The pandemic robbed The Relevance Project of a key driver: Collaboration in person.
The project was supposed to visit press associations when each had its annual convention, conferences or big gatherings.
The intended drill:
We’d compare notes, meet new colleagues, share ideas, thank vendors, and true up the mission of The Relevance Project.
Together.
Fun, right?
That all disappeared with shutdowns, travel bans, crowd restrictions and social distancing.
But there’s always Zoom.
Thanks to free passes, I’ve attended several virtual conferences in the last four months. The first wave of programs during COVID-19 occurred in the summer — cheers to the pioneers.
Then came another round of webinars and workshops in September. October brought more.
So far, I estimate I’ve watched 45 individual presentations. They helped fill five notebooks with advice and my iPhone photo app with shots of slides.
I hope to share in this space the 2020 trends by knitting together various topics identified as timely and the best practices presented by frontline managers, subject-matter experts, and experimenting innovators.
Call them the Relevant Trends.
Use the RTs to further plot your discussions and future programs. Go ahead and guess the topical talk in the virtual rooms. And step back to judge what’s necessary but missing.
We’ll start today with an overview and a scan of the convention headlines. In future Relevant Points, I’ll follow with more details and stories:
The New Keynoter: COVID-19
In the summer, it was how to survive the uncertainty, the sudden huge drops in revenue and the urgent safety measures as everyone was rushing to work remotely.
Lots of concern about the future. Workshops were therapy.
In the fall, it was more here’s what we know and who had a success story.
The terrain remains perilous. What will we do when a second outbreak hits? That’s a new burning question.
Despite the weird times, many in our industry are resilient. You can even see the stiff upper lips on the screen.
The Expected Keynoter: Revenue, Revenue, Revenue.
No surprise by this overemphasis. Like a bad dinner, it keeps everyone up at night.
Most of the focus squarely was on digital, though turning sellers into better prospectors is a popular program.
Not everyone is on the same page, however. Urgency battled long-term thinking among the advice-givers.
Old Standby: Anything to do with the blocking and tackling required to pull in advertising revenue.
Especially new dollars. What, where, when and how. This is a recording.
New Standby: Reader revenue models, strategies and tactics.
Lots of refreshed approaches being explored. Breakout specifics include the necessity of mining of data about your readers and nonreaders, aggressive pricing, the importance of talking to customers to deliver what they want while keeping them engaged, and advocacy for getting paid for content to support newsrooms.
Now In Demand: Donations, philanthropy and non-profit models.
This trend requires growing new brain cells.
Heard several times “don’t be afraid” to ask readers for support. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Also:
Non-profit status requires expertise in grant writing and building a funding pipeline.
Those who learned the money maze are sharing valuable tactics and lessons.
Anything to do with sustainability: In other words, survival.
Next.
Head-scratchers: Digital 101 workshops.
Actually saw a workshop with the opening slide: What is Digital Advertising?
In 2020.
Focus on Big Tech: Appearances by Google, Facebook and Microsoft leaders.
All were teed up to show they care about our industry. Money in 2020 is flowing from Silicon Valley to pay for news initiatives and projects. Applications, please.
Still, the devil remains in the details.
All of the giants took pains to point out “news” is not their business’s primary focus.
We understand.
Innovation in action: We may be on the verge of a significant era.
Bring it on. Welcome the entrepreneurs who have interesting stories to tell as they err, as one said, on “done versus perfect.”
But it’s got to be more than a shiny object to be effective. Several are grounded in community engagement.
“To be continued” is a popular closing.
The latest from Gordon Borrell: Slides fly.
As always, he’s a trend machine on identifying where the money is, why digital growth should happen, where breakthroughs are doing it, and how our industry compares to others.
Borrell knows he makes some newspaper leaders mad or uncomfortable. So what. Look who is still at it!
But lately, given the pandemic, he also offers “good news.”
A show worth the time.
News collaborations: Newspapers working together, not competing against each other.
We may have no choice.
Collaboration is not occurring everywhere, but if you’re in a state with one of the new news hubs — Oklahoma, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, for example — you’re watching closely.
Maybe everyone should lean in as well for lessons learned. Some are going forward without press associations being involved. Some are being led by associations.
Adding audience: If you’re not growing online, you are dying.
The spike in digital audiences pays homage to the newspaper’s crucial role of providing valuable reporting and needed information about the virus’ deadly impacts.
This audience growth is not going last on its own. Newspapers need growth strategies in place to keep it going.
The Google News Initiative offers a very good “Digital Growth Program.”
Diversifying the workforce: Watch this priority closely.
Surprised this wasn’t a more prevalent topic to discuss. Maybe it’s a metro thing.
But the workshops I did watch were powerful and deep in insight about building better newsrooms and organizations.
A related 2020 program: Social justice and what it means for newspapers and newsrooms.
Email for Dummies: Check your inbox.
If you don’t have a successful newsletter to entice readers to become subscribers, you’re stupid. That about sums up the message.
Some newspapers have different newsletters for loyal readers and samplers. It depends on the potential.
Branded content: It’s a revenue push, but interesting advertising is interesting content.
Subtitle: Getting paid to write stories for advertisers on their terms. Did I mention this isn’t advertising?
Some newsrooms are involved; some are not.
Focus on People: Retaining, acquiring, onboarding and recruiting (fill in the blank).
It’s a Swiss Army knife to carve paths to securing happy advertisers, subscribers and employees. Have a plan and work it.
Reader feedback: How to collect and act on it.
One workshop detailed tactics to collect emails to open doors to new subscribers. Make sure your emails aren’t junked.
Industry consolidation, cost cutting and what’s next: Sorry for the downer.
When the big-company CEO is a keynoter and then talks about cost-cutting to improve the balance sheet, you can expect buyouts or layoffs coming. We’ve seen this picture before. Some newspapers and companies are not done with getting smaller.
At least one presenter went from the good, the bad, the ugly, and then to “Future is bright.”
Election 2020: The calm before the storm or the storm before the calm?
Advice included better ways to cover this most unusual election, how to counter social media’s toxicity, why it’s important for a trusted press to avoid being taken by surprise like the 2016 Trump victory, and why newsrooms should prepare for an “Election Week” to help readers understand what’s going on. Notice we didn’t mention fake news.
Listen. Listening. Shut up and let the customer talk.
This must be a major shortcoming of newspapers given the same L-word advice uttered throughout various workshops.
Why do we need to listen more? And work at it?
Maybe that’s an entire convention.
That’s also a good place to end.
I’m listening.
Upcoming Relevant Points will share the workshops’ salient advice with highlighted comments.
Note: Some of the hosts, including state press associations, posted conference videos on their websites.
Wear your mask while you watch and take notes. It might help you make believe things are somewhat normal.
-TAS
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