Although times seem to have changed for good, some things will always be the same. Covid-19 has not only modified our lifestyle, but it has also helped us realize what our real needs are. This is the reason why publishers are seeing an unprecedented traffic increase. This alone is not enough, but it’s a good start to figure out the best strategy for publishers to grow.
Work on quality content
How often have you heard about quality content? Probably tons of times a day, right? But do you actually know what this means? Well, this is the key question, because quality content should be the basis for every publisher to grow.
When we talk about quality content, we mean something (a post, an article, even a tweet) that is well written, appealing, easy to read, interesting, relevant, trustworthy and goal-oriented. In other words: content that can add some value.
When readers choose a travel blog over another, for instance, they do it because they LIKE it better. If we were to analyze what that means here, we’d find out that information is probably easier to process and matches its audience’s needs. That involves working three areas: what, how and when. Do you talk about relevant things, using the right tone and style and publishing the information at the right time? If you have a clear objective, I am sure you do.
Your goal is to meet your audience’s expectations. Your job it to do it right.
Create the best possible experience
Make your audience happy. If your content is very good, but it looks very bad no one is going to read it. As simple as that. That applies for navigation, loading speed and all these tiny details that we are not really aware of.
Whether we are talking about a website or an app, we are used to finding elements always in the same place. That place has become “the right one”. Users instinctively look for the menu on the right upper corner of a website, for instance. We don’t really think about it, but we would definitely notice if it would be elsewhere, because that would make it harder for us to find what we want.
By working on a nice design, an easy navigation flow and an optimized user experience, you just make it easy for your audience to like your content and if you keep doing an outstanding job, they will keep coming. That means: making your users happy is creating loyalty.
Diversify your products
Your audience is complex and the world changes as fast as the environment you are working in. It’s time to think about details and nuances. Get to know your audience and their needs. What is it that you are still not providing?
Surely, you have heard about audience segmentation on infinite occasions. It’s not news to any publisher that the correct audience segmentation is key to reach your advertiser’s goals. However, have you thought about using that knowledge to diversify your content products as well as your advertiser’s options? Finding out what each segment of your audience really likes now and being able to foreseen what they might like in the short term, allow you to innovate in terms of content and format, which opens the door to, for instance, new possibilities to display ads.
Diversifying your product not only helps to reach a broader audience, but also to interact in a different way with your current one. Ultimately, this is a way to also diversify your revenue streams while improving relationships with both, advertisers and audience.
Automate processes
There is no growth without scalability. Your content might be easily scalable, but are your processes too? Publishers often tend to focus on their content production and forget about the processes that makes it possible for this content to be delivered or displayed to their audience.
The same way that a topic can be really fruitful and even elastic, processes can be improved to work with higher volumes of ads, to produce more content, faster, etc.
In short: your best ally to scale is technology. By automating process, publishers not only save time and money, that they can use to invest in other tasks or ideas, but also, they can now do things that were not possible before.
Your best growth strategy is simple
As hard as it might appear, growing is actually simple. It’s all about strategy and this is based on good content, good user experience and diversity. However, your growth strategy is nothing without quality and can’t be implemented in a scalable way without technology.
How can publishers create quality content?
For your content to have value and quality, it needs to be appealing, interesting, relevant, trustworthy, easy to read and have a specific goal.
How can publishers grow their business?
There are several steps, like creating quality content, diversifying their products, creating a great experience for their audience and automating processes.