Thursday saw the second meetup for the West Midlands branch of the Future of News ‘franchise’ founded by Adam Westbrook last year. It was a special meetup in two ways. First, I decided to copy Adam’s latest meetup and do an Entrepreneurial special and cash in Marc Reeves‘ promise of coming to speak about The Business Desk West Midlands. Secondly, with BCU/Paul Bradshaw‘s JeeCamp around the corner it made sense to make it a ‘fringe’ event.
There is a tweetdoc of the event (ignore the date) if you want to read the twitter traffic, or just read the re-worked summary of my tweets below.
The Business Desk, Marc explained, is a solution for the field of business journalism and that other forms of journalism would need to find other solutions to sustainability as there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
He said the culture in news rooms had grown to become a public sector-esque sense of a divine right to exist. “It seems remarkable that we’re talking about entrepreneurial journalism. It shouldn’t be.”
With some advice to new start-ups, Marc suggested that thinking ‘I’m a journalist, how can I make it pay’ or ‘how do we make this newsroom pay’ is the wrong way to go about it. Entrepreneurial journalists instead need to ask ‘where’s the value in this?’ and figure out how to use that value commercially. This is a massive shift in thinking for some journalists who often have great principles but unfortunately, “principles don’t pay.” Start-ups have to think about monetisation right from the word go, he said. There is no point going in blind at the start and trying to figure it out later – find your niche and don’t assume the audience will find you. At this point, Marc mentioned The Stirrer and the recent announcement from it’s founder that it may have to close.
Analytics are very important, Marc said. Historically, having 50,000 readers came with the assumption that every story in the paper was read when in fact many stories went un-noticed with journalists assuming their articles would be read. The tools available to web operations now mean that you can see exactly what sort of content makes people stick, at what time of day and maybe even why. Asked if that means journalists no longer need to use their gut feeling Marc responded that yes, they do, but that gut feeling will be informed by their web stats.
Making a point I’ve heard a lot and believe myself, Marc stressed that everything was underpinned by traditional journalism. Particularly, going out and meeting people, forming relationships along the way that build trust and inform stories. Dan Davies put it best when he tweeted, “It’s not a straight line thing between advertising and business model. A good story is a good story.”
Further, as an entrepreneurial journalist, making those connections not only feed the editorial relationship with your audience but commercially too. Focusing on such a niche means that many of your readers are also potential advertisers or partners.
Moving on to some more specifics about the TBD business model, Marc let us into some figures. Each morning, he e-mails the top regional business stories at 8:45am to a list of 2,400 addresses. The timing is intended to catch business people as they start to plan their day so that reading the important articles to them is included in their to-do list.
TBD requires free registration in order to access the whole site and receive daily and weekly e-mails. This creates a more engaged readership, much more attractive to advertisers.
On average, 70% of those receiving the e-mail click through, generating 90% of the site’s traffic which has been building rapidly over the past three and a half months. TBD now boasts around 4,500 readers each month and has begun to bring in big advertising thanks to the focused audience. Marc said PPC and Google AdSense “are the enemies of making money online.”
Switching from being a journalist to a sales and marketing person is something Marc says he’s happy doing, which may be easier for him given his previous experience and something that other journalists may not find so easy. Marc also conceded that he’s lucky to have a good niche in B2B which means he has access to good advertising budgets. When asked, Marc said he did believe all journalists now need sales & marketing skills.
Essential to TBD’s success is the difference in overheads compared to a print operation. Marc says that he has no printing press to keep warm at night nor legacy costs to worry about. They started out with two people with two laptops in a small serviced office in Birmingham. They are now a team of four and soon to move to a new office with room for six.
Asked if TBD would ever introduce a paywall, Marc very quickly said no and mentioned that he can’t wait for the Times paywall as he hoped some of their readers will make the switch to TBD as a free alternative.
Under questioning, Marc again said that TBD only works because of the engaged audience, thanks to the targeted niche. He said that the values are the same for any operation though – find the value. Mentioning civic and investigative journalism, Marc said that finding the value in them is the start to making them work commercially and said that journalists need to “stop playing the numbers and play the quality game.”
Of great importance to TBD is the network. Marc said that the Murdoch empire will survive because of it’s vast network. TBD is a growing network of sites which is set to expand, with the more sites that spring up, the lower the overheads.
Along those lines he said that he is a big fan of hyperlocal sites which are filling an important gap but stressed that they need to be aggressive about becoming sustainable and they need to do so in a collabortaive way, as part of a network.
Marc was asked whether there is a finite point for TBD. He said there was and that the Yorkshire site is getting there but you have to find extension strategies to keep going. There’s no point settling at that top level when you reach it as it will inevitably dip. TBD are moving into events now, for example.
In contrast to traditional regionals, TBD is very open with it’s data, as opposed to waiting for ABCs to come out. The site gets around 1,200 unique visitors every day with each visitor accessing around 2.5-3 pages. This is from a base of 4,282 (as of lunchtime Thursday!) and 2,400 e-mail subscribers.
The issue of dealing with conflicts between editorial and commercial relationships came up. Marc said that journalists need to be commercially aware but ultimately companies advertise because they trust the site, which includes negative news. They probably read bad news about their competitors. Asked if the risks of upsetting advertisers is greater than in previous roles Marc said it was but it’s offset by the more beneficial editorial relationships.
There’s a balance to be struck also in convincing the advertiser is buying the reader’s attention but at the same time not overloading the reader with marketing messages – something journalists need to be thinking about now.
It’s not the business model that’s broken, it’s the advertising model, Marc says, citing AdSense as an example. Since February he made £1.64 on his blog through Google’s contextual advertising platform. One solution may be taking advantage of advertising networks across hyperlocal and regional media.
Asked how the niche model works when based on a geographic niche, Marc said that an engaged audience focusing on local relationships could be created. He mentioned there is great potential in the arts & entertainment industry, citing the Arts Desk (not affiliated) as one example.
Journalists are very self-indulgent, according to Marc when asked how much he is a journalist compared to a marketer. He gets the journalism out of the way before 9am, leaving the rest of the day to being a marketer, both commercially and editorially.
Finally, asked about the legal strcuture, Marc revealed that TBD is not a franchise and that he is a director of the company. Would a similar relationship be open to others? Marc didn’t offer much insight but said it’s about the people, which suggests if the right person came along it may be possible.
Big thanks once again to Marc for coming along and talking with us, and thanks so much to Urban Coffee Co who stayed open late so we could meet.
