Getting "Real" Success Online

There's a profile of Michael Wolff on the LA Times entertainment blog I'd strongly recommend reading. You can get some good insights into making things work on the web. Wolff has been in the media business, has tried to be a media mover-and-shaker entrepreneur (is doing so again with Newser.com), and has learned some things along the way. One is that people want news more than ever, and yet journalists often are too self-involved to give that to people. That doesn't mean you can't add something beyond a vanilla recitation of facts.

For example, I've been writing my BNET blogging for a few months now. Site management asked people to consider doing news round-ups after some focus group or other. I started adding one on weekdays, only different from how many others do them. Instead of one or two sentences and then a link, I actually do a summary, having some fun in the writing. I might even use a couple of different sources to get some perspective in this short form. As a result, there have already been some days when one of these roundups has been one of the more popular items on the site for that period. The reason I do a full summary is that I've done enough work on the web, and monitored my own sites enough, to realize that very few people will actually click on a link. The links help with search engine optimization and generally raising awareness of the site, which is a marketing function, but only a small portion of people, on the order of ten percent, will look farther. I realize I'm working from a limited sample, but I suspect that the data is not entirely unusual.

Another thing to remember is that there's a difference between notoriety and a real business:

“‘Buzz’ doesn’t get you the kind of traffic that you want,” Wolff said. He’s comfortable, he said, with Newser’s incremental growth of traffic over the last year. “The businesses that make money are the ones you don’t hear all that much about. It costs too much money to get buzz.”

As he points out, a reader on the Web often doesn’t even notice the original source of what she’s reading.

Add that to the many challenges of a start-up Web operation: Establishing a name is fine, but without traffic to back it up, the money disappears.

His experience would tend to support my contention that people won't go farther than what is in front of them. In fact, the site's slogan is "Know More. Search Less."

It also suggests why round-ups can be so popular. I know I read them at various sites to quickly get a grasp on what is going on without necessarily having to wade in too deeply. People want some efficiency and yet they prefer it with some entertainment added. If you can start to generate that, then you stand a chance of building an audience that might indulge your interest in longer pieces, or in books and other media. But you have to first give them what they want, and that is going to mean hours a week in research and writing. That shouldn't be a surprise because whether a full-blown site like Newser.com or your own blog, we're talking about building a business. And if you don't have the funds to invest, you're back to sweat equity.

One More Point on an Ad Slowdown

BusinessWeek had an excellent point the other day: ad sales slow down in advance of magazine publication. Sometimes the ads sell well before issues close, particularly with larger (read as more important) advertisers that buy on frequency-based contracts. Getting assignments today only means that there are enough ads to cover the issue coming out in a month or two. Where the real issue is likely to arise is mid-November to December, when publications are now considering February or later. That's when a big slowdown in ad spending is more likely to begin, and that would trigger making magazines smaller and, therefore, reducing the number of editorial pages.

How the dollars flow—or rather don't flow—in any downturn can shape events in ways obscured until much later. As strange as it sounds today, the tech bust that started in 2000 meant that total dollars spent on online display advertising declined 21% between 2001 and 2002. And as strange as it sounds today, many established media organizations used that decline as a rationale for deemphasizing the Web in favor of their traditional businesses—and underinvestment allowed all manner of Web-only startups to outflank them in the one medium that's still growing. While online display ads will still be up in '09, says BMO Capital Markets analyst Leland Westerfield, that growth rate will likely slow. Look for search advertising to hold up, so Google should be hurt the least.

In other words, the reaction to a business slowdown sometimes takes some time to manifest. Don't expect the web to escape, though given the more favorable economics (no paying for paper or print) it could be that publishers will emphasize online even more than they are now. One analyst is predicting a 5.5 percent pullback in ad spending, which is worse than it sounds because markets expect business to increase, so the perceived drop from expectations could run closer to 10 percent, causing executives to worry (stock performance being seen as a reflection of their efforts) and cut expenses even more.

There's nothing you can do about ad slowdowns themselves. Just look for alternative work or sectors that aren't likely to be hit as hard. The main thing is to start pushing now to find alternatives. If you know that things might slow down more significantly in a couple of months, that gives you some time to react.

Five Strategies for the Credit Crisis

Roiling financial markets have sent many leaving the equity markets and seeking solace with their remaining piles of folding money. But for writers the crisis can provide a financial boost, even with advertising down, if you know anything about finance or can help someone who does.

• Consider a book. Book chains and publishers are looking to make money from consumer fears with financial titles. So now might be a good time to go to a publisher with a title that helps people either make sense of what is happening or find ways to lessen the impact.


• Talk to your editors now. They will also be reacting to everything happening and will likely be open to stories about cutting costs, reacting smartly with personal investments, and even getting into stronger position for the eventual recovery.


• Companies are likely to expand custom publishing even as they trim back advertising. They can't completely stop marketing, so they'll want what seems to provide a greater assurance of success.


• Those specializing in financial advice will probably need to repair customer relations and otherwise find a way to dig themselves out of a hole. So offer them some help in doing so.


• Take the load off clients. When everyone wants to cut costs, help them by providing additional services. For example, you might take on large aspects of a project, managing it for the company at an additional cost that is still lower than it would be to bring someone in-house or even hire a temp. That frees them up to shore up the business and increases your income. A warning on this strategy: do not give the services away, or you devalue them and now create the expectation that you should be doing it for free going forward.

The Problem with Social Media Campaigns

I'm about to talk about corporate marketing because there's a chance that some readers will seek financial solace in the arms of big business. One of the trends in marketing has been social media, putting together campaigns that are supposed to work on such sites as Facebook or MySpace. The concept actually isn't new and we've seen all sorts of "viral" campaigns bravely rolled out by corporations hoping to surf on the zeitgeist.

Unfortunately, if you've had the sense that many of these efforts will go nowhere, some research bears out your pessimism. A Gartner researcher said that three-quarters of the Fortune 1000 are trying to use social media, and that half of these efforts will fail:

"(Businesses) will rush to the community and try to connect, but essentially they won't have a mutual purpose, and they'll fail," Sarner said. By a "mutual purpose," he means a way to serve both the company putting out the campaign and the audience interacting with it: finding that balance is not easy. The quirkiest and most addictive campaigns often provide little value for the company and turn out to be fads, whereas marketing efforts on the Web often don't go over as well with the public.

In other words, people don't go to social media for the sake of companies. They go for their own interests. If the campaign you write doesn't take that into account, then it won't work. The campaign also must have an intelligent goal. Trying to "get people talking" isn't enough, because without action there will be no business benefit.

So you have to match the venue of the campaign, and its content, with the types of people you will find at that venue and their interests. It's really basic marketing, but easy to overlook in the rush to do trendy work. So act as a consultant, not just as a writer, and help your clients see the basic problems and be sure they are framing a campaign in a way that's likely to work. Because if it doesn't, guess who is likely to be seeing a good portion of the blame?

Beware Ideal Deals

I've been around a fair amount, so when I had a client talking about a retainer agreement early last month, I took it with a grain of salt. Now the client is late on a large payment for work I had already done. While I expect to get my money one way or another, it was a reminder not to buy into someone else's hype. There are many companies and people who will talk of their plans and what they want to accomplish. Far fewer actually make good on their words.

When people start setting the picture of how well you're going to do by them, it's almost a guaranteed red flag that you won't. Instead, that plan will get put off, then modified. When it goes to the farthest extreme, you're asked to do some free work for now to show your commitment, or to hang on while the funding comes in. At that point you should head out the door instead.

The best way to avoid such a lure is to remember the following points:

• Good clients want to check you out as much as you want to check them out. Anyone who is ready for a commitment at day one is someone who takes such an arrangement lightly and who is then likely to find it easy to break the commitment, whether now or later.


• A client or prospect can't push you any farther than you allow. Keep your business plan and strategy in mind. If you're adverse to letting a client become more than 20 percent of your income, then reject out of hand suggestions that you devote far more time to the client who walks in a dream.


• When you hear big plans, suggest phasing things in with a trial project and then maybe a second, larger one (should things get to that point). You'll get a chance to see what the client is like to work with and whether pay comes in a reasonable amount of time. Better burnt on something small than something large.

In a Credit Crunch, Double-Check Your Clients

You know things are tight when you start seeing companies in your industry halting their debt payments. Companies can go from reliable to hiding in a matter of days because they suddenly find that they cannot get the amounts of credit they need to keep their business operating as it should. That means now is the time that some regular clients may suddenly become completely irregular. Once they're in a bind, there is little you can do, so the best way to avoid cash constipation is to look for some warning sings now:

• If a client is publicly-held, check its financial news. I did this with a client the other day (never pays to forget your own advice) and found that it had recently issued a press release about securing financing. A good thing, because then I looked at its financials and noticed that cash on hand was down to a few hundred thousand dollars at the end of the quarter. Yuck. I've just finished an assignment, but will probably "not get around" to sending another query until I see things improve.


• This is a time when you should pay close attention to any change in payments. Do not rationalize them away by saying that it's an unusual circumstance. So is the credit crunch. Tha'ts not to say a company would have an inadvertant mix-up, but don't make the assumption.


• Don't wait for problems to happen; make your exit plans now. In other words, if there are some clients that look questionable, immediately market to find potential replacement clients. That doesn't mean that you need to dump an existing client, but you want to be able to balance your work load and shift into a different set of clients if necessary. You also get the benefit of broadening your client base, being in greater demand, and maybe even making more money.

Shifting with the Economy

As life looks continuingly uncertain on the macro economic front, it's important to take a close look at your business and make the shifts that can help minimize the impact.

• Sell globally, write locally I've mentioned in the past how a weak dollar can mean improved overseas markets. The dollar has strengthened some, but that doesn't mean it's time to look only at domestic work. Yes, there is turmoil the world over, but it's particualrly intense at the moment in the US. So consider how you might diversify your business portfolio. As a personal example, I'm now working on a custom publishing project for a large Indian company. The project may run through a US firm, but the source of cash is a well financed client overseas, which helps spread risk from various geographic economic weaknesses. It's no guarantee of safety, but does help reduce the issue of having all my eggs in one basket.


• Don't Do Panicked Price Drops I know some writers are getting the "we'll no longer need your services" communications. But I think it's a mistake to react by immediately lowering prices. Now, to be fair, it may be that you might get pressure to drop prices. However, if you're dealing with relativelyh strong clients, they're doing that as a negotiating tactic. Particularly if you're doing corporate work (and a lot of editorial is essential that, as you're writing for big comapnies), the amount you get as a writer is really pretty insignificant in terms of overall budgets. That doesn't mean you can simply demand what you've always gotten. Instead, you have to show the benefit you offer them. Some clients may bottom fish for price, and they tend not to be valuable clients in the long run. Those that appreciate value are more likely to continue paying reasonable amounts to those who can deliver.


• Spend Money to Make Even More When things seem tight, you don't want to spend money. I can appreciate that. Heck, I don't like spending money if I can avoid it anyway. However, as the old saw goes, you can be penny wise and pound foolish. Recently we finally got broadband into the rural area where I live and work. I could have put off the additional amount a month, but it would have made no sense. For the $30 or so I spend a month, I'll be saving hours a week. Save say three hours a week and you have 12 hours at the end of the month, enough to fit in at least a short that would pay hundreds. If you write a 300 word piece even at $1 a word, that's a 900 percent return on your investment (figuring that the additional revenue over the cost is $270). Not a return to sneeze at.


• Drop Duds Now is not when to sink time into clients that sink your business. Go out and find replacements, which will probably increase your revenue and decrease your irritation.


• Market a Lot This should be pretty predictable. You always have to market. But you're at an odd advantage here. When thigns get tight, many businesses, including writing businesses, pull back on marketing activities because they don't want to incur the expenses. That means you've suddenly got less competition. So go to the trade show or attend the seminar where you might meet potential clients, because you're stand out if, for no other reason, by being one of the few writers there.


• Be Ready to Build If things do slow down, you'll find yourself with more time on your hands. So invest the time. Try creating a new specialty that you've been unable to establish before because you were too busy. Pick up some knowledge in an up and coming technology that will affect writers, such as HTML coding or video. Then when companies are ready to invest more, you're in a better position to get the work.