Hooray, more survey data: Consumers want choice

Posted by Nestor Bailly on November 17, 2009 at 1:30 PM

Following recent survey results citing the relatively low percentage of Americans willing to pay for online news (which contradicts older data, although from the UK) and the supposed preference for micropayments (which also flies in the face of survey results and common sense) comes new results from Forrester Research on subscription models.

The report found that 80% of 4,711 consumers would not bother to access online news they would have to pay for, and the rest are split on how they would prefer to pay for it.

When asked "If the publications you read were no longer available in print, how would you prefer to access that content?" consumers responded in favor of a number of different distribution channels.

37% answered they would prefer website access, while mobile phones (14%) and e-readers (3%) filled in some of the remainder. Strangely enough, a whole 10% replied that they would prefer a PDF by email!

Details are available from the report itself, which you can download for a sweet $500. One of the more relevant and interesting bits is the fact that only 3% of consumers preferred a micropayment system over others, which is at odds with other recent research.

Overall, Forrester has a few suggestions from the data for news publishers:

They should continue to offer free, ad-supported products to the 80% of consumers who won't pay for content online; Publishers should offer consumers a choice of multichannel subscriptions, single-channel subscriptions, and micropayments for premium product access; and they must invest in the organizational and technological backbone to execute a cohesive, cross-channel product and pricing strategy.

Source: paidContent