Digital Media: Create, Listen, Grow.
For media companies, reader loyalty is EVERYTHING.
WARNING: This post suggests that the most important thing for media companies to do is listen — and cater — to their readers. Please keep all arms and legs inside the ride!
During the Fall 2015 semester, I took a course at UNC-Chapel Hill taught by Penny Abernathy — a former executive at Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — about the business and strategy side of the media industry. It included all the fun stuff about disruption, content distribution methods, and the like.
Throughout the semester, however, one quote of Prof. Abernathy’s stuck with me. As we discussed how metro and regional newspapers’ “de facto monopoly” on advertising (and reader attention) has completely eroded in the past 10–15 years, she dropped a fairly common sense, but still wildly valuable quote that I will always remember when I think about the media business:
”In perfect competition, the only barrier to entry is the loyalty of your customers.”
In any ECON class, you’ll be told that perfect competition is such a hyper-competitive and risky space because there are no real barriers to entry. In the media space, this means blogs, hobby websites, Medium articles, and the like. Heck, it means Reddit and message boards and Twitter feeds.
The digital media space is the Wild, Wild West, and everything has become perfect competition.
So…customer loyalty.
As a barrier to entry, customer loyalty is explicitly tied to the asset of time. Over the course of 24 hours, people only have a certain amount of time that they will spend consuming media, digital or otherwise. In a media industry with so much noise and free content being thrown at readers from all angles — a perfect competition landscape at its purest — how do media outlets make themselves worthy of their audience’s time? Specifically, what makes small or specialized digital media outlets worthy of that time? How can a small content provider develop insane levels of customer (reader) loyalty to stand out in such a competitive and unforgiving landscape?
— — —
Imagine you run a local coffee shop.
Not a Starbucks or a Dunkin’ Donuts. You’re a brand new business, and the town’s residents have have no clue who you ; they simply saw you as they passed by on the road. Your coffee isn’t as good as the Starbucks a couple miles away, and it’s not as fast as the Dunkin’ Donuts or McDonald’s drive-thru on the other side of town.
How do you get people to come to your coffee shop?
Maybe you spend a lot of money on advertising right out of the gate, or run some big promotion that gets a lot of attention. Everyone in the town starts talking about you, and everyone wants to try you out once. Or maybe they just see you on their daily commute.
Once they try your coffee shop for the first time, how do you get them to come back? We already established that you’re facing an uphill battle.
Simple, right?
You smile.
You ask customers about themselves. You find out their favorite drink (“the usual”), and you show that you genuinely appreciate their business and support. Suddenly, your customers love you. They’re willing to drive the extra mile each morning, and spend the extra five minutes waiting in line , rather than going through the drive-thru down the road. Eventually, the regular customers begin recognizing each other and talking to each other during every visit. Then they tell all their friends, they buy your custom t-shirt that you designed on a whim, and things start taking off. You now own everyone’s favorite coffee spot, and Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are no longer concerns of yours.
The amount of time and money you’ll spend with a business or person that knows your first name, or asks if you want “the usual” is astounding.
I say that anecdotally, but I am sure that there are studies that would back up that assertion.
— — —
If it works in coffee shops, it can work on the Internet, too. I’d like to argue that the same rules of customer service that apply to any brick-and-mortar business can — and MUST — apply to digital media operations, as well.
Think about it: In a digital media world that is 100% perfect competition, customer loyalty is the ultimate key. Content options are endless, and some are much more convenient than others.
It’s your lunch break, and you want to catch up on what you missed in the world during a busy morning of work. Clicking on the blog post that appears first on your Twitter feed is a lot more convenient than typing in a full URL on a web browser. And don’t forget about push notifications, Apple News, and everything else that occurs on a smartphone interface.
— — —
So rather than continuing to pontificate on this, let’s get practical. Time to provide some context.
When I was a junior in high school, I launched a website called MDHoops.net. I had absolutely no clue what I was getting into, and I honestly was just pumped that I could go to high school basketball games for free and write about them. The fact that people actually read my work — and talkedwith me about it — was a fantastic added bonus.
I had an interesting vision for the site, which focused a bit more on the under-appreciated teams and players throughout Maryland and the Washington, D.C. area. Instead of writing constantly about the latest exploits of the top dozen or so highly recruited players. So I went to watch basketball games at schools known for lacrosse, and at schools that had never had any sort of reporter attend a game.
What happened? After writing about some of these teams and players — many for the first time in their high school careers — their respective communities exploded. I had tweets about Division 3 prospects from the suburbs blow up for 100+ retweets (this was when 100+ retweets was a lot). I had articles about schools with enrollments of 500 students or less attract thousands of unique visitors.
That was when I started (accidentally) developing a pretty deep level of reader loyalty. And from there, things really took off.
I used Twitter as a customer service vehicle. I thanked everyone who would share a link to a story, and would have genuine conversations with parents, coaches and fans who interacted with my content. I was just having fun, talking about my work and high school basketball. In the process, I was building an incredibly loyal audience.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but what I was doing with the content I published was creating lifetime value, and then following it up with exceptional customer service through Twitter engagement. When I wrote a story about a certain school, I knew exactly which Twitter accounts to tag — my version of “the usual.” If a few people asked for a story on a certain school or player, I would either fully cover it, or make sure to inject some note about the team or player in a future tweet or article.
It was a simple operation. I never compromised any “journalistic integrity” (whatever that actually means), and I turned the site into a daily destination for the surprisingly large audience of high school basketball junkies in Maryland. I had student sections chanting my name when I walked into gyms, high school coaches and players clamoring for coverage, and high-level college coaches texting and calling me every day. High school coaches from one side of the state would read an article featuring the coach at a school they had never heard of 100+ miles away and ask me about it. Later that day, I would see the coaches interacting on Twitter.
Later, when I organized a showcase camp event in which players paid to attend? Easily sold out 120 spots, months in advance.
Later, when I began producing MDHoops.net t-shirts? Sold out my first (and ultimately only) batch in a week or two.
— —
To make a long story short, I ended up selling the MDHoops.net brand to DMVelite Showcase Events, Inc. as part of a merger, and we dissolved MDHoops into a larger DMVelite operation. From there, I ended up getting more involved in business strategy and event operations. A few months later, I officially enrolled as a freshman at UNC-Chapel Hill.
I continue to serve more in a strategic and event planning role with DMVelite, and continue to have incredibly strong relationships with players, coaches, parents and fans in the Maryland high school basketball scene. The customer loyalty has continued, despite a company change and a move two states away. They continue to support DMVElite and our events, and I’ve even had some old MDHoops.net readers enlist the services of my digital marketing company and become valuable clients.
— -
That story should serve as a quick example for any media outlet or content producer out there: Think about the reasons why you go to a certain restaurant over another that serves the same quality food for the same prices. Think about why you go out of your way to visit that local coffee shop.
Now think about the blog or news site that you visit every day. Not a big, established one with all the best writers and biggest budget. Think about the small blog or YouTube channel that you love keeping up with. Do you know the people running it? Do you interact with them on social media? Do they thank you for your support and engagement? Why are you so loyal?
If you run a media operation, think about your interactions with readers. Do you answer every tweet? Do you thank people for commenting? Are you making it easy for readers to find new content? Do you engage within your community and make content suggestions? Are you creating lifetime value for your readers?
You have great content. Want more people to hear what you have to say? Start Listening.
— — —
On Twitter: @Edgar_Walker