“A customer’s willingness to pay, whether it be for a print subscription price increase or even a high price for a new product in e-publishing, is often much different than what a publisher might think,” says Florian Bauer, Board member of Vocatus, one of the world’s leading specialists in pricing and customer loyalty strategies.

“Pricing needs to be based on empirical data, not on a gut feeling, not on a competitor and not on cost,” said Bauer, who will join an international panel of top publishing executives in a Congress session dedicated to generating new revenues.

As newspaper circulation declines in many markets, and publishers have mixed results in generating revenue from digital offerings, pricing strategies play an increasingly important role to ensure that publishers are getting the most return from their products and audiences.

It to be held from 2 to 5 September in Kiev, Ukraine, focuses on this and other major issues facing newspaper publishers today. More than 1 000 publishers, CEOs, chief editors, managing directors and other senior newspaper executives will be attending the World Newspaper Congress, World Editors Forum and Info Services Expo 2012, the global summit meetings of the world’s press, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

There is still time to join them: full details can be found at www.wan-ifra.org/kiev2012

In addition to Bauer, the session on new revenue generation will include Jacob Møller, head of Mergers & Acquisitions for Schibsted in Sweden; Geoff Tan, senior vice president, Strategic Marketing department for Singapore Press Holdings; Leonyd Bershidsky, editor-in-chief, of Forbes magazine in Ukraine; and Eduardo Sirotsky Melzer, CEO of RBS Group in Brazil.

Another leading publishing executive who will share his insights into expanding growth strategies is Miguel Forbes, Television and Licensing president for Forbes Media. Forbes, who supervises the strategy and development of new business opportunities for the company through international partnerships and acquisitions, will close the first day of the World Newspaper Congress by speaking about media’s role in the global economy.