Publishing, Big Data, and What That All Means

Publishers, amongst other print companies, have all been running into the same issue over the past few years; decline in readership and loyalty to their brand. As everyone knows, the world of marketing is becoming more and more digital every day. Despite this, there has been a significant push against a complete overtaking of digital aspects in the publishing industry.

However, publishing is finally beginning to change. With the growing popularity of e-books, author presence on social media, and potential consumers mostly gathering their information and advertising online, the Publishing Industry is starting to move towards the digital era.

Ayesha Salim addresses this in her article, "Brands vs publishers: Who's winning with data?"

"But publishers are facing their own battles. With print advertising on the decline, publishers are taking drastic steps to revamp their digital strategy to attract readers."

Publishers are ready to make the move, because traditional marketing is starting to fail them to attract the reader base they desperately need. How are they going to do this? By focusing on big data and using the advice of marketing analytics resources. And while most brands do not know how to use the data they are given, or don't put much stock in that data (Brands vs Publishers), Publishers are showing that slow and steady can indeed win the race. While others are delving into big data, head first, but with no clear direction, publishers are being more strategic with their process, and in the long run, I think it will benefit the industry.

"A study by publishing solutions provider Ixxus found that publishers are immensely feeling the pressure of digitalisation in terms of revamping their business models and are focusing on targeted content and predictive analytics. But while they struggle to monetize their content, according to Parse.ly’s findings, when it comes to data, 52% of publishers feel more confident using it compared to 45% of brands." - Ayesha Salim

 Despite understanding the use of the data that they are finding, publishers are still struggling to make a profit for their content. This could be that they are not interpreting the data in an efficient way or maybe are not planning their marketing strategies based off that data in a bold enough way. One brand, however, seems to have the right idea:

Speaking on The Telegraph’s data strategy, Carr says: “The Telegraph does something really interesting. They tag all their premium content so that their editors and reporters can understand how a subscribed audience is reading content versus the non-subscribed audience. Then they can make decisions based off not just what's popular, but what are their most loyal readers doing.” - Ayesha Salim

This type of strategy seems like a better strategy than most newspaper/magazines are doing, which is making readers pay for content that they can get for free in most industries, or are focusing too much on getting subscriptions for their content. To do this, they are relying more on traditional advertising, and in this current market, it is just not cutting it.

When it comes to data, one thing that some publishers are working towards is Reader Insights Data. Anders Breinholst discusses this in his article "Big Data is Coming to the Publishing Industry":

"So what kind of RID could prove valuable to publishers? Even the most basic data points can be surprisingly helpful. These include finishing rate, reading time and reader demographics, as well as other books readers are consuming. This data will not only help publishers make better suggestions for improvements to their authors, but more importantly, it will help publishers successfully sell book rights in new markets."

 So what does this all mean for the future of publishing and marketing? Publishing is realizing that it needs to adapt faster to the ever changing environment of digital marketing and analytics, so hopefully there will be a significant change in the way the publishing industry gathers and markets its data for customer retention. Hopefully delving more into the digital aspect of marketing will improve readership and will make a better strategy for the publishing and for books.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2016/big-data-coming-publishing-industry/
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/04/03/brands-versus-publishers-who-s-winning-with-data