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April 2003
Say That Again???
I’ve had the pleasure of addressing several newspaper groups or organizations lately (… these really are GREAT fun!) and have been given a fair amount of latitude regarding the topic. Some mixture of what current research is saying, sprinkled in with a dash of motivation, folded in to a humorous, how do we innovate and think differently broth. Like I said, a lot of latitude…
Many of these points are communicated far better in person (because of the emotional context) but wanted to share elements, as well as, ideas we’ve run across recently that might motivate and/or stimulate and hope you’ll react, disagree, counter or best of all, take and run with an idea or notion and tell us about a subsequent success!
Consider this fictitious newspaper Mission Statement: “Our job is to bring unique value to our community and have relevance and differentiation in everything we do and say.”Does that resemble yours? Do you have one?
We like this one. What’s worrisome is that most of the industry is incapable of fulfilling that, (or, even many of the published statements) mission without significant, fundamental, do-it-now-before-it’s-too-late CHANGE.
- What about audience segments we don’t reach? While we still do a terrific job with Boomers on up, newspapers hover in the mid 20% readership range with Gen Y’s, X’s, etc. If we aren’t reaching, how do we bring ANY value?
- And, what about differentiation? Or, should we even be attempting to “differentiate”, and if so, from what?
Consider this historical observation proof that more change is required - - Do you know the one thing the oldest companies in the world have in common? All are over 500 years old (obviously, none in this country) – there are 16 in Europe and China.
NONE DOES WHAT IT WAS FOUNDED TO DO!
From our view point the message is clear - the Internet should represent a tool shepherding newspapers in a direction that will truly alter, and improve, how we serve customers.
Is that happening?
- If the internet and television are the primary news and information tools for late breaking news, perhaps newspapers should abandon that pursuit altogether (except for stories newspapers’ break!) and focus on the analysis and conveying “what it means to me?” to the reader? Do current hostilities support this strategy?
- We’ve seen readership and circulation decline for decades and through inaction, indifference, or belief this was inevitable, allowed it to continue. Why? Are we prepared to make the necessary decisions to halt that slide AND REVERSE IT?!! If one necessity is to accept smaller margins in the short term, can we countenance that?
- Several recent research endeavors (including a 13 market effort here at Belden) suggest that approximately 20% of ex-subscribers canceled their subscription as a result of poor customer service. As disappointing as that number is, we’d rather look at how good things could be IF we improve all the elements making up customer service! How fine would that be?!
- If customers say they want to be able to subscribe to any combination of days of the week, why don’t we make that happen? If price is the perpetual complaint, what are we doing to respond to that complaint? If the internet really allows users more access to more information anytime – a true customer centric tool – are we going to rebuild our business model so that is designed to serve readers (in print and online) equally as well as the advertisers’ the model was designed to serve?
- Speaking of business model, what can we learn from Publishers in other parts of the world? Many EU, Central and South American newspapers rely exclusively on single copy sales – is that an option? Should it be? What about niche products we should be starting?
- One Norwegian Publisher reports their marketing (including research) budget is routinely 3% of revenues – how does that compare? He goes on to report that 10% EBITDA is perfectly acceptable to most European Publishers’, but doubts that would be acceptable here.
- Thankfully, many are experimenting with new and different (some successfully, others that will be dreadful failures that teach us volumes) ways to reach the young and light readers. Keep it up – learn from those glorious failures and try again – and, are we sharing successes and building upon them? Several high profile efforts are getting a great deal of scrutiny, but there should be 1500 different young reader experiments going on and it doesn’t appear as if that’s the case.
Do these ideas and notions have merit? Some will; some won’t – each market will be slightly different. But, it’s equally certain that the same solutions and even copying the best practices of others WILL NOT be enough. With all the resources newspaper’s can bring to bear, much more than small, incremental steps will be required and we believe those steps are well with our reach.
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