By Abiola Ayankunbi
Readers in this context are those with money and willingness to use part of their resources to buy newspapers. If someone is ready to spend part of his earnings on the newspapers purchase, the beneficiary of his expense therefore needs to devout more than enough time in keeping such a fellow.
All over the world, the age brackets of newspapers readers are 15- 20, 21- 30, 31-40, 41- 50 and 51 & above. Furthermore, there is something of interest aimed at each age bracket in a newspapers edition. In other words, the classifications show that each member of the age bracket has something to read in a particular newspaper. The classifications are virtually absent in Nigeria because the aged and retirees are the readers.
Those who do not have money because they are not working can be influencers. Major newspapers firms loose half of their readers every five years; this was based on the research conducted sometimes in 2015 in United States of America. Regrettably, media firms are recycling readers, hence, reason for a progressive declining and near stagnation in the newspapers sales figures. Important role of media managers remains creating and keeping the readers.
The same technology that is fostering such intense competition is making it possible to capture more information than ever about the readers; what they want, how to win and keep them. Smart media firms should be interesting in the hardware, software and systems that provide such critical information.
Media organisations greatest assets are their readers because without them, (readers), there is actually no company. It is evident that the readers have been neglected for so long because their needs have since been abandoned. The readers want pleasant hours and the profits of knowledge. They seek ideas, self-respect, self-esteem, home life and happiness. It costs far less to keep reader than it does to acquire a new one. The only way to win and keep readers is to give them the most value for their naira as they perceive it. They should be involved in co-value creation.
Readers need not told what but what next; lesser information about yesterday but today and tomorrow. It is possible to ask readers to pay for what is scarce i.e not common. How, why and what are the scarce information herein. Readers will pay for usefulness and relevant. Readers buy emotionally and justify it. They do not buy what they need and want but what they want based on feelings.
Revolution must start now; there is a need to re-invent content, re-organise newsroom, re-design formats, re-discover marketing among other things. Good journalism should be seen as a good business; it needs to ensure different content for different platform. Specifically, newspaper should have long narrative; tablet should be depth with experience, mobile should be associated with instant news while internet should be concern about breaking news, browsing, archiving, aggregating and hyper linking. Journalists are in very strategic and good positions; they should leverage on it appropriately.
Conclusively, the best media managers realized long time ago that one cannot lead or make meaningful decisions in a vacuum. Sitting in the comfort of ones office, reading memos and reports about what is going on in the real world is a poor substitute for seeing it firsthand. Media managers therefore need to continuously get out and see the behaviours of readers and sales representatives at the newsstands and newspapers distribution centres respectively.
Abiola Ayankunbi is MD/CEO at AbingMO3 Marketing Management Consultancy.
abiolaayankunbi@yahoo.com
0802 305 1315
