By: Jay DeFoore The Wall Street Journal is opening up the floodgates on its paid Web site. For the week of Nov. 7, Web surfers looking for the latest business news will be allowed unfettered access to
WSJ.com in a promotional campaign the company is calling its "Open House."
During that time, nonsubscribers will be able to access the entire site with no subscription or registration required.
"With our research showing that more than 90% of the people who have sampled the Online Journal's content via a trial subscription chose to become paid subscribers -- coupled with the overwhelming success we experienced with last year's Open House -- it made perfect sense to hold another event in 2005," Todd Larsen, president, Consumer Electronic Publishing, Dow Jones & Company, said in a statement.
In an
interview with E&P earlier this month, Larsen described the "marketing challenge" paid sites have in getting potential subscribers to see what's being offered.
According to Dow Jones officials, the promotional efforts are paying off. The company credits last year's Open House with boosting weekly unique visitors by 90% and say it generated about 10,000 new subscriptions.
The Online Journal has by far the largest online subscription base for any newspaper site. In its latest
quarterly earnings report, the company said paid subscriptions had increased 9% in the last year to 764,000, with an average of 172,000 unique users visiting the site each business day.
The Journal is also using the promotion to attract advertisers, and will offer advertisers added exposure in Open House promotional ads running in other Dow Jones properties such as MarketWatch and the print version of Barron's. So far Sprint, Charles Schwab, and Chase Bank have signed on as sponsors.
The annual subscription price for the Online Journal is $99, while print subscribers pay a discounted price of $49.
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