Memberships: Key to Paid Online Content?

On Editor & Publisher's Web site, columnist Steve Outing makes a strong argument that newspaper executives need to focus on creating and charging for online memberships, rather than trying to charge for online news content.

After explaining why he doesn't think asking readers to pay for current online content will work, Outing offers two key recommendations:

Here's my prescription for newspapers, as an alternative to the (suicidal, in my opinion) paid-web-content treatment plans proposed by the likes of Dean Singleton, Steven Brill, Walter Isaacson, Alan Mutter and others:

1. Stick with the core idea of multiple revenue streams for online and mobile. Especially on the Web, newspapers cannot count on advertising alone. Don't think that charging for content online after 15 years of not doing so (and killing experiments that tried to get readers to pay) will be the magic bullet that aligns with advertising to make your digital publishing efforts profitable enough.

Think of new revenue streams like paid iPhone/mobile phone applications. Participate in innovative initiatives like the up-and-coming Kachingle, a voluntary Web content-payment program that allows an online user to set up one automatic monthly donation and spread the money around to Web sites and blogs that the user likes most and wants to support financially. (For more on Kachingle, read Outing's column on it here.)

Experiment with paid editions for e-readers like the Kindle, and paid e-editions for PCs that are similar to the print reading experience and appeal to older readers. (The latter is a good strategy for a newspaper that's cut its publishing schedule to non-daily, or scrapping print-edition delivery to distant towns.) Grab the next revenue opportunity that someone dreams up and looks smart. And the next.

2. In concert with your advertisers, develop a "membership program" that's enticing enough to get a lot of people to pay a monthly or annual fee. Whether they're paid members or not, they'll be able to read your news content online for free, but members will get special benefits. It's the carrot approach, not the stick one.

Here are a few ideas for what to offer to a newspaper's paid members:

* Once-a-month lecture with free admission for members. (Others pay, so with a good speaker line-up it's another revenue source.)

* Seminar series featuring staff journalists and community leaders and celebrities; free to members.

* Access to "exclusive" forums or discussion areas on the Web site that are closely monitored and in which staff journalists regularly participate.

* Free downloadable mobile phone apps that others must pay for.

* Exclusive discounts from participating newspaper advertisers. Rather than the anachronistic printed coupon books that have been around for decades and are sold for fund-raisers, allow members to use their mobile phones to show retailers, restaurants, etc. their discount coupons after entering their password.

* Advertisers should be persuaded to take part in the member discount program as part of their overall ad deal with the newspaper and its digital services, so there's a wide variety of discounts and deals to be had.

For the entire column and other Outing columns on this topic, click here.