When lockdown was announced in March 2020, many of us reached for Rahm Emanuel’s wise words: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste … it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Well, it looks like we’re soon going to get another chance to put that to the test.
The markets meltdown since last Friday’s mini-budget has exacerbated the already dire economic situation and, most likely, accelerated our slide into recession.
The implications for publishers are obvious. If our readers are having to choose between heating and eating this winter, how likely are they to renew their subscription?
If our advertisers decide to slash their marketing budgets, as so often happens during a recession – despite ample evidence that those companies that maintain their marketing spend through a recession come out of it quicker – our commercial revenues will take a knock too.
So, what are publishers to do? Put simply, continue to do what you’ve been doing since March 2020, namely honing your product, championing your readers and developing new revenue streams, just more so:
- make your content even more must-have than it is already; make that decision not to renew a really hard one.
- be even more mindful of your readers’ and advertisers’ situation. Offer guidance and support to readers and creative commercial solutions to advertisers.
- continue to refine and adapt your offering, plugging any weaknesses that exist and removing any remaining obstacles that are stopping you becoming a truly customer centric brand.
The pandemic made us sharpen up our act. The coming recession will force us to double down on all the good habits learnt during that period.
Hopefully, we’ll all weather the storm…
(Finally, our next webinar – ‘10 top tips for extracting the most value from your first party data’ – is on Tuesday. For more information and to register, click here.)
You can catch James Evelegh’s regular column in the InPubWeekly newsletter, which you can register to receive here.
