Keeping the Customer in View
With a world of knowledge available through the Internet, customers are no longer taking a company's word at face value on a product—including those of news companies.
Nor are news consumers content with the traditional reader-newspaper relationship, where they state concerns and just wait for a response.
"It's not good enough to listen to the customer," says Anna Kirah, a Denmark-based innovation consultant who earned her reputation doing work for Microsoft. "It's being willing to collaborate with them, because the consumer is more empowered than before. They can see through falseness, and they want to be cared about and respected. Newspapers need to do this, or they'll be seen as non-authentic."
Kirah's comments appeared in a white paper prepared recently by Leading Edge Associates on behalf of the Newspaper Association of America. NAA made copies available at its annual convention this April and is preparing a version for its Website.
Titled, "Customer In View: How Media Managers Can Lead to Produce Results in the Marketplace," the white paper addresses the changing consumer landscape, where customers have real-time access to information, as well as social media forums where they can challenge news media companies on their facts and make complaints about biases.
Blogger, book author, and marketing consultant Shel Israel tells newspapers: "If you lose traditional news-gathering operations, you lose something valuable."
Leading Edge interviewed dozens of leaders inside and outside of newsrooms to discuss how companies in the 21st Century are adapting to a new customer-focused paradigm and how those concepts can be translated into newsrooms.
Dell pioneered corporate blogging through its Direct2Dell.com and investor relations blogs, reducing negative perceptions shared online from 42 percent to 22 percent in the last two years.
In addition to poring over data culled from reader-response networks, focus groups and the circulation department, researchers at Better Homes and Gardens arrange visits to customers' homes to get a first-hand feel for the information readers might find useful in their lives.
Leading Edge provided NAA with concrete customer-focused strategies for achieving better results and described the behaviors that customer-focused marketplace leaders display.
One key conclusion in the white paper is that newspapers need to move quickly and more boldly toward customer-focused change and to not be afraid of failure.
"The tolerance for failure needs to broaden," says Diane Hockenberry, director of audience development for NAA. "If we're not failing at any of our new ventures, then most likely we're not taking enough risks and innovating as fast as we should be."
Please contact Larry Olmstead () if you have questions about the report or would like a copy.