Category: Metered Paywall

What if someone tries to get around your paywall?

There’s Always Someone… The success of a leaky/metered paywall is tied to the ability to offer a few free articles per browsing session so that your content is fully indexed by Google and can be shared in social media. Generally publishers are enjoying paid digital subscriptions by metering the content and accepting the fact that […]

How To Protect And Profit From Your Unique Content

A Different Kind of Content All content is valuable. Fortunately, just about any kind of content can be metered. Take a look at Automobl. Automobl is a new Canadian car comparison site. Founder Paul Webster has spent a lot of time compiling data on every trim available of more than 175 cars currently on the […]

Why You Should Shift Your Focus To Inbound Marketing

A New Perspective All successful publications have found ways of marketing that work for them: print mailings and cold calls, tracking subscriber (and ex-subscriber) behavior. These outbound methods are valid and will continue to be so. But when you switch to a digital publication, you open up a whole new world of opportunity and your […]

How To Integrate Your Paywall And Your Third Party Systems

Don’t Panic! The idea of transferring your entire print subscription database to a digital edition can be terrifying for an established publication. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Just ask Louisiana Sportsman. Louisiana Sportsman has been catering to Southern fisherman and hunters for nearly 40 years. They’ve had a long time to build up a subscription […]

How To Turn Your Digital Issue Into Your Sales Funnel

A New Sales Engine The transition into digital publication has been rough on newspapers. (This year’s New York Press Association Spring Conference has made that clear.) Your digital front end isn’t just a supplement to your print edition – it’s the engine that drives all your sales, digital and print alike. It’s time to put […]

The Problem With Password-Sharing

The Black Market of Content You spend a lot of time and effort on crafting amazing content. You want your subscribers to be excited about it. You want them to talk about it and share it. A good metered paywall like Leaky Paywall will allow just that: broad scale sharing over social media without compromising […]

How To Convert Subscribers With A Coupon

Everybody Loves A Bargain There’s a quick, easy way to encourage people to subscribe: add a coupon. Coupons are compelling to readers – everyone loves a good deal. They reduce the friction of sales funnel, giving your readers an excuse to finally subscribe. And they’re incredibly easy to create. Digiday, which publishes content on digital […]

How To Protect Your Content With Category Restrictions

Leaky Paywall Makes Your Life Just A Little Easier A metered paywall is a necessity for a digital publication. It protects your content without locking away its value from the search engines and social media outlets that drive reach and visibility. A flexible metered paywall like Leaky Paywall can do even more. It allows you […]

How a drumming magazine leapt into digital subscriptions with resounding success

The Project – A Proud Print History Modern Drummer is a comprehensive drumming magazine with a long history of compelling issues. Interviews with titans and rising stars, product reviews, tools and tricks of trade, reflections on the history of music – Modern Drummer has been providing the drumming brotherhood with a wealth of treasure for […]

What happens when you lock down your paywall?

Visitor traffic plummets but subscription conversions increase four fold. What should you do? Watch this video [4:06] to find what the Wall Street Journal discovered and what options you have.     Get our free guide for publishers: The Subscription Accelerator™ guide Name Email(Required) CommentsThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Δ

What’s the difference between a metered paywall and membership software?

​There are some big differences between membership software and a metered paywall… the biggest is that the meter will let Google index and rank all your articles in search. ​ ​The meter (which gives a reader X number of articles of their choosing before requiring a subscription) also promotes social sharing since any article can […]

How a metered paywall doubled subscriptions for a Texas news publisher

In 18 months the Austin Monitor doubled their paid subscriptions by switching to a metered paywall.  Watch this video to find out how they did it. For more information about Leaky Paywall head over to ZEEN101 Get our free guide for publishers: The Subscription Accelerator™ guide Name Email(Required) CommentsThis field is for validation purposes and […]

How a new publisher used native apps to successfully launch their digital magazine

Tea Journey magazine quickly built up over 1500 web and app subscriptions during their first few months after launch. Watch this video to find out how they did it. For more information about the app platform head over to UniPress   Get our free guide for publishers: The Subscription Accelerator™ guide Name Email(Required) EmailThis field is […]

Add a few tweaks to your sign up page to boost subscriptions 

This fantastic video from GoodUI will enlighten you as to what easy changes you can make to your subscription page to increase sales conversions. They review Harvest’s sign up page. The video is loaded with great improvement tips that you can implement on your own subscription page. It’s only 11 minutes long so you can have […]

46% of 25+ year-olds pay for digital news subscriptions

The trend is turning… the world of low value free information is so underwhelming that we would rather pay for access to great reporting on our special topic of interest. Your readers prefer to pay for better information than they can get for free. So if you run a news site that produces original content for your niche […]

How did Tea Journey Magazine raise almost $100k on Kickstarter?

Tea Journey helps consumers make informed tea selections, properly prepare fine tea and better appreciate the artisans who craft it. Just days ago enough tea enthusiasts contributed to successfully fund Tea Journey’s Kickstarter campaign. Tea Journey is now the third most funded (of 1,098) periodicals in Kickstarter history. That’s right a new magazine with a digital and […]

Untapped Potential for your Magazine in … Podcasts?

Ancillary content is one of my favorite topics. By “ancillary,” I mean “side content” that you produce every day in the creation of your main content. This “side content” might not even strike you as “content”—it could be lists you’re making in meetings, or ranting emails you write to your board, or conversations you’re having […]

How to get to 5000 paying subscribers in 1 year

This question came in last week from a publisher looking to start up. Let’s jump in… in order to get to 5000 subscribers you need to do 2 things very well: produce exclusive “can’t get anywhere else” content produce content your audience “can’t live without“ What subscribers will pay for Let’s take a look at a […]

How a veteran publisher monetizes it’s digital magazine archives

Metered paywall + 60 web issues = 10x more visitors from Google search and social sharing Atlantis Rising Magazine (ARM) is a digital publisher who takes full advantage of offering its article archives to paying subscribers. In 2016 ARM took its existing Wordpress site and upgraded it with a clean and up to date mobile-friendly design. […]

Consider Kickstarter to crowdfund your new publication

Your main challenge as a publisher is to reach readers and build a strong relationship with them. If you are just starting out, Kickstarter can help you with both of these challenges. Raising money through crowdfunding can raise awareness… we humans want to connect with you and support your mission. You can raise $$ and content […]

How The Sunday Times ramped up its focus on subscription monetization

The Sunday Times (from the U.K.) is a great example of a publication which has launched a new look for their website using many new bells and whistles for enticing subscriptions. This is its most substantial refresh in decades and focuses squarely on increasing its subscriber base. What is a paywall? There are 2 types: Hard and […]

How Crunchyroll.com gets 750,000 people to pay for digital content

Like many digital offerings and publications, Crunchyroll is in a niche industry: a global video service for streaming Japanese Anime and Asian media (animated videos). Whether you publish articles, how-tos, or other content, Crunchyroll.com’s methods work. Crunchyroll.com has a tiered membership model: a free level of service which serves up ads to viewers with free memberships […]

Great news for digital publishing – selling digital content just got a whole lot ‘freer’

New for 2016 is the availability of the Zeen101 Wordpress plugin, Leaky Paywall, for free. “The #1 Metered Paywall for WordPress is Now Free. In a welcome and unexpected move made early this year, ZEEN101 published their landmark—and formerly un-free—Leaky Paywall plugin to the WordPress.org Plugin Repository—making it free of the developer fees that accompany […]

The New Yorker finds success with its metered paywall

If you are considering or implementing a metered paywall you need to read this article. The New Yorker magazine has some very compelling data about the success of it’s metered paywall. As of today they offer 6 free articles before you need to pay to subscribe. At article 4 they interrupt you to promote their […]

App publishing is now 1 click away for People’s Pundit Daily

WordPress makes it’s easier than ever to create and charge for a digital publication on the web. But, given that apps are the preferred way to read digital content – how do you, the publisher, give readers paid access to your content in a convenient app… that doesn’t break the bank or your back? Apps […]

Selling digital news archives: The Austin Monitor gets it right

Within the last year the Monitor has doubled its subscriber base (source) Knowing the value of your publication’s content is essential to long-term success – especially when your publication’s articles and stories are not readily available anywhere else. Take for example, the Austin Monitor. This is a digital publication in a niche industry: reporting on […]

Stripe vs PayPal, what’s best for a digital publisher?

In 2014, blogger, Shannon George, wrote a detailed article comparing two online payment processors, PayPal and Stripe . The article, Paypal vs. Stripe, is a great read to understand the differences, pros, and cons of each. If you are using the Wordpress platform for your digital publication, both processors can handle subscriptions (recurring and non-recurring). It’s nice to […]

Grab your reader’s attention with a great subscription footer nag

ScienceNews.org has a lot of things going right online. Not only is the subject matter totally awesome, and the photos spectacular, but they also manage to nail the metered paywall approach. Here’s how it works: 1. Metered paywall They give you a free article and then ask you to subscribe. Check. 2. Read your first […]

3 simple subscription nags that work

Your reader has reached the end of their free article meter and your nag to subscribe pops into the article. What can you do to motivate readers to subscribe? Here are 3 easy to setup nags that work. 1. Embed an image that sells your subscription View a few articles on http://dynastyfootballwarehouse.com until your trigger […]

The Paywall: Monitization strategy #3

#3 Your Paywall – readers try before they buy If you think your content solves a pain point for your audience that motivates them enough to pay then you absolutely should be running a metered paywall. What is a metered paywall? Simply a metered paywall lets your reader view X number of articles over a […]

Make them read the blurred text – get readers to subscribe

You run a metered paywall. Your articles are getting found in Google search and they are getting shared in Facebook. Your readers arrive at your site and comb through more articles. They are interested. They might subscribe. How do you encourage them? Do what the Austin Monitor does: Make them want to read the blurred […]

Publisher profile: Running a metered paywall and apps… together

Profile DKonPittsburghSports is a Pittsburgh sports news site run by the award winning journalist Dejan Kovacevic (DK). DK offers readers 2 free articles using a metered paywall. The paywall is integrated with his iOS and Android apps for centralized subscriber management. After a reader views 2 articles either on his website or in his apps, […]

It’s a trend: monetize your back issues

Why are readers drawn to content decades or even centuries old? The answer is a simple one: Articles that were once popular as cutting-edge news are now highly valued for their historical content. Digital archives are typically being made available through premium multimedia subscriptions that command significantly higher rates than print-only subscriptions — while still […]

How to Create the Most Compelling Pitch to Subscribe You Have Ever Seen

So you’ve built your digital publication. You have protected your content behind a metered paywall. A reader hits the end of his free articles and it’s time to tell him he needs to subscribe (pay) to read more. How do you nudge him to fork up some $$$ and gain access to the rest of […]

Let your advertisers blog on your homepage

What if your advertisers could compete for the #1 spot on your publication’s homepage? The homepage of your news or magazine site holds great value for your advertisers, so why not let all of them claim the spot? As a bonus why not let your advertisers change their message daily or even hourly? The Camden […]

How to price your digital magazine

I see a trend. The trend is $1.99 per month. Why? Because the Apple Newsstand (found within iTunes’ App Store) is now selling quite a lot of magazines and is showing price points for publications. Many are at $1.99/mo. Web magazines (see The Magazine) are also converting to the $1.99 per month pricing model and […]

What happens when you put up a hard paywall? (a magazine mini case study)

The Times of London recently reversed themselves. They removed some of the paywall that they had put up which charges subscribers to read their news. The Times decided to offer some teaser text free of charge with their articles. All their articles were previously blocked for 2 years. So why did they do this? The […]