Another stat has come across our bows, aside from Tuesday’s second release of digital numbers from Times Newspapers (analysis)…
The proportion of iPad owners who created a Times account during last summer’s free trial and who later paid to subscribe proper is 0.82 percent.
The figure comes from e-mail marketing firm e-Dialog, which, working for Times Newspapers, had sent a HTML5-format video email campaign, designed to be read on the tablet, to iPad owners who had previously tried a cross-format digital subscription but had not yet bought one.
News International had forecast subscription conversion of just 0.2 percent, so is apparently quite pleased. But it is not saying how many people received the emails, so we don’t know exact numbers, nor has it hasn’t disclosed total number of iPad users. This also doesn’t tell us how many free trialists in total, regardless of iPad, have bought a subscription.
It’s indicative of how gung-ho News International, like its proprietor Rupert Murdoch, is about tablets that this campaign specifically targeted iPad owners. Although Times website subscribers can also read its iPad editions at no extra cost, it’s in the app where the title really comes in to its own as the newspaper-like publication the publisher wants it to be. iPad owners are also likely self-selectingly more affluent and, hence, more open to paying.
“This suggests there is potential to continue to target a particular audience segment based on the device they use,” according to News International’s campaign findings.