Paris’ daily newspaper Le Monde built a paywall that successfully converted its free readers to paying subscribers.

What was its strategy? According to Isabelle André, CEO Le Monde Interactif, the news media company focused on the following:

     • Improving quality and quantity, as well as the wealth and selection of the newspaper.

     • Learning from user experience and data. While creating a process, try to become a user yourself and take a brief look at your behaviour from that perspective.

     • Remembering the impermanence and flexibility of news: Information has to be given “at any and all time,” at different times of the day and on different advices. News is spread via print, tablet, desktop mode, and mobile.

Le Monde also produces teasers and clips, explaining how subscription works on the technical side and why it is worth paying for the product.

The results show off the news media company’s success:

• Data show a big increase in the younger reader’s section.
  
  
• Most new subscribers are younger than the print readers and highly equipped with smartphones and tablets up to 70%.

Le Monde interactive? Thumbs up!

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