• Christoph Keese, Head of Public Relations for Axel Springer, one of the largest and most innovative media companies in Europe. Axel Springer has been at the forefront in Germany when it comes to digital paid content.

The Hamburger Abendblatt is a success story when it comes to monetising regional and local content as premium offerings, and Die Welt and the Welt am Sonntag offer their quality content successfully on a number of paid digital platforms.

For its well-known Bild tabloid title, one of the largest-circulated paid newspapers in Europe, it has so far not charged for online content. But Keese confirmed that the publisher is contemplating a “paygate.”

Axel Springer has charged for all of its products in the app store from the outset. “We can almost say that we pretty much know how this works and that it is going very well.”

• Simon Regan-Edwards, Head of Technology at the Times and Sunday Times in UK. The Times and Sunday Times were one of the first daily newspapers to introduce a hard paywall for digital offerings. They use the so-called “site access” model, where the user can see only the homepage without a subscription. Regan-Edwards says the company recently reached 133,000 digital subscribers. Was it worth the loss in traffic? “Yes, we think it was. This brings us more revenue than before and has not impacted our advertising,” he says.

And in August, he says, The Times surpassed the 100,000-subscriber mark for its e-edition on the iPad. There are a number of bundled offers, but one basic package costs 2.50 pounds per week.

• Mikael Pentikäinen, Senior Editor-in-Chief of Helsingin Sanomat in Finland. In December, the company will launch an “open paywall” where much of its content will be available behind its paywall. The company already sells bundled print-digital subscriptions as its main product. The digital subscription consists of a digital replica of the paper, an HTML version and access to archives as well as smartphone and iPad apps. In 2011, the paper began to offer digital-only subscriptions. Pentikäinen says the paper has converted one-third of its print subscribers to the all-access subscription plan. "The challenge is getting that big visitor free audience to sign up for the digital-only access,” he says.

Offering unique content

One of the critical factors in launching a paid digital content strategy is figuring out what is the right type of content to sell. Dietmar Schantin, Founder of the Institute for Media Strategies in Austria, who serves as the session moderator, says for most publishers, only 5-20 percent of their content is ready to be sold.

Each of the panelists is doing due diligence to enhance their content offer, as well as analysing how to best monetise that content, also with advertising.

For Bild, Keese says it’s all about creating more unique content that can be sold. The newspaper scored a big victory in delivering unique content when it recently reached agreement with the German national soccer league to deliver edited video excerpts of games 60 minutes after the end of a match. Sky has the live coverage rights and local TV stations can deliver highlights later.

“If this works, it puts us into a very unique situation and gives us a great opportunity to monetise this content.”

Although offering unique content is key to any paid content strategy, Keese believes that breaking news done well also has its price tag online. “I will say that even though news is a commodity, it can be unique in the way you write and present it. The New York Times can charge because of the dynamic way they write their content.”

For Die Welt, Keese says the paper is working hard to measure traffic on its site on a channel-by-channel basis, to gain data that will help it create targeted content packages and advertising packages.

Pentikäinen says Helsingin Sanomat has created a data journalism unit “to create new ways of telling news which will bring added value for sure. We are also merging our broadcast part of our operations and reorganising our newsroom where managers are deciding what news goes where and when. With this combination, it gives a much better opportunity to ensure that we are offering best content possible for the appropriate audience that will pay.”

The right technology

One issue that emerges during the paid digital content strategy panel discussion is the challenge of creating good technical solutions to make it easy for users to sign up for bundled offers and on metered models.

Since print still brings in the majority of revenues for most publishers, when they start putting up paid digital subscription offers, they have to offer bundled packages tied to print. And that means linking up new systems, in most cases, to legacy systems and databases from the print side.

“It is indeed complicated on the technological side to implement,” says Keese. “If you haven’t started on a paywall or are considering to do it, you need to start a working project team as soon as possible to address this issue. If you have legacy business and you want to protect and promote your legacy business, you have to bundle your subscriptions, and that means working with legacy systems.”

“For mobile platforms, VG is more and more ad focused instead of user payment oriented,” he says. “Mobile is a powerful ad tool for all tactical, and sales-driven advertising.”

VG, owned by Schibsted, sits in the envious position of being the No. 1 destination for mobile in its market, impressive for a newspaper publisher. “It is very important for us to be in that position because the mobile space is much tighter than on the web,” Jacobsen said.

In the USA, while 10 percent of time spent is on mobile, only 1 percent of the ad spend goes there. “Over time, this will not last. Mobile will have a huge growth potential. My guess is that mobile will be the number one digital media platform in terms of revenue in just a few years. In Norway, we actually see this happening already.”

For VG, its mobile advertising revenue development is actually growing faster than usage. “And it´s a lot of money – it´s a significant share of our digital revenue.” So why is mobile so great for advertising. “It is everywhere, it's personal and you use it from morning to evening – from dusk till dawn.”

Not only is the mobile ad effect more efficient compared to other media, in terms of reach, targeting, viral and engagement, he said mobile is particularly ideal for selling goods, i.e. transaction-based advertising.

But one of his major arguments for mobile is the ARPU (average revenue per user) trends which are growing quickly. “This gives us all so much hope and most of it is being driven by advertising.”

What is absolutely clear, she says, is that the World Wide Web is indeed worldwide: in 1996, two-thirds of the world’s Internet population was in the United States; today the largest region is Asia with more than 40 percent compared to the USA at only 13 percent. Europe has an audience of 26.4 percent.

And in Europe, it’s not just the audience that is growing, it’s the amount of time users are spending online: 384 million Europeans go online for 29.8 hours per month. Much of the growth in Europe is being driven in Russia, where Khandurova is Business Development Director for comScore.

And as broadband penetration spreads throughout the world, access to the Internet and usage will continue to boom, she says, only increasing the importance of social, video and mobile.

Social networking

Social usage is nearly ubiquitous, she says. “It is impacting geopolitics, US politics, retail, marketing and consumer behaviour. It’s growing and it will only continue to grow,” she says.

• A look at 43 markets across the globe shows that 9 out of 10 users are engaged in social networking. “It is redefining how we behave, such as email, with usage way down.”
• Social media accounts for 18 percent of all time spent online globally.
• For most of the world, Facebook is still the most engaged network.

Video

Video is not only increasing, people are watching it longer and sharing it as well, i.e. it’s engaging and social.

• 1.2 billion people worldwide watched an average of 18 hours each of online video in February. Nearly 53 million Russians watch video online.
• Total videos viewed increased 20 percent in Spain in 12 months.

Mobile

If social and video are taking off, mobile is blasting off.

• 42 percent penetration in Europe compared to 39 percent in the USA.
• In the UK, there are 26 million smartphone users, an increase of 50 percent year on year.
• 10.5 percent of all traffic in the UK comes from non-computer devices.

You may download Ms Khadurova's presentation on slideshare.

In the last eight years alone, he said DIE ZEIT is the only newspaper in Germany that increased its print circulation by 20 percent. It more than doubled its revenues in that time. Today, DIE ZEIT is indeed one of the top newspapers in Germany in terms of quality, circulation and profits.

Esser was quick to credit a dramatic redesign of the newspaper, led by Mario Garcia. “On one hand, with the new concept we stick to our traditional strengths of featuring great content about literature and politics, for example, while adding elements that will attract young readers.”

The keys to success have been:

• To constantly innovate and improve as if always in a crisis.
• Winning and keeping the best and most diverse staff. Its editorial staff includes employees who are aged 20 to 90, from all over the world. “Germany is now a very diverse country and we have to have a diverse editorial staff to reach that diverse audience. What is most important for our staff is that they are very well educated, very curious and very passionate.”
• Steadily improving layout and editorial design.
• Constantly staying in touch with young readers. The paper has created a number of niche publications for youth from ages 4-8, 7-12, 9-13, 14-18 and 18+. Many of those publications are educational products, books, newsletters, social media, magazines, etc. They have also created events to help educate youth.
• Constantly staying in touch with advertising clients: “We don’t sell advertising, we sell solutions,” Esser said. Fashion has become one of biggest trends in print advertising and with its ZEIT Magazine, there are a number of special editions that draw major advertising clients, and more...

You may download Dr Esser's presentation on slideshare.