Media companies aren't having a great time. Demand for their content is a strong as ever, but people are expecting it for free. And users now dictate what they watch, hear and read more than ever. And advertisers are spending less.
A few are doing well, the Financial Times reported a 13% rise in profits for 2008 through a well judged transition to online by charging for selected content and well managed subscription models. Most, though, are struggling.
Online retail is having a ball though, with pureplay success stories like ASOS, Threadless and Play.com trouncing many established brands. What retailers could teach media companies? A few ideas:
Change your view from audience to customer – big retailers learnt this with the advent of loyalty cards, and small retailers have known this all along: understand and respond to your customer, treating each customer as an individual. Media companies know their audiences very well as a group, but few have the ability to understand and respond to an individual customer. Here media companies can borrow from retailers by building ‘customer memory’ to understand individual customers and tailoring services accordingly.
Make everything you feature for sale – Trust in retailers own products reviews is being transferred to publishers and user generated content. Affiliate models allow media companies to take a slice of revenue, but there is an opportunity for media companies to own the whole transaction, making the products they feature a retail opportunity. Nike shows a great example of how this can be done.
Micro-commerce – Gartner defines Micro-commerce as transactions of less than US$1 (or about 70 pence), and is driven by new innovations in payment processing charging. These present a good opportunity for Media companies to monetise ‘special feature’ content at small prices seamlessly, replacing traditional offline subscription revenue.
Lead customer discussions - You could view a newspaper as just a set of blogs, and this shows a great opportunity to develop niche publications and channels to champion customer groups. Tone of voice and direction are vital and media companies should continue to differentiate their editorial and lead issues using social technologies.
