Global Content Subscription Insights from Worldpay

Worldpay is a global leader in payment processing technology and solutions for online businesses. On a typical day, they process 31 million mobile, online and in-store transactions. Ieuan Owen, their Senior Vice President of Global Strategy, recently gave a sharp, informed presentation at Subscribed London on content monetization strategies based on data gleaned from an extensive customer research effort.

Ieuan’s talk touched on a variety of topics: trending billing models, successful sales strategies, processing and transaction advice. The following highlights are taken from his discussion around international media subscription adoption and subscriber preferences.

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Interestingly, Japan, the UK and Germany lag behind China, India and Brazil in personal media and video game subscriptions. A number of factors are at play here, including strong urban newsstand cultures, console versus online video gaming preferences, and the relative popularity of advertising versus subscription-based content models.

 

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Over sixty percent of media subscriptions last less than a year, highlighting the fact that the point of sale is just a first step in what should be a proactive campaign of customer engagement.

 

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Subscriptions are no longer a novelty, and customers are wary of entangling themselves in long-term obligations that don’t offer continuous, ongoing value. The past several years have also seen a sharp increase in privacy concerns.

 

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The ultimate test of media subscriptions is the quality of the content. We’ve seen a number of media outlets that have successfully adopted paywall strategies that incentivize payment for ad-free access, and online video games have monetized new levels, characters and video ads for years. But it begins and ends with unique perspectives and gaming experiences that consumers can’t find anywhere else.

Want to learn more? Worldpay has recently surfaced some fascinating data on global digital payment trends in digital content and video games. Read the results here. 

Zuora and Worldpay are also coordinating on a joint whitepaper on the future of recurring payments. You can be the first to receive it by opting in here.

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