A New Model For Business Publishing
Monday, 08. 3. 2009 – Category: Enversa Companies
One of the most popular topics over the last couple of years has been the steady fall of the print media industry. Almost everybody is in agreement that the old way of doing things just isn’t working, and there is not one single solution that can alone fix the industry. In the new market, publishers have problems that might be too big to fix right away.
There are plenty of new problems facing the industry, most of which are pretty scary if you are in charge of managing the bottom line for any publishing company. For one, circulation has gone down steadily to the point where large newspapers are almost an ineffective means of mass communication. The byproducts of that are pretty predictable, as the advertising dollars have fallen significantly. This has been made even more evident by the rise of new social marketing sites and other types of internet marketing.
In addition to those things, it is worth noting that newspaper content is just not cheap. Writers have to be paid and their work is highly valued and costly. With the high cost of content and the fact that many people will not pay for the content online, the problem is compounded even further. It should also be mentioned that the opportunities for reaching new readers are out there, and there is more of a chance for that now than almost ever before. The problem, of course, is that all sorts of other written media are after the same readership, and blogs have come into the mix as well.
From this, one can see that the issues for large publishing companies are real and they are difficult to fix. There are thousands and thousands of people being impacted by this new reality, since the newspaper industry employs people on many different fronts. But what needs to happen for the problem to be fixed? There are many solutions to this problem that should happen immediately. One of the major problems is that newspapers have been slow to update themselves into the new era of marketing. They haven’t yet fully dedicated themselves to using the new online outlets, so they are being jumped over by revolutionary sites like Craigslist and Monster. While the newspaper industry used to own the classified, these sites are now bringing the industry to its knees.
The real solutions must come as a result of a widespread change in philosophy within the newspaper business. New revenue outlets must be explored and cultivated, as Dan Blank of RBI has pointed out in his writings. A mix of new revenue streams have to be further developed if the newspapers want to stand any chance of even surviving. If they want to retain a place among the players in the advertising industry, then more effective approaches have to be maintained and enhanced.
The huge issue facing publishers today is that they are trying first and foremost to make money solely from their content. With the marketing being what it is right now, there is too much competition for this to work. They must, instead, try to work to their audience. They have to move away from CPM advertising and into the new methods which have proven to be more effective with new, younger audiences. The idea, of course, is to develop an open-minded philosophy and stick with it, always leaving open the doors to new ideas and new ways of making money in the newspaper business, which traditionally has been reluctant and slow to change.
Dan Sturdivant, a content marketing expert and is the manager for Encontent Online Magazines.
Tags: advertisers, Content Marketing, Dan Sturdivant, Front Page Leases, Online Magazines, print media