ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

NY Times pushes engagement with NYT Now with offer of free access

The New York Times, continuing to leverage its mobile properties to boost engagement with its content, is offering free unlimited access this week to NYT Now, a recently launched subscription product.

The promotion is tied to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication?s National News Engagement Day, which was observed Tuesday. It is the latest effort by the venerable newspaper, known as America?s paper of record, to be where its core readers are as more and more people consume news on mobile.

?National News Engagement Day was created by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication to encourage awareness about the importance of being informed, to help people of all ages discover the benefits of news and to educate the public about the principles and process of journalism,? said Linda Zebian, director of corporate communications at the New York Times, New York. 

?These are the same principles we at The Times support in our mission to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news and information,? she said. 

Curated news
AEJMC is a nonprofit association of more than 3,700 journalism and communication educators, media professionals and graduate students.

NYT Now features hand-picked news items, features, blogs and videos.

NYT Now, launched in April, offers a curated selection of news items from NYT.com as well as across the Internet. It was available as a standalone subscription for the iPhone application and on the Web at a cost of $8 every four weeks. 

The product also brought native ads to Times mobile products for the first time. Cartier was the initial sponsor, with paid posts clearly identified as advertising content appearing in-stream in the scrollable news feed.

NYT Now targets an audience seeking more content than is currently available for free but at a lower price than the full news report with the goal of helping the news organization grow digital subscriptions.

It is the New York Times? first mobile product with its own editorial staff tasked with curating online content to provide a selection of the most important stories. 

It was also the company?s first standalone news product beyond its core news app.

The content available in the app is geared towards helping readers quickly catch up on the most important stories at a given moment. The editors hand-select articles, videos, infographics and slideshows from NYTimes.com and tailor headlines and summaries for mobile readers.

The content is displayed in a continuously updated news stream. Users can tap on summaries for full access to complete stories. They also can set their smartphone timer to track changes in developing stories.

The Times has been tinkering with its digital subscription strategy for some time as the consumption of online news content continues to grow. About a year ago, it outlined a plan to expand its digital product portfolio with the goal of growing digital revenues. 

NYT Now is an important step in the company?s effort to put resources into strengthening its cross-platform content, while paying special attention to digital. 

Scott Stanchak, director of mobile marketing for the New York Times said at the Mobile Marketing Summit: Holiday Focus 2014 conference last month that the organization?s decision to charge subscription fees for comprehensive cross-channel access or digital-only is paying off. 

Mobile is closing the gap with the print edition, Mr. Stanchak said. Digitally, the newspaper has 831,000 digital subscribers, versus 1.26 million average Sunday print subscribers.

Digital subscriptions covering online and mobile editions have surpassed digital advertising revenue. However, ad sales on mobile are a growing component of the publisher?s business and future focus. 

Nearly 50 percent of all Times digital traffic is on mobile, reflecting what Mr. Stanchak called a mobile-first approach to its task of enhancing society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news and information.

Sixteen percent of Times mobile visits are made through apps, he said.

Mobile strategy
Offering NYT Now free for a week is a way to give users a quick taste of the NYT experience.

Sixteen percent of New York Times' visits are made via apps.

Through 11:59 p.m. ET on Oct. 13, all current NYT Now users and anyone who downloads the NYT Now app will be able to read an unlimited amount of articles in the app for iPhone, regardless of their subscription status.

?We decided that offering free and unlimited access to NYT Now, which is designed specifically for mobile audiences, was the right fit,? Ms. Zebian said.

?We hope the free access period allows users to explore and discover content and features they may not have realized were available on NYT Now and we hope the free access encourages readers to spend more time engaging with the news and journalism, especially during this turbulent time across the globe,? she said. 

?We hope current and new users of NYT Now find the app experience valuable and come back to the app regularly, or subscribe.?

Final Take
Michael Barris is staff reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York