Summary: The media industry’s focus on expanding reach at the cost of sales is critiqued. Fortune’s Chief Customer Officer, Selma Stern, highlights the misalignment of incentives leading to acquiring new customers at low prices. Such an approach dilutes subscriber quality and decreases advertiser interest. Balancing reach with quality content for niche audiences is emphasized for…
Summary: The article discusses the rise and fall of the social media platform Threads, launched by Meta, and its struggle to maintain early momentum. Threads initially gained popularity due to its Instagram connection but faced issues with unimpressive features, leading to user disengagement. The piece reflects on the viability of the Minimum Viable Product concept…
Peter Houston’s article, “Nine things we learned making an indie print magazine,” explores lessons from creating The Grub Street Journal, a B2B magazine. It emphasizes prioritizing enjoyment over profits, the unique considerations of print layout, the importance of covers, and embracing both print and digital aspects. The article stresses community, navigating challenges in distribution and…
General lessons about content marketing How to come up with material Always be listening. I have a good priest friend who says “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I understand that to mean that there’s teaching going on all the time, all around us. We just have to have our ears tuned…
Even in the midst of constant change, there are enduring principles publishers need to stick with. A subscriber to The Krehbiel Letter told me that one thing he gets from my content is an emphasis on what stays the same during a time of radical transformation. He works in change management, and that’s one of…
“Gamification” is a decent tactic, but it fails to meet customer objectives in both customer engagement and customer success. Companies need to emphasize their customers’ priorities and real needs. This article illustrates the problem using the example of a Grammarly email. I appreciate the Grammarly plugin. I’m a decent writer, but everybody can use a…
Why are bookazines doing so well? And is this a sign of things to come? Bo Sacks recently distributed an article by his old friend and debating partner, “Mr. Magazine,” about new magazine titles on the newsstand. Some people will see that as the equivalent of celebrating new albums on vinyl at the record store….
The Washington Post has discovered that personalized onboarding yields good results for subscriptions. Which isn’t a big surprise. The fact that you bought something doesn’t mean you’ll use it. Think of all the idle exercise equipment in basements around the country. It’s one thing to convince somebody to buy. It’s another thing to convince them…
Think for a moment about the trajectory of media consumption. For example, compare what you did yesterday to what you did five, ten, or twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, you might have read a morning newspaper on your way to work, and then you were mostly insulated from news (as you did your job)…
Most website owners worry about engagement, which they should do, because if people aren’t engaged with your site, they won’t do the things that you really want them to do. More on that in a bit, but first, let’s say you wanted to find the most engaged users on your website. How would you do…
Bo Sacks distributed an article by Michelle Yeon titled “Stop the churn: Improving subscription retention rates.” It’s a good list, and she has some good commentary on each item, but I think there’s one very obvious thing missing, which I’ll explain at the end. Here are Michelle’s 10 tips, with my comments. 1. Personalize User…
On a recent “people vs. algorithms” podcast, the boys talk about “dark patterns.” I’m not sure where that phrase came from, but it refers to the tricks companies use to manipulate consumers to do something the company wants them to do. An example from the publishing world would be a very low introductory rate that…
Are you tired of changing your business because some programmer has tinkered with an algorithm? They say it’s for the sake of the users, but we all know it’s to increase their ad revenue. LinkedIn recently changed how they promote content on their site. They say they want to make our feeds more relevant and…
Bo Sacks distributed an article by Peter Bale titled, “New book by Jeff Jarvis uses lessons from media’s print history to frame the digital future.” It reminded me of a rather cynical communist I used to work with who said, “Freedom of the press, for everyone who can afford a press.” Jarvis says the era…
As the AI wave threatens to reshape industries and disrupt the publishing business, publishers can gain a competitive edge by training their own large language model (LLM) with a distinctive voice and point of view. This article explains why this is a crucial strategic choice to make right now, explores the merits of this strategy,…