Speaker Info

    Content Conference (8th Interactive Publishing)

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Rob Cox, United Kingdom

Sessions:

Speaker at I d e a I n f u s i o n: Subscription

Abstract:
Getting them to pay – Creating an online premium subscription service: the breakingviews experience.

When breakingviews launched its financial commentary service in mid-2000, it was already quite clear that an advertising and traffic-driven business model would be insufficient to sustain a new media brand with limited resources. Moreover, the high value-added financial comment pioneered by breakingviews was targeted for the European financial professional, an audience that was generally believed to be in a good position to pay for valuable content and services. Thus as soon as breakingviews opened its storefront in July, it had already begun crafting its conversion to a subscription.

In December, breakingviews offered existing registered users the chance to buy subscriptions at £200 a head, a discount to the list price of £500. Orders flowed thick and fast in January and February as users converted, many of them through corporate agreements. By March, that slowed and in April it dried up, just as the firm recruited two direct salespeople to reach financial institutions, who rejuvenated the sales effort. In the summer, the company revamped its pricing policies, including cutting to £299 the list price and revising its approach to the corporate, fund manager and key investment bank markets, bringing in fresh bulk agreements with Merrill Lynch, CSFB, Lazard and dozens of other firms, hedge funds, investment managers and corporations.

To reach new customers outside the City of London’s financial core, the company is now partnering with local language content providers across Europe to create subscription services focusing on the financial professional and investor markets. The future holds a handful of difficult hurdles faced by all subscription content firms using the Internet as a distribution strategy: piracy and renewals.

Downloads:
Getting them to pay - Creating an online premium subscription s (195 kB)

Bio:
Robert B. Cox is a financial commentator and a founding editorial board member of breakingviews, the financial commentary service. Prior to breakingviews, Cox was European Finance Editor at Bloomberg News in London. From 1995-1998 Cox was South Europe Bureau Chief for Bloomberg, overseeing operations in Milan, Rome, Athens, Istanbul, Lisbon and Madrid. Before that, Cox covered Wall Street for Bloomberg and was Midwest Correspondent for American Banker. Articles written by Cox have appeared in dozens of US publications including the Wall Street Journal Europe, New York, Daily News New York Times, International Herald Tribune, the Chicago Tribune and in many European newspapers including la Repubblica, la Tribune and Handelsblatt. He is a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Vermont.