Open access and revenue diversification - Research Information

"But from my perspective, there are other options. For example, investing in providing a holistic member proposition, pivoting to a more product-led mindset, and bringing together all the un-utilised value currently sitting in different silos, can offer more opportunities for revenue diversification and start to reduce the risk that relying on OA revenue alone brings.

Here are a few ways in which we think society and small publishers can start doing just that, harnessing the technology, content and data that is already at their fingertips:

• Expanding into new markets

Often publishers think about new markets as being geographical. For most, ‘customer’ always boils down to ‘libraries’, of for OA ‘authors’. But we’ve seen the value in identifying adjacent sectors that might find access to the insights in your data to be valuable, such as healthcare, education, pharma and policy-making. Consider expanding your definitions of ‘customer’ and ‘markets’ beyond the traditional publishing sphere and building products that meet their needs to create a brand new revenue stream. 

• Thinking of your data as a service and packaging it appropriately

There are many examples of partnerships and licensing deals out there – are your data and content in a fit state to take advantage of something similar? Reframe your thinking around those assets to figure out who might also need access, and how they might want to get it. It’s likely a different delivery mechanism than your current one.

• Breaking down siloes 

Many societies have publishing arms, events arms, policy arms and CPD/education arms. All of these generate information that could offer your members comprehensive intelligence and secure your position as the one must-have place for them to stay up-to-date in their field. Bringing together these previously disparate data sets and services will create a bigger value proposition for your members, as well as inspire ideas for new products and services.

• Make AI work for you – and your users

It wouldn’t be a column from me without a mention of AI, but specifically here there is an opportunity to use AI to create tools that offer researchers new ways to interact with content – or ways for your content to find new audiences. For existing users, integrating conversational search and interrogation interfaces, or providing highly specialised tailored summaries, might increase the stickiness of your content which can have a direct impact on cost-per-download and advertising revenue. Meanwhile, opening up your content to new audiences with AI-generated audio and video content might help engage new markets – for example, creating a regular podcast aimed towards policy makers or the media. 

• Tidying up your tech stack to enable mergers and acquisitions

For a lot of society publishers, battling with legacy systems and processes is just part of the territory. But it’s a barrier to being flexible enough to take advantage quickly of mergers and acquisitions, where the pressure is on to realise value fast. If this is a route you are interested in, we strongly recommend a technology audit to see where you’ll need to make changes to ensure quick and seamless integrations with new partners or acquired assets...."