Been a really interesting response from Scottish journalists and PR/Communicators over the last few days since I wrote about Brian Ferguson at The Scotsman and his secret traffic numbers.
And one thing that has popped up in the chats is a potential way for media to make some money.
A lot of confidential chats were sent to me over the last few days – thank you everyone – and a few things are clear…
The 3 things holding back profit in Scottish media and journalism
- Journalism in Scotland for mainstream titles really isn’t making money
- CPM is not working as a cash generator
- Journalists and Advertising departments are still worlds apart in terms of working together
One thing that could help (a little)
Now, we’ve just pointed out that CPM is not necessarily a great metric as it doesn’t seem to be working in terms of raising revenue. OK, but having said that, stats are important.
You need your numbers
You need to know what sort of reach someone has before you work out how much time to spend on them – is it better to spend time on Brian and his 6,000+ dedicated online readers (and print audience) or someone like Robin McKelvie, Fiona Outdoors, an Instagrammer, a blogger or someone else? The same question also applies to advertising/sponsorship spend.
We also know that the numbers journalists generate is a closely-guarded internal secret. Reporters will all know their numbers and their colleagues’ numbers (or should – it’s 2020 after all and online analytics are hardly a new invention).
So why not create a plugin – automated so that it doesn’t take up staff resource once created – where you put in a specific URL or story title, pay a set fee – £5 or £10 – and tell someone what the traffic has been.
How would a hits tracker work?
You could do it a number of ways. For example, you pay £5 and get a one-off stat, an instant snapshot of traffic, or you pay £10 and get the instant snapshot and an update either after a set period of time – one week and then four weeks – or when the story hits certain milestones (1,000 views, 2,500 views and so on).
Let’s do some numbers. Let’s have a journalist and call him “Brian”.
- Brian’s articles normally mention at least two organisations/individuals
- Brian averages 40 articles a month
- Let’s work on the costings of a £5 and £10 model.
So if each person mentioned gets curious and wants to see how many people are reading the story that’s 80 x £5 or 80 x £10 which is £400 or £800 being generated per month or approx £4800/£9600 per year.
It’s not a fortune, let’s be honest. Now, add in – for example – 20 journalists at a news title like The Scotsman. Even at 20 x £800 you are looking at £16,000 a month or £192,000 a year.
Will £192k save Scottish journalism?
It’s still not a lot, but it’s also not bad for something that requires no work as it’s automated and the best cash generators are things that make you money without you being there (shades of Rich Dad/Poor Dad there).
Equally, make it £10/£20 instead of £5/£10 and you are nearly at £400,000. (You could also run two versions – a monthly licensing scheme and the one off fee scheme.)
The mindset problem
Now, is it the one thing that will save Scottish media? No. But that’s the other point that has been painfully apparent speaking to people over the last few days – it still thinks in singular revenue streams. Moreso than ever there’s been multiple ways to generate money – from reporters and titles – but there’s a strong reluctance (or ability/time) to go and grasp them all.
And that’s the big challenge. The day of a page three ad and some classifieds being all you needed to do are long gone. Today’s media needs sponsorships, CPM, affiliate and performance marketing, paid-for talks, podcasts sponsorships, video sponsorships, advertorials, paid for links and so much more (as well as tactics like selling on the content). It’s pennies coming in from lots of revenue streams that will make one river.
But a lot of these only works if advertising and editorial work together and don’t see each other as the enemy. That’s a big challenge. The other one is getting a news organisation comfortable enough sharing the data in the first place.