Why Should Established Publishers NOT Want Digital Strategy?
And why CDOs should be replaced with Product Managers
As surprising as it may seem, majority of established publishers still don’t get the difference between distribution channels, business strategy and product (strategy — if you insist).
This short article is based on my discussions with four different companies trying to embrace “digital strategy” paradigm, as one CEO called it. I will try to shed a little light on why I feel frustrated by discussions and questions about digital strategy from publishers.
Basically anyone who in 2014 still thinks there is something like a “digital strategy” acknowledges that he believes publishing is about print and/or digital and therefore CDO (Chief Digital Officer) and digital strategy will fix their problem. It seems to me as naive as thinking that Chief Electric Vehicle Officer can fix problems of “going green” for car manufacturers.
The fact that even today I am still meeting many people who want CDO makes me believe there is a good reason why investors started investing more and more money into new publishing ventures. They started to believe that transforming an established publisher which includes changing culture, thinking and way of doing things is harder than building a new one and sometimes impossible.
Here is what I think about digital strategy and CDOs in publishing.
Let’s start this discussion about importance of digital strategy for publishers with a statement: “Digital strategy does not and should not exist!” The term and idea behind it is flawed; it leads to publishers deciding whether to distribute magazines or newspapers as native or web apps which are almost irrelevant questions with regards to future success. Real questions are — what content should I produce, what content should I curate and which should I buy and how should I create different products out of the mix…and what channel(s) are the best to use for each step.
Publisher who wants to be successful definitely needs a STRATEGY and PRODUCT(s). Both of these will include things around digital content creation, distribution and channels monetisation, but because content in different formats makes up your product(s) you cannot separate print and digital, nor can you ignore channels like audio, video, interactive… There needs to be THE PRODUCT and maybe it uses print as one of the distribution channels.
So now we understand there is only one strategy and it needs to cover all channels and products. Publishing strategy must focus mainly on ways of capturing and growing “consumer’s time share across channels”.
It all comes down to what information and value you provide and for whom. Publishing is everything which delivers information, so your competition is not your next door magazine publisher but everyone stealing your consumers’ “paper and screen time”.
It is not about you doing print, digital, video, music, spoken word anymore, you need to do all of them. You need to know which ones make more sense for which product and which you will use as attention drivers and which as cash cows, but you need all of them.
In my opinion, there are four basic things you need to do to succeed being an established publisher. These things are not hard, they just go against established culture:
1] Already mentioned — You need a single strategy which will cover print / mobile / video / sound / interactive and different uses of these channels. If you will get this one right (or you already have it), you belong to top 20% right there!
2] You must focus on occupying ever growing “consumers’ time share” — and notice that I am not saying reader/customer/listener/viewer. They are all consumers of published content. That means as a publisher you want consumers’ time share — irrespective whether it is face time, screen time, ear time or social time…
It’s time to stop being afraid or ignoring of new channels. If you are coming from traditional print or even if you are digital only publisher and you do only one channel (e.g. text and pictures), you are facing a crisis. Your size of “consumers’ time share” is small and getting smaller.
3] Try to be the first to introduce something innovative. In other words create many pilots and find what works for which consumer group and product. Pilots will create opportunities to lead the pack and once you hit the right innovation, you will be the king.
This needs a little different approach to content, strategy and technology. It pays of to keep up with technology as well as with business innovations and in my opinion there need to be a special team of people to work on it constantly.
Most of the business model innovations will grow out of technology possibilities; ideas to watch or try are certainly — “pay for what you consume” model based on content items (like Blendle) or on time (like Readr). Crowdfunding on stories/ideas or people (like -Beaconreader). Maybe product bundling (like cable TV networks did) or subscription only model with additional benefits like extra channels (audio, video) or extra content…not to forget content discovery help (Inside.com, Yahoo News Digest)
4] Last but not least, just apply “simplicity always wins”! It will help to keep costs low and design appealing and non-confusing. Use it for all new products which need to be introduced to cover gaps in your coverage of “consumers’ time share” and changing habits. And yes, redesign the old ones too!
So now we understand there is only one strategy and it needs to cover all channels and products.
We of course know nothing about products you should focus on but I think that’s a thing for longer discussion and some number crunching which you should do with your Product Manager(s) not with your Chief Digital Officer!
Do you agree?
