Let’s face it, newspapers will no longer be here in 20 years if the decline in sales keep continuing. Advertisers are making the Internet their official home as it’s cheaper and easier to post ads online. The price of newspapers are rather sharp as expenses need to cover ink production, paper, news carriers, etcetera. There are ways in making a profit for news by considering a few simple ideas.
Charge for online content. Many newspapers are giving their content away for free online.
“Why buy the cow when we get the milk for free?” By simply charging to online content, perhaps having a system where people can choose which days of the week they may be able to access articles. For example. Mon-Fri, Fri-Sun, etc. The key is to lure them in by offering a free month trial of getting online content for free, then once that’s over we may be able to charge them monthly if they so desire.
Invest in merchandise. A newspaper can make money by putting their brand out there. Let’s say the Times Union gives away free T-shirts, cups and hats just by joining the Times Union Facebook page. Perhaps they may charge better merchandise online to customers for a little fee. It’s free advertisement and there’s no middle man.
Create an App. If newspapers don’t have their own app by now, it’s about time. There’s an app for anything these days. With the launch on the popular iPad and the popular demand for smart phones, app’s are here to stay. If a newspaper has an app, it may offer things like the latest news, video content and images that a regular newspaper wouldn’t be able to offer. It’s a great way to make money. The subscription for the app should be cheap by offering small weekly or monthly payments.
Punish blogs for copyright infringement. Blogs really attract attention away from the source their news information comes from. Newspapers should search out these blogs and take legal action. If it’s not original reporting, then you shouldn’t blog about if or you should give proper credit to the original source it came from. That said, blogs should go the extra mile to alert readers where they got their information from to bring traffic to the site of the original source.
