Danny Meadows-Klue, CEO of U.K.-based Digital Strategy Consulting, told an INMA gathering in Liverpool today that the changing role of local identity is forcing newspapers to evolve their content packaging and build local audience and advertising across platforms.

Yet newspapers aren’t transforming fast enough.

Value propositions have changed for newspapers desperate to reposition themselves as “newsmedia companies.” “Daily” has been replaced with “immediacy.” “Pushed and packaged” has been replaced by “on-demand.” Technology fractures society into more and more diverse segments that demand more diverse information cycles.

The changing role of local identity is impacting newspapers, Meadows-Klue said. As the importance of “local” fades, the role of identity through “tribes” increases – opening the door for new players to gain leverage over local content.

In response, newspapers must make some quick strategic decisions, Meadows-Klue said. For example, they should leverage local content across broader regions, focus on verticals and relationship marketing, and extend local brand equity across news platforms.

Meanwhile, newspapers are losing the packaging game to internet pure-plays and aggregators, Meadows-Klue said. People can find content they need elsewhere than the newspaper because today’s newspaper package lacks relevancy and the role of aggregation shifts to the webp>

In response, newspapers must focus on multiple digital platform publishing, aggressively syndicate content, push their brand, and think “web space” not “web site.”

In terms of local content and advertising, newspapers must rebuild their product within the emerging “iGoogle” landscape. To do this, Meadows-Klue recommended building a strategy around Google – not against it. The reality is that Google has changed the expectations of advertisers, and newspapers must react to this. Newspapers should invest in content and architecture that supports local discussion and giving the community a voice by creating platforms.

The scariest part of Meadows-Klue’s presentation came in his analysis of traffic, or audience development. He described local audiences being reached through global web sites, how search engines circumvent local media, and how next-generation targeting adds to risks for established local media players.

In response, he strongly suggested newspapers begin to prioritise traffic growth as a corporate goal and setting key performance indicators. He also said newspapers should build out their acquisition strategies “far beyond search engine optimisation (SEO).”

To this “beyond SEO” point, I sheepishly asked the question on everyone’s minds: How can newspapers embrace “beyond SEO” strategies when most don’t embrace the basics of SEO today? The room went silence and Danny paused and smiled.

The proverbial elephant in the room was unleashed.

Question after question came circling around the question: Why invest time and energy in multi-platform audience development if there’s no “pot of gold” at the end of the rainbow? What newspaper is successfully monetising multiple platform digital content?

The challenge is that for all the talk of 24-hour newsrooms and multi-platform strategies, the reality is that newspapers don’t have a good story to tell – so far – about making money across these mostly digital platforms. You have to look at other industries, notably the travel industry, and then translate those stories to newsmedia companies. This is something newspaper executives are loathe to do. They want the template, and they want to copy the template.

To get to an audience model is going to require 50 of the top newspapers to take their best people and commit them to audience development and monetisation – or national newspaper industries must band together to marshal incubator projects or transformational bandwidth to advance these concepts.

What Danny Meadows-Klue said in Liverpool was true: The consumer landscape is changing, newspapers can either react to technology or use technology to disrupt, and audience development must move far beyond SEO.

YOU MUST BE A MEMBER TO ACCESS THIS CONTENT

Become An INMA Member or Log In

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .