Kansas paper shows how paywalls can benefit smaller publications - Entrepreneur Generations

One of the biggest questions in journalism right now is how to bring in more revenue. Though paywalls work well for larger publications, can they work for local publications? According to the Shawnee Mission Post in Kansas, the answer is yes, Christine Schmidt reports for Harvard University's Nieman Lab.

The Post, in Kansas City exurb Prairie Village, has had its content behind a paywall for two years. The paper has three full-time employees: husband and wife Jay Senter and Julia Westhoff, and reporter Leah Wankum. A fourth full-time employee will join in January. "After building an audience over ten years and growing its subscriber base, they plan to trim their emphasis on advertising next year, Schmidt reports. Because subscription revenue has proven so reliable, the paper will cut ads by 20 percent next year.

The plan is sensible, Schmidt writes: "Look, business models are different for different markets (and not all local models work in all local markets), but if The New York Times is seeing its digital advertising dip, advertising may not be the boat that a smaller outlet wants to tie itself to."

Westhoff said that many small publishers don't understand how valuable their work is to the community and don't force locals to acknowledge that value. "For us, [introducing the paywall] was at the breaking point of 'we’re going to do this or we’re going to be done,'" Westhoff told Schmidt. "We are really grateful that it did work out. For us, after having doing the site for seven years, that needed to happen."

The Post launched its paywall in the summer of 2017. Within three months the paper "had hit the milestone of 1,000 subscribers at $5.95 per month — the goal Senter had set for its first year. More civic-info coverage replaced restaurant closures and car crashes, and the Post has now grown to 2,650 fully paying subscribers. That’s an annual run rate of nearly $190,000," Schmidt reports. "The Post hasn’t tweaked its subscription price much since introducing it — though the first month is now 99 cents — and a 430-respondent subscriber satisfaction survey in January showed that a broad majority is happy with the value that the subscription provided."

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2Oq8u2B Kansas paper shows how paywalls can benefit smaller publications - Entrepreneur Generations

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