What a difference a couple of years have made to India's digital take-up... with no small credit due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Publishers are not only ready to learn about subscriptions and kinds of paywall, many are actively involved in them.

About 150 participants fronted up on Zoom today for the start of WAN-Ifra's Digital Media India event, with South Asia managing director Magdoom Mohamed noting that the worst of times had also seen the best of times: "Almost all publishers have seen an uplift in traffic, even though that has not always translated into revenue."

Delegates gathered together today to rectify that, ABP's DD Purkayastha in Calcutta pointing to the growth in internet, mobile use and audience. "COVID has given more than it has taken away," he said. "There have never been more opportunities, and while print is still a clear breadwinner, digital is the future and DMI the need of the time."

Tuesday's opening sessions delivered Dow Jones chief innovation officer Edward Roussel with key lessons in digital transformation (see separate story), plus Pradeep Gairola, digital business head at The Hindu - an award-winner in last year's South Asian Digital Media Awards - WAN-Ifra Consulting's German principal consultant Gregor Waller, and contributions from two Asian business publishers which had taken part in last year's four-month Google News Initiative subscription lab.

Gairola told how it took two years behind a paywall before the flagship The Hindu site began to pay dividends. "You hear that people won't pay for news, but the data says different and no-one can deny the number of people who are paying," he said. "When publishers provide incentives, magic happens."

Even with a "pretty dreadful" 2020-21, the publisher still scored an 150 per cent increase in subs. Fundamental was the decision to focus on becoming a digital news company. "We shut down the digital department, and started to fiund synergies in the direct ad sales business," he says.

Gairola stressed the importance of "strategic" tech, and listed some of the mistakes they had made during their martech journey. "Too many solutions is challenge, and you need to reach out to experts. The most important decision is whether to build or buy, and we suffered through building, paying a huge price before taking advantage of the short time to market of SaaS."

He advised delegates to approach the subject tactically, and "as a symphony where various solutions come together to create a beautiful melody."

On payment models, he discussed experiments leading to a mixed paywall introduced last December. "A low price will not support your business, and the large investment needed for world-class experience," he added.

During the height of the pandemic, editors asked readers to pay if they could afford to do so, with four out of the top five reasons having to do with journalism. Explainers have a large following, together with other original and unique content, photos and video, while newsletters are making a big comeback.

"Niche is mass, and we're blessed with a huge population, so even a small segment can be viable," he said. The road ahead is very exciting, and together we can do wonders."

Gregor Waller noted how things had changed since he was last at Digital Media India ten years ago, and had an electric car to illustrate his digital journey. "Digital subscriptions have as much to do with print, as an electric car has to do with a fuelled one," he said. "There's much more than just putting up a paywall - it's no longer communicating with an unknown audience, and there's massive competition."

As on the road, it takes commitment to get started, and Waller recalled his days at Axel Springer in 2009 when asked to put up a digital subs business. "What had been hindering them? It was always the same, one publisher started and others stood and watched, with six reasons for not doing it, all of which had to do with the fact that they still had a successful advertising business."

He pointed to 'first mover's advantage' and the job of complementing and accompanying users and subscribers over the course of their day. "It's about a service," he said.

And next year is not better, when the pain is the same. "If you're carrying the cross, you're the first to be blessed," he adds.

Waller says willingness to subscribe is rising, with more frequent users less likely to churn; be certain to identify those who frequently use your website; identify or cluster loyal user groups and how you respond to them; push 'fly-buy' users to become more regular.

He warns that "there is no optimal price, just never start too low", and urges starting with a metered model, moving on to premium and later a propensity model. "Don't wait for editorial or technology - you can't buy time," he adds.

Google's Sheena Bhalla, who drives the regional GNI data and innovation strategy, also had lessons from experienced users in India and Taiwan who had completed a four-month "intensive experience" aimed at "galvanising their organisations" to build a successful digital subscription business.

Vaibhav Khanna, product manager at BloombergQuint stressed the importance of research and experimentation, while colleague Nandagopal J Nair, who is news editor talked of the "incredible challenge and excitement" in a landscape which has changed dramatically in two years. "It has forced us to innovate to get people to pay more, with ideas such as a paper article format - one story at a time - and a lot of data driven initiatives.

At Taiwan's CommonWealth magazine, transformation and learning director Chia Lun Huang said they were still attracting, loyal readers, but also a new breed of audience. "We run research and focus groups, need to segment them, but everyone subscribes for a different reason. People come for business."

After hitting a plateau last year, president Yin-chuen Wu said CommonWealth had learned that while it needed to find new readers, the existing pool was big enough "if we engaged them more. So numbers are picking back up."

The conference continues today, and on Wednesday and Thursday. Details from the website.

Peter Coleman

Pictured: Sheena Bhalla (top) and Gregor Waller