Is print media dying? How publishers can survive with digital analytics
We’ve heard it before – print media is dying. Subscriptions are down, readers are moving online and publishers are finding the transition to digital platforms difficult. Not only that, digital ad spending is more than ten times larger than it was in 2001 (based on stats from GroupM), and the print media industry will start seeing a significant reduction in their piece of the advertising pie. As circulation revenue begins to exceed advertising revenue, will print media be phased out in the future?
If print is dead, what’s next for publishers?
The news media industry in Southeast Asia is displaying signs that the printed word may start to become obsolete in the near future, given that people are looking to digital platforms to consume their content. The Jakarta Globe, a local daily newspaper circulated in Jakarta, ceased its print version in December 2015 after seven years of operation, citing the high costs of running a paper and the shift to a digital age as its reasons for closing the print arm. Singapore Press Holdings, publisher of the largest local print newspaper The Straits Times in Singapore, announced recently its decision to merge two print publications and cut 10 per cent of its staff strength to reduce operating costs. Given the falling daily average print circulation of The Straits Times from 300,000 in 2015 to 276,000 in August 2016, the publication’s plight is a reflection of the stormy business climate for print media.
With trends suggesting that print media could be moving towards a slow death, publishers have started turning to analytics tools to source for creative new ways that can increase their digital advertising to substitute the loss in print revenue. With the emergence of new digital platforms such as smart watches which readers are now relying on for their daily news digests, who knows what innovative and creative content publishers can push to these new readership groups?
The way forward: using digital analytics to drive subscription and content customisation
Regardless of the platform, content is still king. To succeed in serving the right content through the right channels, publishers should tap on digital analytics to realise the potential of new digital platforms in the market. Having worked with many major publishing groups in Europe, we discovered through digital analytics tools that not all readers are created equal. Understanding who the loyal users of the site are and the reasons behind their site visits is key to learning about what makes these loyal readers tick and how to engage them in a unique way. For instance, one lifestyle magazine found that their loyal readers visited their website to consume horoscope content. With this insight, they switched course by developing deeper content around horoscopes and established themselves as the go-to website for fortune telling.
Analytics helps unravel the secrets to the consumption patterns of readers which can aid publishers in finding breakthroughs in existing monetisation models. Subscriptions, for instance, are an important source of income for publishers and reputable news publications such as The New York Times and Washington Post.
When it comes to subscription, publishers often face the challenge of where they should impose the paywall. When imposed too soon during a reader’s visit on the site, the reading experience could be disrupted and advertising revenue affected. When imposed too late, the publisher may lose the opportunity to gain subscription revenue. Astute publishers tend to turn to digital analytics to find the right place to impose a paywall and in some cases, tailor it to be imposed differently for each reader for maximum results.
After registration, publishers can learn more about the reading patterns of their visitors and send them targeted emails with relevant stories that can increase their propensity to subscribe to (more) paid content. Retaining these subscribers is also a matter of how personalised and customised the content they receive is, which again relies heavily on mining data on their previous behaviour on the site.
Building a sustainable media strategy
Digital analytics may just be the hope that publishers need in the face of declining print revenue. Building successful subscription models depends on a deep understanding of the reader, which is why investing in digital analytics is a crucial first step to the process. Having a clearly defined strategy which not only focuses on readership engagement but is also closely aligned with the business model builds a good foundation for supporting analytics capabilities.
While advertising may not be able to completely replace all the revenue that is lost from print, there is a potential for media organisations to create new revenues from other sources. Deep diving into data gleaned from the digital properties of media publications could lead to revenue opportunities that could go beyond the content business. In the case of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), launching SPH Classifieds, their online classifieds arm, was one of the alternative sources of income for them which enabled them to lift their overall revenue by 11.4%. Not limited to just content development, SPH was able to expand to another adjacent industry by tapping on the strong understanding they have on their readers’ areas of interests.
By creating a strong foundation for analytics and building a good understanding on customer data, media organisations can futureproof their business through their ability to customise content that readers want and to innovate via opportunities for alternative sources of revenue to support their core business.
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