If you are unfamiliar with the publishing industry, today’s Idea of the Day might require a bit of background. For more context you can read further here. (It even includes a picture of a guy sitting on a toilet reading a paper. That’s worth checking out, right?).
For the cut-to-the-chase version, here’s how I think publishers could revitalize newspapers:
- Instead of charging for subscriptions, they should give away the papers (removing this barrier to entry would help them increase circulation).
- There would be no more newsstand versions. You would have to subscribe if you want to receive the issues.
- When subscribing, you would complete a demographic profile (I’m 37 years old, hold a B.A., married, 4 kids, $ income, etc.).
- You would choose print and/or digital delivery.
Though the newspaper loses revenue on the subscription side, their advertising now increases in value because they know more about you. The tricky part is delivering only contextualized ads to the readers who ‘requested’ such content. This is the cornerstone of the strategy: if I am being blasted with (what I perceive to be) irrelevant ads I am going to tune them all out. If on the other hand, there were fewer but more meaningful ads I would be much more likely to engage with them. From this perspective it is important to see ads as sources of information.
People still want ads.We don’t actually want to eliminate advertising, we just want it to be more targeted to our personal interests. I’d bet you anything the results would be much more favorable than the ’shotgun’ approach newspapers have traditionally utilized.
Would you want a free, weekly, localized publication that included interesting ads?
AfriGadget
Kiva