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Monday, August 8, 2011
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Sunday, August 7, 2011
Marketing of eNewspapers
On a cold winter sunday in Jhelum when there was nothing better to do than sip some tea sitting under the quilts one missed the morning paper. Newspapers arrived at about 11 am and there was still no natural gas in the city. We had to make do with electric heaters. Our houses had fireplaces so sometimes we would light them up and consume tons of peanuts gossiping in front of them.
But if you were a newspaper junky like yours truly then getting the paper at 11 am was one of the major inconveniences of living in a small town. Lack of libraries like the British Council Library and other such reading rooms was another.
In order to market eNewspapers one must first understand the pluses associated with their marketing. Here I am talking about only the marketing of eNewspapers and magazines and not about the marketing of Newspapers and magazines.
Like any other student of marketing learning from the university of the world I am going to comment on the marketing of this one feature. The reason being that eNewspapers eNewscast as we may call it will be the future of newspapers as we know them today.
Since eNewscast will be the way of the future therefore whoever wins the race of getting the largest subscriber base will be controlling the market share of the future. To get success in eNewscast it is mandatory that first one must understand and then market the product features. There are many advantages that come with these features and these need to be talked about.
The advantages are :
1.There is no need to wait for the morning paper. Infact you can view the paper as it materialises through the night.
2.One does not have to carry the paper around with oneself.
3.On rainy days you do not have to iron your paper to make it readable.
4. But the biggest advantage by far which the organisations should focus on is the advantage that this epaper offers to the people of the smaller towns in Pakistan. The paper in smaller towns in Pakistan is available after 11 in the morning.
5. Archive available without clutter in ones own living room.
Whats stopping the flood of the eNewscast is the force of habit. Now naturally in order to break the old habit the newpaper company has to go the extra mile to entice people to read their paper on the web. This will obviously increase their net viewing and hence also the advertising revenue.
So papers in Pakistan should start with the far flung areas. In this day and age of web data base it would not be difficult to track potential customers through remote ISP tracking.
The next step would be to delist the classifieds content from pass word protection. This would be a service to the advertisers as well since their advertisements placed with newspapers would be availabale on the net free of charge. Peopel visiting the eNewspaper addition just for classifieds would increase the stream of traffic to the newspaper and hence its rating, popularity and again the advertising revenue. I the past if was not possible to sell only the classified section of the paper but with this technology it is possible to do so just by creating two parts of th epaper. One part would be the pass word protected content where the actual news and articles or opeds are placed. The other part would be the pass word free area containing classifieds and perhaps also a sprinkling of spicy single liners to whet the appetite of those who visit and hence to lure them to subscription.
My recommended next step for papers like Dawn would be to give out one password per month alongwith one month prepay hard copy paper. This will break the old habit of some people and also give them a gradual and smooth transition from paper to web. When technologies like these are nascent organisations should worry more about matters like retaing current base rather than improving market share. Of course over a period of time the organisations can also start thinking about passing on the benefit of their savings in terms of newsprint to the consumer. A very appropriate tactic would be to give huge offers on "eNewspaper only" subscriptions. Or to wait for the next price hike and not to increase the price of the "eNewspaper" only subscription.
The same would be true for magazines. Since a magazine is read in more than one sitting therefore for people who travel or people who would like to take the magazines to their office or college the eZine would be the ideal solution. Thus the idea to give out a password with a copy of each magazine would be even more appropriate. The password can be in the form of a scratch card attached to the magazine. Or can be made available in shops to be given free alongwith each magazine.
Due to disfunctional working of markets it can get converted into a seperate product over time. Meaning that some retailers may start selling the left over (inadvertently) password cards at a small price in order to make more profits. Which could in time create a whole new market (but this would need some time and a lot of luck). Alternately magazines can advertise this as a seperate product.
Since net habits of people are still in the formative stage therefore newspaper and magazine industry still has a chance. This may take a lot of doing and success may be very slow in coming but with a some minor tweaking this can be done.
In the real world scenario they can also look at the revenue they are currently getting from the enewspaper. Compare it with the revenue which they get from the regular paper and see what is the risk of passing on too many log in passwords.
The enewspaper at this point should be more about retaining the readership for the future. Then the second step would be to recapture readers already lost to media bombardment and enews flood. The third step would be to get better market share. But only newspapers which get to retain their readers will be in a position to get more market share.
When I suggested giving out enewspapers in smaller towns and in far flung areas I was talking about getting a foothold in the cyber world. At this point in time it should be more about retaining market share and less about making money out of the enewspaper. Even though with some minor tweaking even that can be done in a years time of the plan is rolled out properly.
But if you were a newspaper junky like yours truly then getting the paper at 11 am was one of the major inconveniences of living in a small town. Lack of libraries like the British Council Library and other such reading rooms was another.
In order to market eNewspapers one must first understand the pluses associated with their marketing. Here I am talking about only the marketing of eNewspapers and magazines and not about the marketing of Newspapers and magazines.
Since eNewscast will be the way of the future therefore whoever wins the race of getting the largest subscriber base will be controlling the market share of the future. To get success in eNewscast it is mandatory that first one must understand and then market the product features. There are many advantages that come with these features and these need to be talked about.
The advantages are :
1.There is no need to wait for the morning paper. Infact you can view the paper as it materialises through the night.
2.One does not have to carry the paper around with oneself.
3.On rainy days you do not have to iron your paper to make it readable.
4. But the biggest advantage by far which the organisations should focus on is the advantage that this epaper offers to the people of the smaller towns in Pakistan. The paper in smaller towns in Pakistan is available after 11 in the morning.
5. Archive available without clutter in ones own living room.
Whats stopping the flood of the eNewscast is the force of habit. Now naturally in order to break the old habit the newpaper company has to go the extra mile to entice people to read their paper on the web. This will obviously increase their net viewing and hence also the advertising revenue.
So papers in Pakistan should start with the far flung areas. In this day and age of web data base it would not be difficult to track potential customers through remote ISP tracking.
The next step would be to delist the classifieds content from pass word protection. This would be a service to the advertisers as well since their advertisements placed with newspapers would be availabale on the net free of charge. Peopel visiting the eNewspaper addition just for classifieds would increase the stream of traffic to the newspaper and hence its rating, popularity and again the advertising revenue. I the past if was not possible to sell only the classified section of the paper but with this technology it is possible to do so just by creating two parts of th epaper. One part would be the pass word protected content where the actual news and articles or opeds are placed. The other part would be the pass word free area containing classifieds and perhaps also a sprinkling of spicy single liners to whet the appetite of those who visit and hence to lure them to subscription.
My recommended next step for papers like Dawn would be to give out one password per month alongwith one month prepay hard copy paper. This will break the old habit of some people and also give them a gradual and smooth transition from paper to web. When technologies like these are nascent organisations should worry more about matters like retaing current base rather than improving market share. Of course over a period of time the organisations can also start thinking about passing on the benefit of their savings in terms of newsprint to the consumer. A very appropriate tactic would be to give huge offers on "eNewspaper only" subscriptions. Or to wait for the next price hike and not to increase the price of the "eNewspaper" only subscription.
The same would be true for magazines. Since a magazine is read in more than one sitting therefore for people who travel or people who would like to take the magazines to their office or college the eZine would be the ideal solution. Thus the idea to give out a password with a copy of each magazine would be even more appropriate. The password can be in the form of a scratch card attached to the magazine. Or can be made available in shops to be given free alongwith each magazine.
Due to disfunctional working of markets it can get converted into a seperate product over time. Meaning that some retailers may start selling the left over (inadvertently) password cards at a small price in order to make more profits. Which could in time create a whole new market (but this would need some time and a lot of luck). Alternately magazines can advertise this as a seperate product.
Since net habits of people are still in the formative stage therefore newspaper and magazine industry still has a chance. This may take a lot of doing and success may be very slow in coming but with a some minor tweaking this can be done.
In the real world scenario they can also look at the revenue they are currently getting from the enewspaper. Compare it with the revenue which they get from the regular paper and see what is the risk of passing on too many log in passwords.
The enewspaper at this point should be more about retaining the readership for the future. Then the second step would be to recapture readers already lost to media bombardment and enews flood. The third step would be to get better market share. But only newspapers which get to retain their readers will be in a position to get more market share.
When I suggested giving out enewspapers in smaller towns and in far flung areas I was talking about getting a foothold in the cyber world. At this point in time it should be more about retaining market share and less about making money out of the enewspaper. Even though with some minor tweaking even that can be done in a years time of the plan is rolled out properly.
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