Almost four years ago, I wrote a blog post "Daddy, what's a newspaper?" which forecast the decline in newspaper appeal and circulation. Since then, I've posted three updates.
Newspapers have failed for most part when adding an online version because they've done so without any marketing strategy whatsoever. None. Weil, unless you count putting the paper online as an actual marketing thought.
Inevitable failure comes for many reasons. They're cheap about it, both in spending and planning. They use juniors to do the conversion, those recently out of tech school who know nothing about marketing. And, principally because they, as many clients have done, assume that the Web is simply a print vehicle without paper.
This lazy, uneducated view is still being espoused. Here's an excerpt from a September 21st interview with Tina Gaudoin, editor of The Wall Street Journal magazine on WWD.com: "Asked if the online-only issues specifically would be adapted for the Web, Gaudoin replied: 'They’ll be specifically adapted in the sense that it’ll be online. It will include the same length, the same quality, the same integrity as the magazine.'"
The more things change, the more non-thinkers fall behind.
Phil
