Maybe the New York Times should rethink its strategy to charge readers for access to its website starting in 2011.

Newsday, put up a pay wall on its website back in October.

The result?

Only 35 subscribers have paid $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to its website newsday.com.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but in order to charge people for access, you have to  have  exclusive content that people find valuable enough to pay for.

That means editors and publishers need to do their homework and find out what parts of your site (if any) visitors are willing to pay for.

If they’re not willing to pay for it then you need to 1) get as many eyeballs to their site as possible (this means having good content) 2) sell online ads, and 3) make sure those ads are placed right creative enough that people will notice them and 4) use online conversion tools to convert as many of those visitors into leads for your customers.

If you can supply advertisers with a steady stream of leads and customers to their website, you can become very profitable.

Once newspapers figure this out, they’ll stop hemorrhaging red ink.

In this recession, a debate had raged whether or not organizations should cut their marketing and advertising budget during lean times. According to a New Yorker article, numerous studies have shown that those who keep spending during tough times do better in the long run.

In 1927, the economist Roland Vaile found that firms that kept ad spending stable or increased it during the recession of 1921-22 saw their sales hold up significantly better than those which didn’t. A study of advertising during the 1981-82 recession found that sales at firms that increased advertising or held steady grew precipitously in the next three years, compared with only slight increases at firms that had slashed their budgets. And a McKinsey study of the 1990-91 recession found that companies that remained market leaders or became serious challengers during the downturn had increased their acquisition, R. & D., and ad budgets, while companies at the bottom of the pile had reduced them.

The best part?

…the benefits from recession investment are often surprisingly long-lived, with companies maintaining their gains in market share and sales well into economic recovery.

You can read the entire article here. In the meantime, start cranking up the marketing budgets!

It’s a perilous time to be in the newspaper and magazine business. Advertising revenue and subscriptions continue to fall. Staffs are being slashed. Many wonder how much longer if newspapers and magazines even have a future.

They do. But it will take some creativity to survive.

The Christian Science Monitor and U.S. News & World Report have taken the first step to surviving well into the 21^st Century: Abandoning their print editions and becoming internet-focused publications* (see CSM story here and U.S. News story here).

Changing to a web-only publication is a win for publications because it eliminates one of their biggest expenses: printing, delivery, mailing costs. With the right analytic tools, the move provides publishers and editors more information about their readers. Not only can they know who’s reading their publication but what they’re reading and where they’re coming from and what advertisers to target.

However, their move to online publications should be welcome news for advertisers who are looking for effective advertising avenues and ways to make sure they’re getting the most for the money they spend. The move is also a win for advertisers who, instead of going on ineffective print ads, will be able to know about those who will be to their ads and how effective there advertising campaigns are. As a result, they’ll be able to squeeze the most from every dollar they spend advertising with these web-only publications.

That’s not to say the move isn’t without its challenges. Both the CSM and U.S. News need to find a way to make this move profitable. When it comes to news, consumers have pretty much rejected paying for it online. That means these publications are going to hope that the amount and type of traffic they generate to their websites are enticing for potential advertisers.

For advertisers, there’s little downside other than hoping their marketing campaigns resonate with prospects and the publications are able to provide an attractive target audience.

Whether or not The Christian Science Monitor and U.S. News can make the transition to the web a profitable one remains to be seen. Either way, look for many more publications to take the same leap in 2009.

*  U.S. News & World Report will continue a monthly publication mostly in the form of their annual consumer guides. The Christian Science Monitor will publish a weekly print magazine.