There is no doubt that the media landscape as we know it has changed. You’ve probably heard by now how traditional newspaper entities, like the NY Times, are experimenting with a new approach to try and monetize content and information. They’re competing with free access and struggle with how to maintain and grow their reputation as a trusted news source, while looking to simultaneously pull money from our wallets. Tough gig for sure. I’m curious to see how this all pans out.
In the meantime, many smart media companies are doing simple things to help shape their brands as content providers, regardless of the medium. And this is the key. Media companies need not feel threatened by new media, but embrace and shift their positioning to one of a content provider. They need to change their mindsets. We consumers want (and have access to) all of the information we’d ever need. We don’t care about how you’re structured (I’m a TV station, I’m a radio station). If I can get headlines delivered to my inbox from a TV station, or breaking news from a tweet from a newspaper – I’m game.
The formula is the same for any marketer today:
Create great content, get it to me first, and let me choose where I get it.
Do this, and you’ll win.
How one media company is beginning to evolve with email marketing.
While debatable how good it is, content creation is not the problem for these organizations. Where many fall short still, is pushing it through various channels, in the ways their audiences prefer it. Media web sites are already established, with headline news and breaking news alerts being published in near real-time each and every day. The challenge with any web site (including yours) however, is: how do I know you’ve updated content?
No doubt most of us still live in our inbox most of the day. And though we’re smart enough to know it is not the only channel, as an email marketing service provider, this is obviously the channel we appreciate and specialize in reaching for our customers. Recently we helped a traditional TV network of 14 stations begin down this path to delivering content in the channel their audience prefers – dropping headlines & breaking news alerts to the inbox like clockwork, every morning and every afternoon (at the same time).
We deployed this through our slick RSS-to-Email technology coupled with our advanced triggers/advanced scheduling. The staff at this media network simply does what it always does (focuses on creating and publishing great news stories) and now has content and information deployed through a completely automated solution (literally – ZERO human intervention) to thousands upon thousands of inboxes every day.
And this is just a first step. A no-brainer really. In the future, they’ll begin experimenting with mobile alerts and have already begun to work the social networks. It’s proven the fact that people want information and will tell you how they want it. Stop relying on any one channel more than others. Serve it up to them how they want it, or they’ll go find someone else who will.
While SendLabs is focused on helping you deliver timely messages through the email channel – the moral of the story, and one I repeat to the traditional media of the world (and your marketing world) is:
Create great content, get it to me first, and let me choose where I get it.
(P.S. If you enjoyed this post, disagree with anything, or are just curious about what we might say in the future – I encourage you to comment and/or ReTweet (above), or follow us how you see fit. Thanks much.)
This post written by Brett Houle, co-founder of SendLabs.
He is a father, entrepreneur, struggling musician and over thinker. You can also follow him on twitter @heybrett.
Brett Houle is Co-Founder/CEO of SendLabs, a New England-based email marketing software company with great customers across the street and around the globe. Follow him up at Twitter: @heybrett and @sendlabs.
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