Technology changes faster than marketing knows how to cope, and now as much as 50 percent of marketers face the challenge of producing and delivering content that only their customers will want to read. Technology has taken over from the newspapers, and newspapers have taken over from the magazines.
Revenue models are becoming digital, and distribution of content is becoming radically different as the tools improve. If you cannot be unique you have a problem, and if you cannot produce something unique you have a problem. This is the issue, and marketing now lives on marketing.
When I began to market, the thing that made the difference to me was not necessarily price or promotion, but how much you offered me to spend. Consumers who wanted more than a few pages of information and a couple of articles of advertising were frustratingly rare, and so the business plan became about how much advertising you could afford, and how much work you would do. Advertising to convince people to spend their money was all-important.
Now the media companies are determined to go to all-in on digital, to try to re-create the business models they had in the digital era. It seems almost useless to make a business plan that doesn’t take into account digital. It is likely impossible to do, but it seems pointless to try.
New Approaches
People seem to be trying new ways. There are great developments in legal case-making for limited distribution, allowing you to sell to the population and be innovative, but at the same time providing the possibility of delivering content that other people want to read. Digital forms can distribute quickly, and they can be found.
Digital publishing enables more experimentation, and as technology improves and people get the means to work better with it, you get developments in media delivery. The kinds of content that you can produce, and the distribution mechanisms that you can use have improved greatly over time, and the fact that it can be in digital makes it even better. But you don’t need a lot of technology for distribution, the most important thing is to know how your product is best consumed.
Social media is changing and evolving so rapidly that its boundaries will be determined by consumers. There will probably never be a new media company like Facebook, but there will be ways for media companies to move into the digital age that enable them to be very different. If a business can’t produce something unique that its customers will want, it has a problem.
Marketing is now being forced to look at other options. Advertising is being limited, so that instead of buying advertisements, media companies will pay for the delivery of content and allow people to make their own decisions.
Digital Marketing Is Changing
Digital marketing means that it is not necessary to advertise. Technology means that we can create and deliver content that we want to see, and we can be innovative, entertaining, unique and innovative, so we don’t need to spend so much money on advertising.
However, you still have to be there to deliver your content. There is a problem with producing a good enough service to make sure that people don’t go away. Marketing for digital media can now only be undertaken when you know that your customers will stay.
PPC is becoming a bigger problem as we work on media that only our customers will want to see. Digital marketing is still one of the most powerful tools available, but if you make it your marketing plan, you have a problem. It can be used by anyone, so it seems pointless to invest huge amounts in digital marketing if you do not know if you can deliver that specific content to people. If you only deliver what you know, you have a problem.
It is a case of trying new things, seeing what works, then working out how to improve it. There are big opportunities, but you need to understand the market and the customers, and keep trying new things. Technology changes so fast that you have to keep trying.
New Models
It is important that the companies are all experimenting with their business models. Right now there are media companies looking for business opportunities in the digital realm, but there are also media companies focused on changing the traditional business model, so that they can offer more content in an affordable way. This includes video, podcasts, audio-based content. It is about working out what you can deliver in the modern market, and you will be forced to adjust your business to take advantage of new technology.
Digital-based media companies may be on top at the moment, but new business models are emerging, which are changing the future of media.