Cleeng Blog - Subscription management trends

Cleeng - how we built a successful niche business

Written by Monika | Jun 25, 2013 9:44:57 AM

Our company has been featured on the prestigious website Nieman Journalism Lab among B2B companies, sprouting around the world in niches to take advantage of emerging trends & opportunities of the digital economy.

What’s the niche we’ve been growing into since our fondation in 2011? We’ve been addressing the market of online paid premium content (with special attention on video/ & live). It emerges from the fading entry barriers - from PayTV networks to media consortiums & is nurtured by the definite shift from physical / print media to digital environment. As Ken Doctor puts it: ‘It’s easiest to make money where money is changing hands. Make yourself an effective intermediary, and you can grab a little of it as it moves’.

It’s also the market where the quality content matters and where the talented creators compete for  customers attention. We observed 3 huge industries undergoing a tremendous change:

 

The face of modern media is changing irretrievably. That's the niche we carved out for Cleeng and carefully positioned our product:

We recognize the major forces re-shaping the premium content market. 80% of advertising market online is owned by barely 50 companies, where Google owns up to 45% of it. Furthermore, media incumbents are slowly losing control over their content while artists & talented creatives can now easily connect with their audience & sell directly online, leveraging the power of social media for building loyal communities around their output. More and more major publishers are admitting that solely one-way models, based only on advertising revenues are insufficient and now it’s the time to start thinking 'beyond' in a more e-commerce terms and a Kickstarter approach. It's also time to embrace the rise of the native advertising.

Jeff Bewkes, Chairman & CEO Time Warner adroitly described the current industry state, by saying: “With the possible exception of the broadcast network monopoly that ended in the eighties, there has never been a working business model for quality content, in any medium, that could rely on advertising alone…and there never will be again.”

Cleeng was born on the crossing of paid premium content, content customization and a careful user profiling approach.

Thanks to our solution for broadcasters, live event organizer and press Publishers can:

√ create a new revenue stream in place or in addition to ad revenues

√ get business analytics in place to get to know their business & subscribers better

√ gain freedom to mix paid and free content on the same page or within the same article

√ can offer optimized cross-channel customer experiences

Need for connection & quality

On the other hand consumers realize it as well that the quality content is worth to pay for, if accesible easily at any time on their conditions, no matter where they are or what device they use. They expect media to keep up with their fast paced life - content has to be multi-accessible on the fly. Customers expect also, that the content providers will not only be device-agnostic & excel in easy access to the content, but also compete for their attention with an attractive storytelling. ‘Educated’ by iTunes, Netflix or Amazon consumers are only likely to pay for the quality & carefully targeted content. We turn content purchase into a seamless user experience.

With Cleeng:

√ Consumers have access to quality content they’d paid for, in one place & on all devices,  also live events in HTML5 (compatible with iOS devices). They can use their social login to access the content within just a click.

√ Consumers can share content they like with their friends & earn from promoting the quality content.  1/3 of all shares happens through email.

 

 

 

 

Don’t bring news, bring in unique product, nurture experience

To quote Thomas Baekdal: This is the real shift. The connected world forces media companies to go deep instead of going wide. You have to be relevant for the individual, instead of being relevant to everyone. The need for quality & engagement is the right path to follow,   since there are so many products on the internet. But if you connect it to a creator with a passion, a purpose, and a great idea, you have a chance.

So here’s another crucial facette of our business - we recognize and monetize quality & talent:

√ We help you to thrive on the uniqueness of a good story plus your personality behind it.

√ We let you, an independent content creator, to better harvest the volume of your community, give it a frictionless experience and let it contribute to your development.

Analyze to connect better

Business intelligence needs analytics. Without recognizing who your users are, where they hang out, how they approach and consume content you’re stuck. We give you everything you need to stay up to date with the core of your business.

As the most advanced SaaS platform out there, we give you an architecture to monetize your premium content, especially video & live stream. We let you, Publishers, to monetize your content in a personalized way, keeping what’s unique about your product and promoting your passion while using your existing CMS. Just like we did for Emmy-nominated Jon Hotchkiss or TedMed. Give your audience a frictionless experience within a click & start selling your talent today.