Consumers’ willingness to pay: Publishers have to play an active role
Discussing new media and pricing strategies, Dr. Florian Bauer of Vocatus, Germany, offered delegates at the Digital Innovators’ Summit in Berlin today with five key take-outs as they continue with the development of their e-publishing strategies.
These are:
- E-publishing is not about content but about developing and shaping new habits, in every respect – price, payment and product. He warned that classical print marketing approaches and a focus on circulation would be counter-productive.
- Challenges in varying channels differ, and should be considered as such – “e-publishing is in no respect a homogeneous product cluster.”
- E-publishing has to be developed outside in: publishers must learn to (properly) listen to their readers – perhaps even “for first time!”. Dr. Bauer implored them to use the tools now available to do this
- Consumers’ willingness to pay must be developed, and here publishers have to play an active role. Willingness-to-pay “is like a muscle which needs to be trained.”
- Price/product structure is a huge opportunity that allows bundling and up selling, given the ability today to better understand customer need
