To re-engage an audience with branded publications we need to provide multiple touch points. This will us help us build a relationship with and recognise the importance of our audience, which will in turn reinforce the value our brands lend to the content they provide.
As publishers instead of thinking ‘what do we need?’ we should be thinking ‘what do our audience need?’ David Cushman recently wrote in his insightful post 2020 vision that “By 2020 a person’s worth will be valued by what they share, not what they keep.” If this is how we are to be valued as individuals it should also be how we are valued as publishers.
We need to serve our audience and share our content with them if and when they need it. In order to do that we need to share in a place they are comfortable accessing our content and where they find value in it.
There is nothing wrong in expecting people to pay for a service, but it needs to be on their terms, they need to book the appointment knowing the price. We shouldn’t react by giving them the same thing they are already getting but now make them pay for the privilege, that would be relationship-breaking, not relationship-building.
I’ve had The Guardian’s iPhone app now for a few weeks. I don’t use it everyday but I do use it more than any other news application I have for several reasons.
1. The content is of a reliably high standard.
2. I paid for it and I want to get value from it.
3. It is almost perfect for the medium.
I know when I use it that I am going to get a variety of content on one page which I can spend 5 minutes looking at and feel I’ve been effectively updated about the world in which I live.
I don’t want it to replicate the amount of content I would get on their website homepage or in their paper. That isn’t what this is for. It’s a referential touch point which gives me access to their brand when I’m on the go, it’s mobile.
People will pay for content, the argument is over and we now need to work out how we grow an audience that will pay for our content on multiple devices in multiple formats.
This particular mobile app is effectively getting an early adopter audience ready for the next thing on the horizon. It shows me that the Guardian are acutely aware that this is a transitional platform which will breed an audience who are ready to pay for digital editions on a yet to be released piece of hardware, which will allow their audience to subscribe, perhaps for 30p a day, to download the paper on a device which they can then read at their leisure through the day, if and when they like.
The more touch points we can provide our audience with the more likely they are to grab hold of our hand and keep hold, forever.
I first got a mobile phone when I was in my first year of A-Levels, this was in 1999. I remember the phone, it was a Siemens which nobody else at school had this made it quite an attraction when I first got it.
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