SPECIALIST MEDIA PEOPLE KNOW DIGITAL MEDIA WILL BE IMPORTANT TO THEIR BUSINESS

Graduates from the University of Leicester interviewed visitors to the Specialist Media Show on the day to discover their views on how specialist media is developing, what their biggest business challenges were, and why they had come to the show.

Visitors interviewed were evenly split between consumer (46%) and business to business (41%) markets with 13% covering both.  A quarter were publishers, with the rest split between other roles in media businesses, principally marketing, editorial and advertising.

The vast majority already published content online, with relatively few using mobile or social media yet.  Views were split on the future of print; 17% felt print would continue to dominate, but the majority were expecting online content to dominate, and a small group mobile.  69% felt digital media were very important to their company; only 6% placed low importance on digital media.

THEIR KEY CHALLENGES ARE THE PACE OF CHANGE AND HOW TO GROW REVENUES FROM READERS AND ADVERTISERS

Visitors were clear about the challenges they face:

“How to make consumers pay for digital media.”

“To ensure profitability from digital media.”

“Obtaining quality in digital media.”

“I think brand visibility will be difficult in digital media and it is difficult to keep up with the different sources. e.g. mobile apps.”

“There are many challenges that our company will face in the future: Competition; keeping costs low; monitoring returns from digital media; but potential huge opportunities”

“The main challenge I believe is to be able to build communities and readers.”

“Convincing advertisers to use all the channels especially via digital media.”

“We would like to expand to new online media, getting people to pay. Also finding ways to link buyers and sellers through different media."

REASONS FOR ATTENDING THE EVENT WERE TO LEARN AND NETWORK

Visitors feel that events are a good way to learn and meet other publishers:

“I came today to get a general idea of what is happening in the industry and to network.”

“It always surprises me what opportunities there are at events like these and it’s stimulating to meet people in a similar situation.”

“I came to get a complete picture of digital media publishing and find creative ideas for the future.”

Interviews were carried out by:

Bhavin Makwana

Isaria Vithyaviranot

Iliana Bodnar-Horvarth

Chen-Hsuan Yang

More about the students

The Specialist Media Show took place on 25 May 2011.  To stay in touch with new research, case studies and articles, sign up to our newsletter.

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