that pieces of unique, valuable the IHT app is free, but only content that justify a subfor a limited period.” scription,” Sauls said. “For us Jeff Sauls, senior VP-marketing Crain Communications and business development, to put a price tag [on the app] Inc., which publishes Media Business Journals just because it’s a different Business, charged from the medium is setting the wrong expectations.” get-go for the iPad app for its AutoWeek Business Journals is rolling out mobile apps brand. A one-year subscription of 26 issues for its 41 city titles throughout the first quarter. costs $4.99, compared with a current print The strategy debuted in the St. Louis market in offer of $29.95 annually; a single-issue for December. So far, there have been “thousands” the iPad is 99 cents, compared with a newsof downloads of the St. Louis app, Sauls said, stand price of $3.99 for the print edition. declining to be more specific. The AutoWeek iPad app replicates its print While individual apps for the city titles counterpart, but offers additional features were rolled out in 2009, the latest generation and video. of apps includes significant upgrades, such Since its debut in October, there have been as new touch features and easier navigation about 15,000 downloads of single issues, with to categorize content by industry and/or top- a 20% conversion rate to annual subscripic. “Each of the title’s local sales teams has tions, said Dutch Mandel, editorial director customers who are ready to buy the [new] and associate publisher of AutoWeek. app in terms of advertising and sponsor“We wanted a happy medium [with the ship,” Sauls said. app],” Mandel said, referring to pricing. The International Herald Tribune (220,000 “We went with a PDF-based app because we circ.) in late November rolled out a free iPad can count exact replicas in our circulation app, which is similar in design to the print numbers, as opposed to the HTML5, which version of the international daily and is avail- has the potential to remove content, includable in all 40 App Stores worldwide. ing advertising. We offered our advertisers For now the IHT app is free, but the paper the opportunity to make their ads interactive will start charging for the product later this as well.” “For us to put a price tag [on the app] just because it’s a different medium is setting the wrong expectations.” tephen Lincoln in January was appointed publisher of the New York Law Journal, a publication (12,000 circ.) that dates back to 1888. Lincoln, who succeeded senior VP George Dillehay, was previously VP-group publisher of ALM’s National Magazines Group. BIO Media Business: What is your sales STEPHEN LINCOLN and marketing strategy to enhance Publisher, New York the brand’s transi- Law Journal, tion from print-first ALM to digital? Stephen Lincoln: We’re going to do a number of focus groups and a great deal of research to find out how attorneys in New York are getting information these days to best inform the redesign of the website, which hasn’t been redesigned since 2007. We also want to take advantage of all the new technologies and capabilities offered. MB: Do you have any new products in the pipeline? Lincoln: We’re talking about doing a daily online video that will have the news of the day. [Later this quarter,] we’re launching the Smart Litigator Research product, which will combine news and data with enhanced research capabilities and exclusive law case content. MB: What are the biggest marketing challenges in the legal sector? Lincoln: Because the legal profession took some pretty big hits in the last couple of years, legal vendors feel the need to better position themselves. The challenge for us is that the positioning is done in so many different ways and that the marketing pie is divided up into many —M.S. slices. Transitioning from a print-first model S 14 | Media Business | February 2011 | mediabusinessonline.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - February 2011

Btob Media Business - February 2011
Contents
Upfront
State of B-to-B Media
Social, Mobile Drive New Lead-Gen Techniques
Sales & Marketing
Audience Development
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - February 2011