Over the past few months, I have been wondering why the perceived value of our email newsletter has dwindled. Along with our research reports, we have been updating over 8,000 newsletter subscribers with market analysis (mainly VoIP) on a weekly basis. We never doubted the quality of content in the newsletter. Yet the number of subscriptions has remained almost stagnant over the last 18 months.
We have come to two main conclusions: (1) Email subscriptions (although reader solicited in our case) are giving way to syndicated feeds, and (2) Market research companies such as iLocus should not interfere in the domain that is better served by the media and qualified bloggers i.e. readers do not expect us to report on an announcement made by companies, or even provide comment/analysis on a press announcement. I think media sources such as Light Reading and blog sites such as GigaOm do that job exceptionally well.
Solution: we have given up following press announcements for our email newsletter. Instead we will update you on precisely what we do: Market Research. And we will update you in form of research bites / blogs but also maintain contact via the email newsletter once every week or so.
Traditionally, market research reports have been perceived as findings published out of the blue without any prior hints regarding schedule or the nature of information in the report. We think the paradigm has now changed somewhat. Companies have developed appetite for knowing what their suppliers (including market research companies) are up to, what products (reports) they are working on, which companies they are interacting with for the reports, and which direction the report is taking. So they want to know not just the end product/report, but also the process involved in shaping and finishing that product/report.
Through the research bites / blogs, we will be sharing with you exactly that process. As we go along we hope to get your comments on these blogs, thus improving the end-report.
As obsessed as we are with number crunching, we will get you numbers in the bites as well. We have always believed that numbers speak louder than words. Most of the time, these numbers will be our own estimates. But I am sure you love us to give you those estimates.
Apart from the quarterlies we publish on different segments, there will be themes or reports on which we will blog as and when we interact with companies interviewed for that particular theme. I myself will get started with the theme which I had left off recently, “The 10 Most Influential Companies in VoIP”. We realize that you do not want to read a 3 pager each time you log into our site. So the research bite / blog on a theme will be a concise one. You will then have an option to purchase the entire report/paper when the theme is concluded.
Comments (1)
The newsletter growth is down because too many publishers have sold email addresses (email blasts=spam) and used their publications for excessive self promotions. In many cases, the unsubscribe function on newsletters doesn't work. Now that most people are on their 4th or 5th email address, they protect it.
You are right about the other factors. RSS, blogging and the increased ability to find and filter one's own news play a role.
In addition to all this, there is more media competition and that unfortunately includes dozens - maybe hundreds - of self sustaining industry sites that display aggregated news feeds with an Ads by Google strip atop them.
With syndication out of control, I am going to project, in a visionary sort of way, that wire services are going to become an ad medium and instead of a company introducing a product once or annually, the same product will be introduced on a weekly basis.
Companies have had no reservations about creating their own newsletters for ad purposes or using blogs for marketing. Wires will be the next space to be exploited.
And then... maybe, people will need some media company like iLocus to once again dissimenate and report on the industry news.
Posted by Winston Weaver | July 17, 2007 1:55 AM
Posted on July 17, 2007 01:55