Do you have a ‘product’ mindset or a ‘content’ mindset?
Do you know the difference? My own understanding has improved considerably having last week interviewed Julie Harris, CEO of IWSR, a global provider of data, analytics and insights for the drinks industry and David Leeming, CTO of 67 Bricks, a technology and product development consultancy for the specialist information publishing sector, who project managed the creation and launch of IWSR’s new Global Database offering.
The interview was for a (sponsored) article running in the upcoming July / August issue of InPublishing magazine (not on our mailing list? Register here), entitled ‘Adopting a product mindset – the key to unlocking growth’.
A content mindset focuses on the creation of content. One set of content – an issue, edition, dataset, call it what you will – is produced, and the organisation moves seamlessly onto the next scheduled release. It’s a heads down, production line mentality. Everything is underpinned by a set of broadly understood assumptions about the target audience. Lots of extremely good content is produced this way, but, and it’s a big but, the question is seldom asked, is this what the customer actually wants?
With a product mindset, content is still produced, obviously, but it’s not based on assumptions. It’s based on a deeply understood knowledge of who the customer is, what they want, how they want it and why they want it. That knowledge drives all content creation.
Publishers that have gone down this path appear to be doing very well, and it’s not difficult to understand why. Everything they produce meets a clearly defined customer need and, unsurprisingly, those customers are prepared to pay for it.
Talking with Julie and David, it seems that publishers with a product mindset exhibit the following characteristics – they:
- Are customer focused
- Have a clearly articulated mission and vision
- Believe in strong internal communications to establish internal buy-in
- Foster collaboration between teams and the breaking down of silos
- Have unified their data assets into a single platform, that is scalable, future proof and flexible
- Have a test & learn culture
- Have adopted a culture of continuous learning
- Measure the right things – engagement not pageviews
- Base their decisions on data and knowledge, not assumptions
- Are focused on growth
If that’s you, congratulations.
If it’s not you but you would like it to be you, then remember, it all starts with the customer. A word of warning though. Customer knowledge does not come easily – it takes time to acquire.
Julie advises publishers not to “underestimate how much time and discovery work you need to put in,” but, she adds, it’s worth it, “because the answers are all there”.
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