At the PPA Independent Publisher Conference in November, the keynote speaker was Juan Señor, president of Innovation Media Consulting Group.
He began by saying that he was cautiously optimistic about the future of publishing.
His optimism was based on a number of things, including the wide range of revenue options now available to publishers (15 according to him), the potential of AI, the potency of the freemium model, the enduring appeal of print, the opportunities presented by first party data and product bundling.
Some publishers were, he said, making impressive sustainable profits.
He identified five key strategic principles.
He advised:
- Find your niche: it’s important to have a voice and build a community.
- Pursue a three thirds revenue strategy: one third, ad revenue; one third, reader revenue and one third, other revenue. In his opinion, the one third reader revenue was essential to sustain a publishing business.
- Bypass the mediators. Publishers should build a direct relationship with the reader. You can not, he said, “build a media business on someone else’s platform”. Publishers should consider decoupling from social media (“digital first does not mean social media first”). Use social media to tease and build reach, but not to give away content.
- B2C publishers should get into B2B and vice versa. Increasingly, he said, publishers were putting out two versions, one for a business audience and one for a consumer one. Vogue was a good example.
- In a world of digital abundance, publishers need to find their scarcity. What makes you special and better than everyone else out there?
Having four or five viable revenue streams was key to achieving long-term profitability, he added.
Juan’s final bit of advice was, “listen to your editors, they will make you the money”.
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