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When attempting to convince consumers to pay for news subscriptions, publishers should give them multiple reasons to do so, according to a new study conducted by a team of researchers from City University London and Universität München.
The study established four main categories of marketing messages (or “subscription pitches”) and tested the effect each had on a sample of 815 U.K. consumers’ self-reported willingness to pay for online news. The categories were: digital-specific (i.e. replacing print with online access), social (being part of a community), normative (supporting independent journalism), and price transparency (highlighting the difficult economics of news publishing.)
Messages were tested alone and in 11 different combinations of two,