It’s a familiar story … the disruption of newspapers by the rise of digital media, and specifically the industry's inability to adapt the radical change in news consumer behavior. But that story was always more complicated.
As I continue to tell people to this day, newspapers were among the earliest to move online and in the first digital wave had online audiences bigger than most, if not all, of its competitors. In fact, their digital audience remains large today.
Simply moving to digital was never the entire answer. So it’s with curiosity we see the next group of publishers looking to digital to be the way forward to profit and strong journalism. Here, News & Technology covers plans by the owner of the Colorado Springs Gazette to enter Denver with a pure digital play and Walter Hussman (of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette fame) changing his business model and taking it to Pine Bluff.
In Santa Cruz, newspaper veteran, Newsonomics author, and industry expert, Ken Doctor, is attempting to take what he’s learned and launch Lookout Santa Cruz, an all-digital news site he wants to be the local source of record.
In these cases, they are foregoing print - either entirely, or just delivering on Sunday in the case of the Democrat & Gazette - in order to have a business model that achieves profitability and sustainability.
Along with many other digital-only publishers, the hope is:
To more fully benefit from cost savings, not just from consolidating but eliminating print costs altogether.
To take advantage of "news deserts” created by closed newspapers and reduced newsrooms to find fertile ground.
The Revolution Continues
There really is another revolution happening with local news and information. Some examples include print but many others rely on the lower cost of entry to digital. In the coming years, these ventures will be able to test and adapt what works and define new business models.
In that quest, I believe it’s important to continue to innovate around the main drivers of revenue - subscribers and advertisers. To be successful, there need to be new ways of thinking and new models to go beyond the limitations of the initial foray into digital.
On the subscriber side, it will be important to:
Differentiate their news in some way: by topic, depth, style, or presentation. “Local” isn’t enough of a difference, it has to be truly unique in some other way. For content marketers, Joe Pulizzi has called this a “Content Tilt.”
"Your content tilt is what separates you from everyone else in your market area. It’s your unique perspective on your content niche, which creates an opportunity for you to attack, lead and, ultimately, own the category."
Deliver a multi-channel experience that is integrated and complementary based on the channel and user experience. Everyone pushes content out on multiple platforms, not everyone does it in an integrated way.
Add value to subscriptions and memberships which distinguish from what “prospects” get. Make those who are paying feel rewarded for doing so, rather than prize the next click or entry-level subscription offer that makes current customers feel like suckers.
On the advertising side:
Give businesses a chance to tell their story authentically. The power of content and reader relationships is a unique value. It should be available to advertisers as well.
Create ad formats that complement other content and increase engagement, constantly iterating and letting advertiser results drive improvements.
Continue to improve targeting and reporting of audience delivery. Go beyond selling alternatives like FB and Google and start offering something that competes with them.
All this requires a sophisticated approach to data and analytics. Deep knowledge of the audience and their behavior is necessary to serve both the reader with the most valuable experience and ensure advertising messages are relevant to forge real consumer-business connections.