Tech Stories from a Media Company

huat
huat
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Customer-centric?

Who are we catering to? Who is our customer?

One editor has told me this: “F**k the readers. I don’t earn a cent from them. My customer is the advertiser.” This was told to me by an editor who prides himself as being from a business school and often uses this fact to kill ideas and suggestions.

How does one sell a product that’s literally a series of pop up ads? I do not know.

This newspaper used to be very sports-centric. I remember during my school days, it was the only newspaper that people read. And whenever I looked, they were on the sports section. Apparently this newspaper moved away from it because “Advertisers don’t want to buy ads on the Sports sections”. Same reason why most of the newspapers here barely have any sports news.

Effect? People go to new media to consume their sports news. Cannibalizing your own business.

How does one become more customer centric?

Actually talk to a customer.

How often do you actually hear a feedback from a customer? Most of the time, feedback comes from the internal staff. Immediately when someone suggests getting feedback from customers, your mind shifts to interview styled rooms where you would have to give the customer a “reward” for taking their time to do this. Instead, I would suggest this. Take a notepad and walk out to the nearest street where there is foot traffic and talk to people on the street. See what they tell you.

Take in the good and the bad.

While talking to them, you are guaranteed to hear something that surprises you. Don’t only listen to what you want to hear. Listen and make notes of what they say.

Listen till you hear the same thing over and over again and quite honestly get bored. It happens faster than you think. Start with 5.

Test. Test. Test.

Don’t Trust what you hear. I’ve spoken to customers who tell me that they don’t like reading about the trashy affairs of fallen statesman or media personalities. They tell me that they want to read real news. Then you check their reading habits and they click on only the trashy affairs. This is probably why the evening papers always sell better than the morning one.

Test every insight you gleam. Confirm that it is actually true.

Remember, it’s only a failure if you don’t learn anything from it.

huat

Written by

huat

I work at a Southeast Asian Media Company. I want to share my experiences so that I can learn about yours.