Publishers erred when they relied on ad revenue and put their content on the internet for free. That revenue model isn’t stable, and (worse) it created an assumption that digital content should be free. Now that ads aren’t providing enough revenue, publishers have to push back against consumer expectations of being entitled to free content….
How deeply should you micro-manage people? Do you treat them like competent professionals, or do you get into their business and check their work? I’m not sure there’s a one-size-fits-all answer. What do you think? If you want to understand contemporary issues, read old books. You have to get your mind outside the trap of…
Think of CDP capabilities this way: there are back-end functions and front-end functions. By back-end I mean the data collection, cleaning, and processing efforts to create the mythical “golden record.” By front-end I mean the activations: managing paywalls, displaying special offers to discrete audiences, personalization, and so on. You may only need the front-end. To…
You’ve created a great webinar on a topic that your market loves, and now you’re wondering, “what else can I do with this?” You’d like to create an article for your website or e-newsletter, but that uses up editorial time. You could hire a freelancer, but that will take time, and it might not be…
In the last issue, I mentioned why we should be skeptical of 3rd-party advertising claims. Along those lines, is attention measurement a real thing, or is it another way for the ad sales industry to snow people with BS metrics? Some “attention measurement” technologies require special apps and permission to track eye movements. Are people…
It’s such an old issue you might expect we’d be pros at this by now, but I continue to see serious, professional publishers making decisions about print and digital based on shallow metrics, like “we’ll save all the money we spend on printing and mailing.” Please. There are so many other things to consider. Are…
Democracy dies behind paywalls by Cosmin Ene encourages people to read outside their own news bubble. Which is a good thing. In his case, he couldn’t find certain stories in The New York Times (“all the news that fits our agenda”), so he looked to other sites and hit their paywalls. First, good on you,…
A lot of publishers who have podcasts or webinars are not effectively re-using that content in other mediums. Is it possible to use artificial intelligence to make this easier? I gave it a try. As I mention here, I used Descript to create a video version of the latest Krehbiel Letter. Descript automatically generates a…
My friend Donna Peterson told me about a new way to edit videos called Descript. It uses AI to create a transcript of your video, then you edit the video by looking through the script. It’s an interesting way to do it. I gave it a try on my most recent podcast. I’m no genius…
When software doesn’t do exactly what you need it to do, you’re faced with a choice of buying something that’s not exactly what you want, building your own custom system, or buying something you can customize. There are a lot of dangers in either of those custom options. You need to think long and hard…
In this podcast version of The Krehbiel Letter I walk through the December 2022 issue, giving the key takeaways and summarizing each article. Topics include … Customizations can cause no end of headaches. They’re necessary sometimes, but think three times before you dive in. What if programmatic advertising died? According to Bob Hoffman’s Adscam, it’s…
I love live events, and virtual events can be okay, but my experience with hybrid events has been negative. Is that just me? I don’t think so. Everyone I’ve asked says the same thing. The biggest operational problem is the Q&A. It never seems to work. On a more subjective level, the online and the…
In brief … “Lots of people” doesn’t mean “lots of your people.” One company’s success might be an outlier. Consider the opportunity cost before you invest in TikTok. From time to time we get a new dose of “everybody’s doing this, we should do it too.” Such advice stems from a laudable desire to notice…
In brief … Use data as a source of and a check on product ideas. A customer data platform is a great tool for this. Don’t confuse what people like with what they’re willing to pay for. Look for ways to turn customer interactions into data. Editors’ opinions are great, and the idea from the…
An interesting exercise in disaster planning is to imagine what you’d do if all your current sources of revenue disappeared. Bob Hoffman’s Adscam makes a persuasive case that programmatic advertising might as well have, because it’s mostly garbage. It may have stopped returning results and you didn’t notice. I often say that every business book…