As paywalls guarding publications’ content become more widespread throughout national, regional and trade publications over the course of 2011 and into 2012, the quality of content that these publications provide will be placed under greater scrutiny by their readers, keen to see that they are being given value for their money.

Until now, in exchange for little more than a few personal registration details, access to an online B2B trade publication has been usually free of charge. There are some that have had paywalls for many years, and some who have tied access to their online content within their hardcopy subscription fee, but the vast majority have provided complimentary access.

Business models for such B2B publications have traditionally relied primarily upon magazine subscriptions and hardcopy and online advertising, except for those publications that have also been able to monetise the data they hold on their registered readers. However, with the commoditising and resultant cheapening of online advertising and the rapid drop in hardcopy subscription numbers, a gaping hole has been created in the publication’s finances.

To date, the approach has been to maximise the number of visitors to the online magazine, crow about these numbers and so charge the highest prices for the advertising. But if your advertising revenues no longer make you sufficient profits, then the alternative is to accept a smaller audience but go back to the subscription model.

As a result, while many have not considered it practical to restrict access to their online content only to fee-payers, there will undoubtedly be a growing trend throughout 2011 and into 2012 of B2B trade publications across all vertical markets considering and adopting a paywall-based revenue stream.

However, such an approach carries significant risk. In a recent survey completed by KPMG Research, only 10 per cent of web users said that they would continue to visit websites which charged to view content. It understandably grates with much of a publication’s audience, who have been able to previously access content for free online, to suddenly have to pay subscription fees – and so they go elsewhere. It seems to go against the grain of the internet to charge for access to material online, despite there always having been a model of paying for content through subscriptions to hardcopy editions.

And so, if this prediction is correct, there will naturally be a change in the B2B online publication’s ethos of content provision. If readers are now paying for their content, they will expect value for money – a return on their investment. No longer will brief, basic news announcements and obvious feature articles satisfy the paying audience. Instead, publications will have to distinguish themselves from their competition by consistently providing a greater quantity and quality of insightful analysis and detailed feature articles to accompany their news announcements.

While many publications already do exactly this (and who are often those who have learnt the importance of such content through successfully selling subscriptions to hardcopy editions), there are just as many publications, if not more, who do not and who will therefore struggle to satisfy or attract a fee-paying online audience.

Suddenly, the abilities, reputation and qualities of the journalist, columnist or commentator become all the more important. Of course, quality of content has always been vital so that unique user figures are impressive enough to attract advertisers with substantial budgets, but a reader’s name and email address are far more readily imparted than his or her direct debit details or credit card number.

So what does this mean for the PR industry? The pressure felt by publications will be felt just as keenly by the PR teams. Coverage will become more hard-won as many “soft” opportunities for coverage will rapidly die away as these articles are deemed unsuitable for a paying audience. Journalists will expect a higher quality of information to be fed to them so that they can satisfy a demanding public and so will become ever more ruthless in what materials are considered useful and which are discarded.

Therefore, the provision of thought leadership alongside and even within quality news announcements will rapidly sort the PR agency wheat from the chaff. Where PR teams can make the real difference to client and journalist alike is in the provision of timely, insightful comment on the industry and in response to particular recent trends or announcements, very often at short notice for journalists about to break news.

Of course, many PR teams – both from consultancies and in-house – are already creating and disseminating such thought leadership content, but what will change is the degree to which its use becomes essential to guarantee coverage in both the news and features sections.

But this isn’t anything the PR industry did not already know. The traditional values of PR – appreciation of a publication’s target audience, the needs of the individual journalist and the detailed, timely briefing of the appropriate client – are all well-publicised and everyone professes to adhere to them religiously. However, the need to do so consistently and to the highest standards will be the key to PR success in a pay-to-read world.