As part of my recent work with DW Akademie, I was interviewed for a podcast that is part of the training and tools they offer to media startups. What follows is a summary of the key points of the podcast:
Who are our clients, what do they need?
The biggest mistake that media startups make is to start with the question, How can we make more money?
That’s the wrong question. They should start with the question, Do we really know who our customers are, and what are their needs in terms of information?
In other words, What are their problems in terms of getting information useful to their daily lives? How can we help solve those problems? You can find out through focus groups, polls, or through interviews of friends and family.
How can we create value for them?
After you know something about your target audience, you can try to create value for them. But the important question is, What do they consider valuable? What is valuable enough to them that they would be willing to pay for it?
You can create value in lots of ways. It could be the distribution channels you use. Obviously, you create value through your content. And your content could be in a format that they value, such as videos or podcasts.
You could also create value through presenting data in visually attractive and informative formats, such as maps and graphics.
And then you can test your assumptions by putting your content in front of users and measuring how they interact with it. Only then you can begin to talk about monetizing the audience. The monetization issue flows from understanding those first two points: Who our customers are and how we can create value for them.
Do we need a person dedicated to sales?
It’s highly recommended that a startup have at least one person whose sole responsibility is marketing and sales.
As someone who has spent a lot of time in the newsrooms of startups, I can tell you that journalists will always put marketing and sales on the back burner. For them it’s a second priority.
For journalists, there is always something more that they want to be doing on the news that’s going on today.
A lot of journalists don’t feel comfortable talking about money or asking people for money. So they need to get someone who is comfortable asking for money. Because if they don’t, they’re going to suffer.
Any digital startup needs to have three main skill sets among the people on their staff: obviously they need people with journalism skills, but also sales and marketing, and finally technology.
Key learnings for revenue streams
One of the key things about revenue I’ve learned in working with startups is that they need to develop multiple revenue streams. If you’re just dependent on advertising, you’re soon going to be out of business.
The big trend is away from digital advertising as a revenue source and toward user-generated funding.
And finally, there is a trend toward seeking government-funded journalism, much like the model of the BBC, where there are systems in place to prevent government intervention in the editorial product.
Podcast: What are the biggest mistakes of media startups?