Author Archives: Content in Context

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About Content in Context

Content in Context helps companies to define the market for their products and services, to identify customers and build the business pipeline, and to develop their content marketing strategies. By working with our clients to design, build and grow their business, our primary focus is to extract commercial value from unique assets, including knowledge, data, know-how, processes and transactional information.

“Status Update = No Change” is valuable information….

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The internet’s voracious appetite for content demands constant new “stuff”, and the hunger for status updates in social media apps means that we are constantly feeding the beast. But the frequency and nature of information updates should be relevant to our audience, appropriate to the content and suitable to its purpose.

Even when there is little of substance to say about our quotidian activities, we feel compelled to offer half-baked, homespun homilies as an indication of our “status”, or as ultimate proof of our existence. Just because the technology enables us to record our lives nanosecond by nanosecond, it doesn’t mean we should be broadcasting everything (and nothing) that happens.

A while back, I was working with a client to develop an information updating service for banking regulations. Our challenge was two-fold:

1. Some regulations changed frequently (but irregularly), and some rarely changed (if at all)

2. Subscribers expected regular updates linked to a fixed publishing schedule (even if there was nothing new to report)

How could we manage the subscribers’ expectations, and maintain a credible updating service?

As it happens, in addition to being a bank regulator, my client also held a private pilot’s license. He subscribed to a service that provided the latest maps and information on flight paths to numerous small airfields. For him, sometimes the most important and valuable information was knowing that there was “no change” at the airfield he was flying to, so he didn’t have to amend his navigation charts prior to his journey, as he knew he always had the latest information.

Our solution for the banking regulations? Publish substantive content updates (including “no change” confirmations) each quarter, with interim news bulletins as and when required. When contemplating how much and how often to communicate with your audience, sometimes letting them know that there is “no change” can be valuable information in itself.

Fairfax Media – Trading Up???

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As an unintended postscript to last week’s comment on the FT, which referenced the Australian Financial Review, Fairfax Media is reported to be selling its stake in the New Zealand on-line auction site, Trade Me. While this will dilute Fairfax’s digital revenues, it will strengthen the balance sheet by reducing debt. According to some analysts, the Trade Me growth rate had started to decline, so Fairfax is probably selling at the peak.

Fairfax is also said to be appointing a couple of senior consultants to help develop a digital growth plan, as part of the overall strategy to address declining advertising sales.

Some data that will no doubt form part of this strategic review are the sprawling list of Fairfax assets, and the latest Fairfax Metro Media Audience Report (references below).

First, there is an opportunity to rationalize and consolidate the portfolio of assets, to yield better value from Fairfax news content and other IP, either by smarter integration and aggregation by market demographic, or improved functionality and customization by distribution channel.

Second, the Metro Media Audience Report confirms the decline in the year-on-year print audience, and reveals that visitors spend less time on the websites, with a significant drop in views for monthly video streams. At the same time, there has been an exponential growth in app downloads, mobile page views and unique readers, but probably not at a rate to offset falling print circulation or attract new advertisers.

It is highly likely that building on the initial success of its tablet apps, Fairfax will look to enhance and monetize the app offerings via localization, customization and better content curation to engage readers, especially its younger audience and the emerging “prosumer” demographic of tech-savvy users.

REFERENCES:

Fairfax publishing, app and on-line assets (as at July 2012):

Click to access PublicationsListfor2011.pdf

Fairfax Metro Media Audience Report (as at October 2012):

Click to access 301112_FMMAROct.pdf

What’s in a business model???

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Interesting speculation in the business media this week about whether Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters are in a potential bidding war for the Financial Times (which is not actually for sale?).

The New York Mayor seems to love the product, but hates the business model. Besides, Bloomberg is still playing around with Business Week.

For Lord Thomson of Fleet (the last remaining Press Baron?) it’s rather like deja vu – didn’t The Thomson Corporation (as was) offload all their newspapers in the ’90’s because print was so last century?

The FT was one of the first newspapers to construct a paywall around its content, and has created customer traction for a range of subscription, pay-as-you go and “freemium” sales models. It also remains a strong brand for global business news, and has a solid presence in Asia. But some commentators suggest that the pink’un is losing money, despite its on-line success, because of declining revenues from print advertising.

The main challenge for traditional business newspapers these days is not so much print vs digital (the FT has sort of got that worked out, and Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters are two of the largest online publishers for financial information). The real challenge is identifying and engaging the audience – who reads a business newspaper these days, and why, when there are so many on-line alternatives?

Despite current market challenges, Fairfax Media has always had a clear sense of its audience profile for the Australian Financial Review. As I understand it, the typical AFR reader is a C-Suite executive (current, former or aspirant), interested in what’s going on in the world and the impact of global events on their personal, corporate or sovereign wealth. In fact, unlike some other newspapers, there are no corporate or institutional customers of the AFR – all subscribers have to be individual readers, potentially making it easier to establish long-term relationships that survive career moves or other changes in personal circumstances.

However, the main difficulties for Fairfax are:

the cost of quality journalism and content in the face of declining revenues (hence the recent syndication deal with the FT in response to The Australian’s access to content from the Wall Street Journal?);

increased competition from numerous on-line entrants (most of which are free, the latest being Leading Company); and

the blurred boundary between the “personal” and the “professional” audience for informed news and commentary on a broad range of inter-connected topics – finance, politics, economics, business, technology, culture, sustainability, leadership….

All of which makes it rather difficult to see why anyone might want to acquire a newspaper business these days, unless for reasons of vanity – Baron Bloomberg of Southwark Bridge?