MEDIA PERSPECTIVES - October 19, 2016

Editor's Note:

I just wanted to let my readers know that I've created a blog where I will be posting essays and articles I've written on digital and online marketing. It's an extension of Media Perspectives. I hope you continue to read and enjoy!

Here's the link: Jaffer Ali's Blog - Perspectives from a Media Contrarian

Thanks for Reading!



What's The Question?
by: Jaffer Ali
(Originally Published: October 12, 2010)

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
--Albert Einstein

I took a 4-week hiatus from writing. The time was well spent. How so? Every now and then I feel the need to take inventory of - to review - our assets, both tangible and intangible. This gets complex for us before it gets simple because we own many different entities. Among our holdings are a media company (Vidsense), a video portal (Evtv1.com), an e-zine division (Gophercentral) and an emerging e-commerce company (PulseTV.com).

What we've learned through our deliberateness is that no such asset review is complete without careful examination of the most important intangible asset a company has; the knowledge base accumulated over the years. For us, examining "what we know" includes questioning the assumptions underlying that knowledge.

For example, when I focused specifically on our media assets, a curious thing happened. I discovered that our e-commerce division was quite a media company in its own right, and a virtually "frictionless" one at that. It exclusively uses its own media for its own e-commerce purposes, reaching approximately 5.1 million unique subscribers daily with a branded Deal of the Day email offering, and hundreds of thousands of unique deal seekers each month through PulseTV.com.

Upon reflection, Amazon.com is a huge media company. They reach out to 65 million unique customers every month. The total media impressions are astronomical when you add all the touch points from order confirmations, targeted emails, and website visits. This is before you add imdb.com to the mix...and now Woot.com's daily contribution.

After viewing our e-commerce division through a different lens, I started to wonder what new ways to view brands, publishers and media companies. Here is where something strange happened. I discovered that you can ask the same question for each of these parts of the online ecosystem.



How can we maximize the lifetime revenue potential from the relationships with our audience?

Let that sink in for a while. If you are a publisher, you should be asking how to get more revenue from the established relationships you have ...and certainly be looking beyond advertising. If you are a brand, you should be asking how to leverage your brand equity with your audience/consumers over time. If you are a media company, you should be asking how to maximize revenue from your aggregated audience. The trust you build can pay huge ongoing dividends, but you have to explore new revenue streams that are in harmony with that trust.

As we enter the second decade of the new century, the lines are blurring between publisher, marketer and media owner. There's never been a better time or reason to take stock of your assets and brand equity, and discover new ways to invest in yourself.

Original Article: What's The Question?

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