Too Many Media Companies, Not Enough Media Buyers

I enjoyed Matt Kinsman’s recently-posted collection of comments illustrating the frustrations of digital personnel with old-school b-to-b publishing management.  It’s hard to imagine publishing executives clinging to the hope that their strategies of yesteryear will bear fruit when “the market comes back.”  It doesn’t work that way.

Despite their reluctance to forfeit the $5000 print ad for the $500 banner, this is where customers reside and where the business is. Given that reality, it’s dangerous to count on your digital content, branding and technical people to know what drives your customers and what will sell—that’s the executive’s job, regardless of orientation or background.

I constantly see publishing executives spin their wheels to develop creative ideas that their gut tells them will impress an online audience and advertiser base, often without research or much input from the audience or advertiser base. The result: not many ads, not much revenue and not many happy advertisers among those who took the leap and actually spent amid the vague promise of more business leads.

Over Saturated

For my two cents, we have a bigger problem in that there is just too much information out there and too many media companies serving it up. This is not what the reader or advertiser needs or asked for, but what they are faced with when trying to distill relevant information or make intelligent buying decisions.

For example, if you want to take a vacation in Las Vegas, a Google search will net you 23 million options. If you search for "event venues," you'll get more than 13 million entries. Narrow it to “event venues in New York” and you have a more manageable 12 million. Not all searches are as smooth and efficient as the very clever Google ad during the Super Bowl.

For years, I did my best to sell customers on the concept that they needed to advertise, exhibit, promote, market and spend even more during bad economic times. American Business Media produces a fine piece supporting this thinking. Congratulations if you’ve hypnotized your sales team to believe this; forget about the customers who know they don’t have the money to spend and their customers don’t have the money to buy.

It comes down to too many salespeople from too many media companies paid to convince not enough buyers that their product is the best for their needs, whether it really is and whether the salesperson believes it or not. What’s more, outside the discerning inner circle of media critics, most audiences can’t tell the difference between one product and another enough to properly source where they may have read an interesting point or heard a compelling idea. (Note to self: another column on how salespeople sometimes don’t get paid enough.)

Some may blame the media companies—I mean, aren’t they the ones adding to the convoluted black hole of content that takes their audiences forever to navigate if they followed you and all of your competitors regularly? On the other hand, it is their responsibility to stay in business and serve their stakeholders by scratching and clawing for every dime they can get.  (They might tell you their first loyalty is to their readers.)

Adjust Expectations

So what’s the solution? Stop producing content? Seek volunteer media companies to close their doors and reopen as Taco Bells?

I’m not going to build a case to suppress information—I’m a content junky myself. But for companies whose fortunes depend on attracting ads and exhibitors, kindly adjust your expectations accordingly, regardless of where you see the market going today or whether or not you’ve seen signs of business picking up.

Perhaps we need to clarify or better understand what we mean when we talk about “serving a market,” if in fact that’s what we’re doing. If you are insistent on coming to market with a “latest and greatest” of anything, make sure it fills a void, serves a need or improves a process somehow for somebody. Otherwise, well, I’ll take my burrito with a little extra cheese if you don’t mind.

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By Jim Alkon -- Jim Alkon is a veteran media/publishing executive who currently heads up Media Development Consulting, a Norwalk, CT, group that helps companies think strategically, improve products and grow profits.

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