The days of newspapers and magazines trying to be everything to everyone are over thanks to the overwhelming amount of information freely available online.  However, the problem in the 21st century is finding relevant and useful information hidden in the cluttered online world.  Let’s face it — Google searches don’t always deliver the exact information you’re looking for.

It’s no secret that newspapers and traditional media like print magazines have been struggling over the past decade with many completely repositioning their brands and content (e.g., Newsweek, Time), adjusting their delivery frequency (e.g., U.S. News and World Report, Playboy) or moving to web distribution only (e.g., PC Magazine, Blender).  However, as the majority of traditional media organizations struggle to find ways to remain relevant and profitable, one brand has remained strong despite the shift in consumer media consumption habits.  That brand is The Economist whose advertising revenue was up in 2008 and print circulation numbers have remained fairly steady over the past several years (via The Atlantic Online).

How has The Economist remained relevant as other media organizations have lost their way?  Simple — niche and focus.

First, The Economist is written in a manner that appeals to a niche audience rather than for the masses.  In the digital world, people can find very specific content through Web searches (albeit, the search process could take a significant amount of time).  These days, people have less patience to accept and consume content that is written with broad appeal in mind.  They want content that is meaningful to them,  and they spend less time on the “extras” that non-niche publications provide.  For example, why should a person read through an entire entertainment magazine when they really only care about one singer or actor?  It’s faster and more satisfying to go to the sources where that person can find a wealth of highly relevant information than to leaf through the many irrelevant pages of a broad appeal periodical.  Most often, that source these days is online, but a few traditional newspapers and magazines continue to survive using niche audience strategies.

The Economist also syndicates its blog content through Newstex, which gets its content directly in front of niche audiences who are looking for the authoritative content that The Economist delivers.  Unlike other publications that push their content across a myriad of sites on the Internet, The Economist has chosen a more focused distribution approach that caters directly to the niche audience they know finds it useful. 

Which leads us to the second part of The Economist’s strategy…

Second, The Economist has a narrow focus — far more so than many of its competitor magazines.  In marketing theory, the law of contraction tells us that a brand will be stronger if it contracts rather than expands because doing so gives it a narrower focus.  A wide, everything to everyone focus actually weakens a brand.  By focusing on what you do best and delivering the best with every customer interaction, your brand will grow stronger organically, and organic growth is much stronger than artificial growth.

There has been so much buzz both online and offline about the fate of newpapers and printed periodicals of late.  Let’s hope there will be room for both in the 21st century.  However, there are lessons to learn from The Economist for both offline and digital content publishers: find your niche and focus on it through a variety of digital touchpoints such as blogs, video, and more.

Image: Flickr

In this special edition of the Publisher INsider series, we take a look at GlobalPost – a highly INovative, INteresting and INspirational content provider that is part of Newstex Content On Demand.

GlobalPost is a start-up company that launched in January 2009, but don’t let its “newness” fool you.  In just two months, GlobalPost has built an online audience that delivers over 1 million page views per month.  What makes GlobalPost so INteresting?  Some people are calling it the next generation of news delivery.

GlobalPost operates using a unique business model.  You’ve probably heard the debates about the future of printed newspapers and for-profit news organizations.  With the amount of free content available online, for-profit journalism outlets have been struggling to find a financial model to support their businesses.  Enter GlobalPost.

GlobalPost describes its business as:

GlobalPost.com is a new, U.S.-based but truly international news service. GlobalPost serves readers around the globe with in-depth multimedia reporting from more than 60 international correspondents. Our outstanding team of award-winning journalists includes more than 45 country-based correspondents, as well as beat reporters and analysts covering international business, energy, technology, health, environmental issues and a host of other specialties. Click here to see our growing list of recognized international correspondents and editors.  GlobalPost fields the largest international news team of any U.S. journalism company, second only to the Associated Press cooperative.

Sound interesting?  It is.  GlobalPost’s correspondents include some of the most seasoned journalists who are given the freedom to tell the stories people want to hear without political bias.  GlobalPost journalists live in the countries they report from and offer their own unique voices (from a U.S. perspective) harkening back to the “old days” of reporting. 

Access to the news, stories, videos and more on GlobalPost.com is free, but a paid section of the site is available, called Passport, which provides more in-depth, specialized content than the average “news browser” might be interested in.  That paid subscription service, in combination with advertising revenue, is what the founders of GlobalPost hope will keep the business growing.  It certainly seems to be working so far.

Read The New York Times write-up about Global Post.

Newstex Content On Demand distributors can now offer content from GlobalPost to your customers.  If  you’re an online publisher and you’d like more information about syndicating your own content through Newstex, just contact us!

Newstex Announces Addition of Intraday Updates from Investor’s Business Daily® Through Content On Demand™

At the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) Information Industry Summit which opened in New York today, Newstex, announced that it will enhance distribution of Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) to customers worldwide by delivering intraday updates of its unique editorial content. Newstex Content On Demand customers will benefit by receiving intraday business, finance and stock market stories, as they are written by IBD editorial staff.

Investor’s Business Daily is the premier publication for business and investment professionals, providing unique features based on over 50 years of stock research and a thorough understanding of what makes companies successful. Designed for the busy executive and self-directed investor, IBD offers a comprehensive overview of the markets with equal focus given to successful management strategies, emerging trends and other key issues.

View Press Release

We’re at the Software & Information Industry Association’s Information Industry Summit in New York this week and thrilled to announce at the conference today that Newstex will distribute Investor’s Business Daily through Newstex Content On Demand.

This is an important move for us because of the unique editorial content of Investor’s Business Daily.  IBD provides a research-based approach to interpreting the economy and identifying emerging stock market trends.

You can read the press release here.

If you are at IIS, say hello to Newstex CEO Steve Ellis and Newstex President Larry Schwartz.

We’re at the Buying Digital conference in New York which opens today and we’re thrilled to announce a new partnership with Alacra, a true pioneer in the Digital Content space. Newstex Newsfeeds will now be a part of the Alacra collection of premium content sources.

Alacra customers will benefit from the value-added content formatting within Newstex Newsfeeds such as Newstex PeopleTickering, a new way to identify people in the news such as Officers and Directors of corporations, financial institutions and non-profit organizations. The addition of PeopleTickering makes it easy for Alacra customers to research newsmakers and extends Alacra’s powerful keyword, company, and publisher search capabilities.

"Professionals understand that to get a true picture of the markets, their clients and the companies that peak their interest, they need a broad collection of content combined with a powerful search engine," said Steve Goldstein, Alacra’s Chief Executive Officer. "Newstex Newsfeeds with PeopleTickering adds a new degree of intelligence—the ability to immediately see news on people making headlines. Plus, Newstex Newsfeeds includes user generated content such as blogs, which is an important addition to Alacra."

If you are at Buying Digital Tuesday or Wednesday this week, please find Newstex President Larry Schwartz and say hello!

At the Securities Industry Association’s Technology Management Conference in New York this week, we announced several significant new partnerships.

We’re thrilled that Relegence selected Newstex to supply Content On Demand including Newstex tailored premium news feeds and PeopleTickers in real-time to support Relegence clients in making information intelligent.  Relegence is the industry standard for providing monitored, indexed, filtered and analyzed intelligence to the global financial markets.

Steve Fadem, president and CEO, Relegence noted, “Newstex’s Content On Demand is the fastest and most reliable news feed available. By partnering with Newstex, we deliver a broader and more relevant source of intelligence to our customers, helping them to make better and more strategic decisions.”   

We also announced the addition of automated chart pattern recognition from Recognia. Through this exciting partnership, Newstex Content On Demand now includes “technical events” developed for financial content distributors and trading platforms. Recognia is an industry leader in automated chart pattern recognition and technical analysis. Every evening at market close, Recognia’s patented pattern recognition technology analyses the price charts of every publicly traded stock to identity trading opportunities based on the principles of technical analysis. When a chart pattern or other price signal is identified, Recognia’s systems generate automated commentary based on these “technical events” including projected price points and timeframes.

Every year, the SIA show highlights exciting products and services used by the world’s financial markets. Partnering with first-rate companies like Recognia and Relegence means that we can jointly offer the sorts of news applications that the financial market participants demand.