Over the next several months some of the larger newspapers will cease to be indexed by Google (at the newspaper’s request). The New York Times is moving back to paid content in 2011. The UK’s Times and Sunday Times are making their move within the next month. (See the NY Post Article Here). How is it that the print industry is failing so spectacularly on the web? Well, I could be biased, but I think it’s because they have failed to capitalize on the proven ability of the Performance Marketing industry to deliver.
Which is actually a good thing for Performance Marketing Affiliates. You see, newspapers are stuck in the CPM model. They can’t figure out how to capitalize on the huge traffic numbers their websites rack up. And instead of learning how to provide a superior conversion platform for their advertisers they think that reducing access to their content will make the general public want to pay them for access while enabling them to continue selling advertising on the CPM model.
Well, it sounds good. But it isn’t good for them. The newspaper industry (and to a great extent TV and Radio as well) just don’t get it. Their mindset is stuck at CPM. And selling banners like they sell print ads just isn’t the same. You can get away with nebulous data with print. But the Web provides exacting data. Impressions, Click-thrus, Conversions, etc. that you just don’t get with print. And Performance Marketing Affiliates know exactly how to get the data, and act on it. We know how to make sites make money because we have to. We are rewarded in direct relation to how we perform for the advertiser. And the print industry doesn’t know how to do that.
Which (in my humble opinion) is going to create more opportunity for the online Performance Marketing Affiliate. A sudden lack of news, information, and opinion from websites that generate millions of engaged readers online is going to leave an unfilled demand. And Affiliate Marketers certainly know how to fill demand. Blogs will become more focused on their niches. New sites will be created. And a high concentration of traffic will spread out with the end result being that Affiliates (and others) that know how to fill the demand will create value and profit from it. And the print media will end up hurting itself even more.
In some other ways it’s really good that newspapers havn’t recognized just how good we are and started buying up Affiliates, AMs, and Network to become “Mega Affiliate Machines” themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I love competition in a free market. But going up against a vertically integrated goliath isn’t my idea of fun.
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