How do you get your customers to pay more and be happy about it? The answer could be as simple as offering them a wider range of products to choose from.
That's the approach that is working for The Economist - which last year persuaded half its US subscribers to pay 25 percent more for a digital and print bundle.
Nick Blunden, The Economist's global digital publisher told the Digital Media Strategies Conference in London that the key had been unbundling its subscription package, which previously had only offered either digital only or the print magazine combined with digital access.
Blunden says: "We now have three options - print, digital and bundle. That may not seem like a huge change, but it has given us greater flexibility and given us opp to highlight value of each.
"It reflects the fact people are very comfortable paying more for bundle. Previously the price for both digital and print was $127. Now print-only is $127 dollars, digital-only is $127 and the bundle is $160 dollars. That's a 25 percent increase.
"The mix is now that 25 percent pay for digital only, 25 percent pay for print only, and 50 percent pay for the bundle.
"In a world where we are all struggling to monetise our content, that's had a significant impact."
Blunden says the Economist is looking at expanding the range of different formats the Economist offers - including potentially making the audio versions of its articles which are currently free to subscribers part of the bundle.
Global Expansion
Though The Economist only comes in an English language version, Blunden says China and India are the fourth and fifth largest sources of traffic to The Economist online, and they sell more digital editions in Asia-Pacific than they do in EMEA.
He says there are no plans to produce The Economist in any language other than English or produce regional editions. However, localised sales efforts have been vital to its success outside Europe and the US.
"The regional structure of the commercial side has been critical," he says. "Localised pricing, marketing and social media has been critical to generating user demand.
"Trying to be a global business without having feet on the ground is almost impossible."
