Is pay-per-article a tricky path for publishers?
A few months ago, I came across this article on Micropayments for Indian Publishers.
I felt that the article missed talking about the types of content that will work in the Micropayments model. So, I wrote a LinkedIn post explaining the importance of content. I also shared the learnings of my experience with a pay-per-article news product.
I am republishing that post as a Substack post here. Here it goes…
Pre-read: From 2017 to 2020, We ran a pay-per-article news product called APPAPPO. It was the most exciting time in my career. We solved new problems each day to give more and more value to users and the business. We handpicked more than 11,000 articles from Vikatan’s archives(parent company) and offered the best and relevant content for users each day.
In Short, Micropayment or pay-per-article wallet-based model doesn't work and could take a long time to break even. It's tougher if there is no curation, and if it has content from just one publisher. But it did help us find the content readers wanted from us!
Learnings(for publishers)
1. Content - Not every piece of content is going to work the same in the pay-per-article model. It's the content that decides how the product is built. When we put a price tag on an article, readers subconsciously add more expectations and value to the content before buying or reading it. More expectations = More Judgement. So, we should be aware of what content we deliver to the users. Nothing will kill a Micropayments product than disappointing users after consuming the value. Try communicating how the reader benefits by reading the article to address this.
2. Curation - Add more value by curating several pieces of content, and building a new storytelling experience. Trust me, this will offer more value to content than the single article approach. This is easy for editorial folks. Curation will give more fact-checked information to a user than any other source. Put together content from expert journalists, and build a collection of stories on relevant topics.
3. Micropayments model is a long-term volume game for publishers. But, it offers only short-term value for readers. See how interesting this problem is. If you want to build this in-house, build it around this perspective. Get ready for a long journey. You'll learn more about readers from this approach than any other approach. It will take a long time to break even. Do it lean with open-minded people.
4. If you go with the 'wallet' way, retaining paid users is the most difficult challenge. In this model, A paid reader will be very, very choosy about the articles they will read. The less amount they have in wallet, the more expectation on every single piece of article. Once they decide to buy an article, they will try and understand whether they got the right value from it.
5. Product - The approach will be different for each publisher. Like I said in the first point, content decides the product/approach in this model. You'll have to work on the 'right' content for your readers.
6. People - If you have a vendor for this solution, well and good. Less effort and more results. But if you build it inside, do it with the people from editorial. Of course more cost, more effort but the output will be bespoke for your readers.
7. Users - Talk to readers daily. When we take the Micropayments route, we subconsciously increase our relationship with readers. They'll feel more connected to your brand, your authors. They'll feel more driven to give feedback or raise complaints. Have a support team but not a CRM team. Product people should talk to readers daily. Readers know what they want, but they don't know to communicate what they actually need. The only way to solve this is to pick up the phone and talk with them about their experiences with the product. They actually love to talk to us for hours(if the approach is right) than answering Google forms in two mins. They aren't user IDs, they are humans.
8. Psychology - Unfortunately, pay-per-article is too much mental effort for the readers. They'll mentally process their actions before reading and buying. The only way to work around this is to do it with as little friction as possible. Use Trial and error approach to find and solve the friction points.
9. Eventually, Your 'addicted' micropayment readers will ask for Netflix-style subscription packs. They will get bored by the single payments and ask for weekly/monthly subscriptions. Upsell from here!
The above points are from my own experiences. I could be having confirmation bias. But the truth is as a publisher, you'll learn a lot from this approach.
Content - What works?
Relevance - Does the user really need to see/read this story today?
Nostalgia - Feeds readers' curiosity. They love to know what happened on the same day/week in the past. Connect the past with the present and help the readers predict the future.
Story-telling - Most engaged stories will have a great story-telling approach. This is interesting because readers' have no way of knowing how good the story is until they buy the article. We used to write a small description*(we called it 'punchline')* below the title for every article. This is to help the reader know why should he/her read the article.
Users are tired of too much information these days. They are moving towards consuming only the ‘right’ amount of content for them. Remember how reading newspapers feel makes you feel ‘enough’ content for the day? Can micropayments help the reader to consume only ‘enough’ content? Time will tell!
As a reader, what’s your take on the pay-per-article model? Share your opinion in the comments.
Disclaimer: My thoughts on micropayments keep changing as the ecosystem evolves. So I will update the article in the future.