Own Thy Audience

Gen Z is a tough nut to crack, but engaging with them is now more crucial than ever. Tapping into this audience has marketers pulling their hair. They are social, proactive, and most importantly have massive spending power. How should one reach out, grab their attention and retain them?   Ayush Wadhwa, founder and creative director at OWLED Media, who himself is a podcaster and an influencer opens up on how GenZ can be engaged.  Here is what is covered What is the sutra to build a GenZ audience on social? Does GenZ engage in email? Dipping toes into Augmented reality and Virtual reality Underrated engagement hack for driving your podcast? 101 of influencer marketing for businesses out there.  Encouraging genZ to subscribe 

What is your top priority when it comes to ranking? Do you focus more on Google News or Google Discover? How do you measure the impact of link building alone on organic performance of the site? When so many other on-page and technical factors could also be contributing to the performance. These are some real burning questions that editors and SEO guys have been asking, for quite some time now. Which is why we got Kyle on the podcast. He had tons to contribute to the topic and also shared his viewpoints on core web vitals, amp and his relationship with editors.

Advertising is still one of the most significant sources of revenue for publishers. Digital publishers are always looking to increase their ad revenue using different methods. According to a survey by Digiday, almost 36 percent of revenue to Publishers comes via programmatic sources. Header Bidding is an advanced programmatic technique where publishers offer their ad inventory for advertisers to bid on. In this episode, Aditya Shenoy, Senior Content Manager at iZooto talks to Tomer Treves, Co-Founder and President, Adnimation to understand how Header Bidding works. Tomer also explains the difference between the different types of header bidding, while revealing the best practices that every publisher should follow to maximize revenue.   

Plagiarism plagues the news publishing industry, over 62% of articles published by major publications aren't unique anymore because of plagiarism. This causes articles to rank poorly on Google Search, not returning views to its fullest potential for the news publisher. But what should a news publisher do in order to tackle plagiarism? In this episode, Vivek Khandelwal, Founder at iZooto talks to Jeremy Mauboussin, Founder, Plagiashield to understand the impact of plagiarism on website traffic. They also steps that a publisher can take to safeguard their content from plagiarisers. If your content has been copied in the past, you can prevent it in the future from steps discussed in this podcast.  

AI-generated text and articles have been contemplated by multiple publishers at different points in time. However there have been apprehensions about it being flagged down by Google.   Can Google’s algorithm detect AI written content? What different types of content can be generated by AI? Annkur Agarwal, co-founder PriceBaba.com; Ankur Pandey, co-founder LongShot.ai and Aditya Shenoy, Senoir Content Marketing Manager, iZooto try and get answers to all these questions. Tune in!

In the next two years, more than 200 small-to-large media houses will put their exclusive and analytical content behind a paywall. This is bound to fragment the subscription market and cause further confusion among consumers. Not to forget, this can result in an uproar caused by subscription fatigue. Statistics indicate that existing subscribers and loyalists are more likely to experience subscription fatigue. So how do publishers conquer this? Join Vishal Dembla, SVP - Asia, The Economist, Nash David, Content Marketing Director, iZooto and Sunny Sen, co-founder ConsCent for an in-depth conversation where they discuss 5 ways publishers can help subscribers beat subscription fatigue.

According to Search Engine Land, zero click searches rose to 65% in 2020. It's interesting because Google then responded to this claim, alleging it as false, and that, “In reality, Google Search sends billions of clicks to websites every day, and we’ve sent more traffic to the open web every year since Google was first created.”  To put an end to the debate, we decided to call in Chelsey Heath, NEWS SEO strategist at Trisolute Software Corporation, Hisham Khalil, CEO, Content Ventures Investments , Tarek Abougabal, Director of Sales - MENA, iZooto and Nash David, Director of Content Marketing, iZooto. The panel discussed what zero-click content means for publishers, the difference between visibility on Google Search and Google News, how SERP has evolved and much more. Tune in now!

Did you know that NEWS articles have less than 48 hours to rank on Google? The bread and butter of newsrooms, have a very small window to shine. Which makes getting your NEWS SEO on point even more important? So how do you do that? Listen in to Barry Adams in this episode where he talks about nailing NEWS SEO, the difference between NEWS SEO and classic SEO, and why URL and site name are no longer important.

Imagine waking up on a random day and losing 98% of your traffic and millions of dollars of revenue to Facebook? And then going ahead and creating India’s biggest regional OTT platform? That’s the story of Vinay Singhal, the founder of STAGE.  In this episode he has extensively talked about what it takes to create an ultra niche product like STAGE, the vision behind it and how it has grown to become Bharat’s own Netflix.  He has also focused on how he establishes maximum audience ownership, and his views on how ready India is for subscriptions.

Did you know that the Google search team has a 160-page document ( book ) that outlines how the search algorithm works? Even better - Google updates this every 6 months.    If you are an SEO, it really qualifies as your first starting point. Question is - how many people do you know to print that document and keep it on their desk? This is why Lily Ray stands out. Also, because she usually DJ's in the New York circuit..   But back to where we are. News, SEO, and EAT. Lily has expertise in EAT. And in this conversation, I got a chance to ask Lily about how news publishers should go thinking about their implementation for EAT. Of the various things that matter, EAT has a massive impact and most publishers haven't quite cracked it yet. We chat about the outlook on AI content, the need of building trust with the audience, and most importantly how newer publications have a shot at establishing their expertise. Lily's updates on Twitter and LinkedIn are fire and her default position on SEO is - optimize for the user and Google will follow. Google has been saying this for.....  Wait. Forever.    Tons of new learnings and a fresh breakdown of what EAT means for news publishers. Go ahead and give this a listen. 

Building vs Buy is a decision that almost every software category struggles with. Software is eating the world. Building new tools, products, solutions is easier than ever before. The only question that remains is - Should you build it or let someone else build it for you. This is what Vivek and Aditya Bhelande - founder and CEO @ YuktaMedia sat down to answer. Aditya has been selling software to publishers and media businesses for well over 5 years and he has had his share of adventures. Right from deals going cold because internal teams wanted to build it to teams circling back after 6 months to resume sale negotiations, Aditya has seen it all.  Aditya talks about the build vs buy dilemma and breaks how teams should approach this problem. Build vs Buy is a frequent conversation even internally at iZooto. We often resort to Wardley maps to figure out what is it that our customers want the most and what is it that will help us unlock maximum value. Wardley Maps is an incredibly powerful framework that helps builders, founders, product managers to identify what is it that they should be investing their time in building and what is it that they should be buying off the shelf.  Listen to Vivek and Aditya chat about all things media and answering the question of build vs buy.

Building an audience-first culture has become critical, now more than ever. Marketers are gunning for ways to build an audience to take their business to new heights, but most marketers do not know how to begin. It becomes tricky when you have to just rely on experimentation without any playbook in hand.  Bonnie Roche has been helping publishers build an audience for many years now. Bonnie, in this episode, shares her operating playbook to build an audience-first culture where she talks about how one can start building an audience, how it is essential to inculcate the audience-first culture within the team, and how to build a loyal audience.  Key points covered -  Impact of the audience first culture for the editorial team Operating playbook she has been following for years Brands in the media ecosystem that share the values of audience first culture Change in the content consumption and what it means from an audience development standpoint Increasing subscription retention and loyalty

Podcasting is the new low-hanging fruit for pubs looking for new revenue streams. The podcasting ad revenue in the US has crossed $700 mil last year with News podcasting leading the charts. But all said and done, scaling it needs an expert intervention. And that’s exactly why we invited Wil Williams, a co-founder at the Hug House Productions, to address the challenges and their workarounds while monetizing a news podcast. Here’s what the episode will help you learn - Though podcasting as a new revenue stream is all lucrative, why are some newsrooms still holding back? The go-to playbook for podcast monetization. What to do exactly after you’re done publishing a podcast? Sure ways to find out if a news podcast will be a success. Metrics that news companies can track once an episode starts gaining traction among their listeners. #1 thing digital publishers and media companies should do in order to retain their listeners. Advertising or branded content.

In a country like India, there are 121 languages which are spoken by 10,000 or more people in which has a population of 121 crores. Just having content in one language does not cut it. Not anymore. The need to strategize to put together a plan to serve readers with content based on the language and region is now more important than ever. Optimize the website content according to the region the reader is in or the language that they prefer consuming information. But coming up with an SEO strategy is where most publishers get stuck.  Chanpreet Singh has been doing all things SEO for over 2 decades now. In this episode, he will open up his operating playbook so that you can start off with optimizing your SEO strategy.   Important points covered  How should a digital publisher zero down on the languages? What parameter does Google use to identify if a page is targeted for a particular region? Different subdomain or different subdirectory? What performs better and why? Should publishers go multi-lingual, multi-regional, or does it make sense to optimize it for both?  How should one optimize for multilingual search?  What are the things that need to be in place before starting off with off-page SEO? How should publishers mitigate duplication content? How should one measure and track if their regional content is performing well?

42% of businesses fail because there is no market need for their product. Well, building a new product is not easy. Sometimes it so happens that one ends up building something entirely different from what would provide value to their audience. And just like that, all that effort goes down the drain. That’s why achieving product-market fit becomes critical. It could make or break a product’s success in the market.    In this episode, Arie shares the checklist that you need to follow every time you build a new product. He has helped build many products for KapanLagi Universe managing the full product lifecycle, from the requirement to launch, and has also led the product team of CNN and CNBC Indonesia.    Important points covered- Process of building new products Things to check off before starting off with building a product for the readers 3 must-ask questions every product manager should ask readers before working on a product How to adapt and evolve in this ever-changing market. Once the product is built, what’s next? How can one find out if it was poor marketing or lack of product marketing fit if the results are not as expected? The most effective way to find out a product-market fit for an existing product Key metrics to track for a product that is just built?  Monitoring and analytic tools publishers should make use of 3 publishers, one should draw inspired from Tips and strategies for all things growth?

Podcasting has been in the marketing arena for quite some time now. They have surpassed the video wave, making audio as a medium one of the best ways to engage the audience. 80% of people listen to all or most of each episode, whereas the average reader spends just 37 seconds reading a blog post! Podcast is an intimate channel and has become a companion be it while commuting, talking a walk, or taking a break on a lazy Sunday afternoon.    Unlike the video medium, which requires dedicated attention, the audio medium gives one the freedom to multi-task, helping marketers boost engagement like none other. And it is needless to say, the number of podcasts on various platforms has shot up like crazy!    In this episode, we have Rob Walch, who had started podcasting way before Apple started supporting podcasts and had helped Senator Edwards, the first politician to have a podcast, produce one. Rob shares his 16 years of podcasting experience, points all the do’s and don'ts, shares the secret sauce to kickstart a podcast and outlines what marketers should be tracking.

Indian traffic monetization is the holy grail for a lot of publications today. Revenue models (advertising and affiliates) that work wonders in the US market, offer slivers for the traffic coming in from the Indian subcontinent. Where does the gap lie and what could possibly help bridge it?   Ankit Aggarwal, former Head of Marketing @Uber, after spending almost a decade testing out various monetization strategies that work for the Indian traffic has a lot to share. He’s got new trends that you can straight-away implement to bag the $$. In this episode, he also covered why some of these trends might not work in some scenarios, what can be the possible workarounds here and what does the adoption for these new trends look like.   Here are some of the things you’ll learn from this conversation - Major challenges that publishers are coming face to face while monetizing this Indian traffic. Why is the same revenue model (advertising and affiliates) working for the US market and not so much for the Indian market? Other revenue trends that are gaining grounds to monetize Indian traffic.  How long will it take for the Indian market to follow a similar adoption? Tune in to know more! 

Alan Jay’s has been working on the “internet” for the last 30 years. Let that sink. From being an active community contributor in is University days, he went on to create the biggest movie fan community, IMDB on UseNet group. It went to the World Wide Web in 1993. In this conversation, Vivek and Alan chat about Alan’s journey of building IMDB, his experience of building community-driven businesses. Alan also talks about how he views Google, paywalls for content, mistakes publishers often make while crafting their reader revenue strategy. 

In early 2015 when Quintype began, their founders Chirdeep and Amit realized that most publishers are facing the same problem of creating an interface that lets them run their workflow, each of them building the same workflow, reinventing the flywheel over and over again.  Initially, digital publishers had 2 sets of solutions to choose from - the open-source model - consisted of platforms like WordPress, Jumla, with customized plug-ins that publishers managed on their own and if they wanted to scale, they'd hire a team of developers that would help them build WordPress for scale.  large media houses- they wanted to go down the path of building their own CMSs because there are a lot of things that are custom to their own workflows. The problem that the people at Quintype realized was that in the former - a lot of plug-ins were not tested with each other and wouldn't really work together and most of the time would end up crashing the system; whereas in the latter - keeping up with your codebase and catching up with what Google and Facebook are releasing on the publisher landscape is a tough task for most publishers. During the conversation the question of build v/s buy came up, since the publishing industry is a legacy business and huge media houses prefer to build their own CMSs, and why according to Chirdeep that mentality needs to phase out? His answer was very on the point, that a lot of media houses wanted those readily available plug-ins to be customized with their workflows - which is why they prefer building. And if you look at them now, most of them have landed on creating the same piece of software. A work engine, a rule engine, creating content, distributing content to various channels.  Quintype was quick to realize the pattern of 90% of these software being very similar to each other. And that is what they created, a platform generic enough to go into the industry and specific enough that publishers can build and custom according to their workflows.  It's fun to realize that the requirements that were customized a decade ago have now become standardized, and this is exactly why buying software makes much more sense.  The company describes itself as a digital publisher platform and not as a content management platform. How would Chirdeep differentiate between the two? Is this just industry jargon or there's more to it.  Here's what he had to say -  CMS is what everybody is used to. A content management system can be as simple as an individual blogger creating and publishing content.  Whereas, larger publisher houses have departments and teams, and they have roles and authorization. Someone who is responsible for publishing content for the sports section, should not have authority over the entertainment section. The need to have that separation of concern was present, as well as having an asset management tool too.  Also, a CMS usually powers just one system whereas here a digital publisher platform can be powering a lot more, the website, the mobile apps, screen less interface, sending information to Alexa, Google News, etc. All these syndications of information are automated. It is one way of powering people to do way more things in a better fashion.  When asked how have newsrooms evolved with time, since Chirdeep has a ringside view, he said, back in 2015, everything was print first and then editors would choose what would go on the digital front. Now there's a paradigm shift - things are more digital-first, where the focus is on the quality of the content, finding the right SEO keywords, Meta data, and then sending the relevant content out of it to print. A lot of new-age publishers are digital-only.  There has also been a transition from mobile-first to mobile heavy to mobile-only, and now we are exploring all sorts of content on mobile devices. What then should be the right time for publishers to start thinking about a mobile app? Chirdeep answers, tech has evolved so much that there is hardly any difference between PWAs (Progressive Web Apps) and mobile apps. PWAs are available offline, just like mobile apps, they can have features like push notifications, home screen icons, all of which were earlier just exclusive to mobile apps. Chirdeep recommends having a mobile app when you have a niche audience that is continuously coming back to your site, for example, The Ken, which strongly focuses on startups. Or you have a lot of direct traffic, which happens when you are one of the leading brands in a particular section. Although engagement on mobile apps is always higher than on PWAs. A user on the web would read 1 or 2 pieces, whereas would end up reading 4 to 5 on an app. And to ease this process, Quintype provides templates that publishers can choose from and develop an app for iOs and Android, within a matter of days and in return have to pay a small licensing fee for it.  The next segment in the conversation was the big question of publishers moving beyond advertising as the only business model for them.  They are now looking at models of paywall, membership, community, eCommerce. And as a publishing platform what role did Qunitype see itself playing here? Chirdeep predicts trends moving more towards a reader-centric business model but only for content pieces that are more niche or have in-depth research behind them.  For this, Quintype has a product Accesstype, which lets publishers set up the entire site for monetization through reader revenue. He also mentioned the different levels of plans that can be used in this model, providing different levels of access to information.  As an organization that is centric to India and South East Asia, what trends were seen in terms of adoption, both by publishers and also by end-users. Is the end-user now willing to pay for content? While almost 30% of the total audience pays for content in the Scandinavian nations, and around 10-15% of the audience in the US, the percentage is fairly low in India and SEA, almost around 1%. Mainly because these countries are habitual to accessing free journalism, but the trends are changing gradually because a large chunk base is willing to pay for news that is well researched or niche.  To conclude, it continues to be a significant piece of the monetization pie but a lot of publishers are now looking at alternatives in terms of eCommerce widgets, affiliates, a lot of publishers also use social media branding. It does not seem like publishers will stick to just one business model.  The last question of this extremely insightful conversation was how did Chirdeep see the pandemic change the way publishers are operating on day to day basis?  To which he answered, things are turning more digital, India and SEA still rely a lot on print, with 70-80% of the revenue coming from print for them. The pandemic although made them accelerate more towards digital, where in the first two months of the pandemic, traffic went off the roof. They thought that with time it would go down but turns out the publishers are doing really well. They have accelerated their digital-first strategy, trying to figure out what does the post-print world look like, and what can they do to populate their funnel more and more.

Someone who transitioned from print media to digital media knows audience behavior is different in both. As an analyst, Karla's first principle for analyzing data is looking past those vanity metrics, somewhere publishers often get lost. And one such vanity metric for her is pageviews. According to Karla, the focus should be on the engagement meter of the user and not the page views. A strong believer in quality over quantity. In this episode of Own Thy Audience, she was strongly led by her principle of being "Data driven, not data led". Especially with 2020 being such an eventful year, publishers need to focus wisely. She also openly accepts her obsession with mailing lists and advocates their massive importance. When asked about working with renowned editors, and finding the right way to coax them to give in to numbers, she adopts a methodological approach, and always believes in providing a lot of context to her research.  Tune in to this wholesome conversation over audience, data, metrics, tools, and some controversial choices made between Microsoft Excel and Google Data Studio.