Business Cases
1) For Subscriptions
Find out how WEBMetering can bring increase in sales.Not only by increasing Subscriptions. Explained
2) For Pre-Paid
A fair solution for Customers which trust you.And appraise the quality of the content. Explained
3) For Post-Paid
Also a fair solution for the Consumer,in case a less certainty of the continuality of quality of the content. Explained
4) For Advertising
Getting people to register has it's advantages. WEBMetering can help you to obtain exact data and profiles, then when unregistered Explained1) Subscriptions
Subscriptions are possible only if:- You have a brand name and people know what to expect
- You deliver high quality content and people trust you for maintaining this quality
- The content is so exclusive people can’t find or retrieve it anywhere else.
Subscription reasons:
People subscribe for different reasons:
- They require the information for their business
- They require the information in their social environment
- They require the information indirectly for other purposes.
- They require the subscription for status.
- The subscription comes with their job profile, but is not a personal requirement
Other people don’t get a subscription, because:
- They don’t have the budget
- It is to expensive
- They require the information occasionally, on a discrete basis (non regular)
- They can easily use someone else’s username/password
- The owner of the Subscription doesn’t use it, but he has the budget and or the status.
Sharing access:
- Username/Password sharing is a well-known problem.
- Different members of the same community or social group share one
- Username/password pair. A community or social group can be employees of a company/corporation, members of family or an organization.
- Different sources indicate different numbers of username/password sharing, as this depends largely on the price of the subscription.
Still as a consensus on average 3 to 4 people in total are sharing a username/password. At least one user is using it on a regular basis. The two others are using it occasionally.
Implementing WEBMetering:
By implementing a method like WEBMetering the number of subscriptions will increase.
However don’t expect to have an increase of 100% (double) your subscriptions, as people will try to find a new optimal economic viable solution. Optimization is key.
In some cases subscriptions will be transferred from those, who don’t use them, to the actual and principal users.
In other cases people will just cease to get the information.
The increase to expect is between 15 and 20% of new subscriptions or even more.
Still, this will leave a large number of current content consumers without information, who before had access to the content or information.
There for a additional solution can come to rescue these people:
Offering Pre-Paid or Post-Paid, additionally to Subscriptions:
The idea is to offer besides the subscriptions, a payment method for the content, which gets consumed or used.
However one has to take into account several rules:
By offering Pre-Paid or Post-Paid, it is likely this could even threaten the subscriptions.
There for the Pre-paid of Post-Paid has to be more expensive than the Subscription, if a consumer would use it to often.
An even better solution would be packaging subscriptions with Pre-paid or Post-Paid. This would require to have at least one subscription for 2 additional Pre-paid or Post-paid customers.
This bundling will avoid deterioration of the subscription level.
And as the Pre-paid and Post-Paid is more expensive than a Subscription, it will push the large users into a Subscription. For every payment they can check the amount paid versus a Subscription.
Due to the flexibility and the fair system, the Pre-Paid or Post-Paid will engage a large part of the current username/password sharing users.
This can be over 50%.
Summary:
By implementing WEBMetering, a direct increase of the Subscription level is to be expected, which can be between 15% and 20%
By packaging Subscriptions with one or two Pre-Paid or Post-Paid the signup level can increase significantly, which gets you more revenue.
Moreover as large users of Pre-paid or Post-Paid can have bills exceeding the Subscription rate, it is likely this will generate additional Subscriptions over time.
It is hard to predict the sales increase of a WEBMetering implementation, but significant increase of sales is to be expected. Exact numbers are hard to predict as every content provider addresses different part of the population. Still increases in sales of 20-25% could be well within target.
Read the ROI Return On Investment.
2) Pre-Paid
In case your brand name is not so well known, still people trust you for your content, but like to pay as they consume.This business model has advantages for both the Content Owner and the Content Consumer:
- As Content Owner you get money upfront, however you don’t know how fast the Pre-paid Content amount is going to be spend. Thus it is a continuous challenge to get Consumers come to your web pages and consume the content of your web pages.
- As Content Consumer, you will only use up the content you really like or find interesting.
This solution requires a certain trust relationship between the Content Owner and the Content Consumer. However the level is much lower than with Subscription.
However the Consumer is probably paying more in this solution than in case of a Subscription. Thus if one compares the Pre-Paid with Subscriptions, it is likely if you content is of high quality, the revenue by user will be higher for the Pre-paid.
WEBMetering offers exact metering of the Consumed Content, which is deducted from the Pre-paid amount.
If the amount is used up or expires, then a new pre-payment is required. Of course the request for the pre-payment can be send before the total quantity is used up, in order to let the Consumer have a smooth continuity of the content consummation.
3) Post-Paid
For the Content Consumer this is the fairest method: only pay afterwards for what has been consumed.For the Content Owner this is the most difficult, as every visit the Consumer has to be ‘won’ and convinced to start consuming. There is almost a sales cycle required for every visit, using teasers or previews to get people interested.
However the Consumer is probably paying more in this solution than in case of a Subscription, even maybe more than with Pre-paid as the risk for the Content Owner is even higher.
Thus if the content is of a high quality and the number of paying visitors and consumed content is high, this will generate more money than Subscriptions and probably even more than Pre-Paid.
Content Consumers who don’t pay, end up with not getting any more of the content afterwards. Thus they can do this once, but not twice.
Still there is a risk involved with Consumer not willing to pay, but in case the Content is of good quality the non-paying customers will not be able to get any more of this quality content.
WEBMetering offers exact metering of the Consumed Content, which then billed immediately and paid using a micro-systems payment solution, or is accounted for over a certain time span. Then the amount has to be billed or invoiced, and to be paid or deducted from the credit card.
4) Advertising
If you address a large population or a unique population with specific requirements, the business model of advertising is viable.
There are two types of advertising business models:
- Those without Registration
- Those with Registration.
Without Registration:
Without Registration is difficult to handle and track.
No User identification makes it difficult to have specific data. Only generic data can be proposed to your advertisers.
WEBMetering allows to meter exactly the amount of time spend per session. Of course all of this data can be aggregated over certain time spans.
The advantage over other solutions is: WEBMetering knows exactly when the Unregistered User leaves the Website.
With Registration:
With Registration the single visitors can be nailed down, tracked and profiled from their interests.
Moreover their profiles can be combined with the profiles they declared upon registration.
Again, just like with subscription people will share username/password, which has to be avoided at all times.
There are two possible solutions for registrations:
The Hard "Wall" and the Soft "Wall"
The Hard "Wall"
People need to register for certain content on your website.
The number of regular visitors and profiles of visitors are used to claim the number of users on your website to advertisers.
- As people share passwords, the number of registered users is less than the actual. Thus less advertising income.
- As people share their passwords, the user profiles are wrong.
Thus advertisers could target the wrong population or market segment.
- Uncertainty of the registered user profiles make your claim to the advertisers less confident.
- As people share passwords, there are less email addresses in your database. Thus less value for mailing campaigns.
By implementing the WEBMetering service, you will get more registered users, more exact and corresponding profiles and more email addresses. Thus more revenue.
The Soft "Wall'
The WEBMetering service allows also to let visitors to view your site and meter their time on the website, even if they are not registered (yet).
After a certain amount of time which is being measured by the WEBMetering, the system can propose to the visitor to register as he has been using the website over a long time.
If visitors are honest, and probably most will be as they appreciate your content, they will commit to supplying their profile and contact data.
This is high quality data and profiles.
By implementing WEBMetering Technology you will get better quality of contacts and profiles, especially as they register after having consumed a certain content.