Launches

MIT Sloan Management Review launches on Bolt with metered paywall to drive subscriptions

The prestigious US university, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has launched a brand new app on Pugpig Bolt. Here’s a little more about what we did…

19th September 2023

The prestigious publication, MIT Sloan Management Review, has launched a brand new app on Pugpig Bolt.

Having recently done a lot of work on their subscriber proposition with Piano, they wanted to launch a brand new app as a hub for their subscribers and lifetime access to all content for their alumni.

Displaying interactive content

While the majority of the app is out-of-the-box, our Professional Services team here at Pugpig worked closely with the MIT Sloan team to make sure their range of content formats was supported and displayed beautifully both in timelines and in articles.

From interactive articles to in-article slideshows, GIFs, tables and more, we worked through a list of content formats provided by MIT Sloan Management Review to make sure all article types looked slick for the best user experience.

Implementing a metered paywall

One way that MIT Sloan wanted to encourage subscriptions is by introducing a metered paywall. This means app users get access to three free articles before hitting a paywall with the requirement of becoming a paid subscriber.

The paywall was simple to integrate thanks to Bolt’s metered paywall functionality, and MIT Sloan Management Review also offers a complimentary ebook if a user does choose to subscribe to encourage paid subscriptions even further.

Responsive HTML digital editions

The app combines beautifully responsive HTML editions and live content timelines for surfacing the latest business news. For example, the ‘latest’ feed is curated based on the website homepage logic.

While their quarterly publication was previously only available in PDF format, MIT Sloan now has a more responsive digital magazine proposition which is done through curating magazine content via a content feed. One standout feature of the HTML edition is the beautifully designed table of contents which feels like a mini content timeline in itself.

There was, however, still a need to offer traditional readers the opportunity to view, download and read the monthly magazine in PDF, which they can still do via a ‘view PDF’ button in the table of contents.

Dom Easter, Customer Director at Pugpig said:

“We massively enjoyed the process of working with MIT Sloan Management Review and are looking forward to building out more features and functionalities of the app during phase two in the near future. Personally, this one was a particular highlight for me, having read the magazine cover to cover during parts of my business degree back in university.”

The app is available to download on both iOS and Android app stores.