Ekstra Bladet plans for Freemium 2.0

Another set of liveblogged notes from Digital Media Europe 2017. Typos, inaccuracy and howling crimes against grammar and syntax probable.

Lisbeth Langwadt, Head of Paid Content, Ekstra Bladet – EKSTRA & Print

Secrets to digital innovation…

1. You have to reorganise

They used to have two silos at Ekstra Bladet: editorial and commercial. They worked side by side, but on serrate floors. That led to both teams seeing the site as owned by the other side, with resultant weak ownership. They moved to everyone having KPIs on the platform – and are physically sitting together, too. If something isn’t working, they can move much more quickly to revise their approach, with all the team in physical proximity.

They need to think and plan smarter, have better meetings.

2. New content areas

What worked for print probably won’t work for digital – but digital success may help reinforce print. Online successes can be used to provide better print products, once it’s proven itself online.

3. You need data

You need sales system data. You need content analytics.

4. Think bigger

Most digital content is very old school: text and pictures. You need to be much more ambitious in your storytelling to make people pay. You need to disrupt yourself before others do.

5. DNA is essential

They started with the wrong product name. The content was wrong. Digital is the future – so build it on your existing strengths and qualities.

What Ekstra Bladet’s Freemium 2.0 looks like

1. New name: Ekstra Bladet+. Two levels of subscription: 5€ and 9€.
2. Make it easier to pay. MobilePay is a pervasive mobile payment mechanism locally – and it has added subscriptions. They’re adopting that.
3. Better UX design. So, their UX is not great. Paid content must be more Netflix-like: the archive is valuable, so make it accessible.
4. More quality & DNA. To get people to pay, you have to have something different and which you can explain the value of to the reader.
5. Explain the product better. If people don’t understand it, they won’t pay. So a cross-media campaign is coming to explain what is behind the paywall, what makes it different from free content, and why you should pay.