Why The World is Tuning Out (and why you need to change)
By Michael StelznerIf you are a blogger, marketer or a writer you face a very serious challenge.
What’s the problem: People don’t pay attention anymore (I am a prime example).
Think about it:
- Hundreds of TV channels to surf from home (at home and on your cell phone)
- Your email inbox crammed with a never ending-stream of messages
- Millions of possible websites to surf
- A mailbox full of junk mail, catalogs, …
- More commercials (on TV, the radio, …)
- Music over radio, satellite and TV
- Did I mention voicemail and newspapers?
- Let’s throw in social media, like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
All these choices create a huge problem for you. But there is a solution.
When I was a kid. There were pretty much three TV stations (ABC, CBS, NBC), the local paper and radio stations.
Now we live in the most fragmented information society that has ever existed.
In fact, it is overwhelming. So much so, that people are literally tuning out (my friend just canceled his cable TV service)!
This spells trouble to a lot of us!
So what can we do?
What are obvious the options?
- Option A: Try to communicate across all the channels
- Option B: Ignore how the world is changing and do what you have always done?
If you attempt to engage all the channels, it will cost you a fortune and kill you. There’s just too much and new channels seems to be emerging annually.
Hiding your head under a pillow will also lead to your demise. If you cannot see the need to change, you will slowly shrink your audience or kill your business.
So what’s the solution?
Narrow casting. This is a word I crafted to help convey the point. You now have an opportunity to build favor with very focused groups of people that have very specific interests.
Unlike the past, you can now build businesses, blogs, etc. in micro niches that are under served by the general market (and would be impossible to build 20 years ago).
For example, let’s say you are an artist who likes to teach people how to turn their junk into useful household products. You could very quickly build an audience and a rather large following by simply leveraging social media.
OR, you could use me as an example. I would have never been able to build 20,000 followers on a niche topic of white papers in the past. But now I was able to pull people together from all around the world that share a single thing in common: the creation and marketing of white papers.
The take home message: When your message is unique and highly relevant to a special group of people, all you need to do is focus on that group. Other like-minded people will flock to you.
How do you need to change: Stop being a generalist. Focus on doing one or a few things exceptionally well. Hand pick the channels where your people are and begin marketing. Ignore everyone outside your ideal target. Tweak, enhance, expand and repeat.
What do you think? Are you a narrow caster who has found success? I’d like t hear from you.
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July 15th, 2008 at 7:29 am
You’re right about the viability of the niche approach. For evidence, look at subscription-based B2B newsletters which have successfully applied the concept (in print) for many decades.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I should add that with the low cost (no printing or postage) advantages of contemporary electronic tools, a good idea for your niche and some sweat equity, you’ve got a shot.
July 15th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Hi Mike,
Great points. Here is a fantastic article written by Nicholas Carr on this very topic - http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google , titled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?.
The article has to do with all of us having a short attention span. In fact, I’m already losing interest in writing more on this topic. :>)
July 15th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
No need to do all the channels, just ride the winners. First, don’t be an early adopter, there’s just no benefit, which is why I waited probably a year before I signed up for Twitter, waited until after the NY Times wrote about it, then I knew it wasn’t a fad. Since last Feb. the growth is really fast for Twitter, it’s as essential as email now, I get maybe half my news through Twitter. You can’t go wrong with WP blogs either, very SEO friendly. But the biggest network of all is the Internet, http. So don’t dig too deep into any one domain or you’ll lose touch w/ the mainstream. Remember, the Internet is the biggest social network, use it!
July 16th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I agree that as a writer we better focus in a group of audience with special niche. Offer something that show our specialty in certain niche. Writing something that reader won’t find it from other information channels would make reader stick with our writing.
July 18th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Specializing and finding a niche has made huge difference to me, and I talk about that in my own blog.
It’s allowed me to focus on the kind of writing I do best, and not surprisingly most enjoy. And it helped me focus on a market that I like to write about, too.
A lot of business can be found that way, making marketing easier and growth quicker.
July 20th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Specialization definitely seems like the most logical way around this absolute media saturation. The internet has provided us all with the opportunity to have a platform from which to broadcast our own unique service offerings to our targeted audience. Thank goodness for that!
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Obviously, as a Journalist who needs to be informed of what is going on around the world, I need a kind of specialization in ICT. That means I have to channel all channels surrounding the information that I want.
But this requires money&time. But at the same time we don’t need to surf around the existing information network.What we need is just to concetrate on few professionals that you have met along your way and your audience genuine information.
If you find any information concerning a specific professional in information business who knows how to deal with it without spending so much money &time please let know.. It worth it to learn from him or her.
Ntarugera François
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Excellent blog post.
Though Seth Godin’s books are aimed at marketers and companies with products, your readers might find them worth picking up too. (This post reminded me of a lot of what he writes about.)
July 25th, 2008 at 12:18 am
“Focus on doing one or a few things exceptionally well… Tweak, enhance, expand and repeat.”
I don’t know that I would completely ignore the margin of people that fall outside of your target market, only because a few minor additions to a campaign can grab a significant amount of attention. However… having said that, the quote that I pulled above really speaks volumes about something that people overlook. I think that sometimes the amount of exposure and the possibilities are overwhelming and people spend too much time trying to get a small piece of every pie, when going after a much larger chunk of one can be just as fulfilling. Nice post.