Mass layoffs from media companies have left many people wondering about the leading cause. Media has been a channel and form of communication for many decades, and many were not expecting such bad news to come out of big media companies. Traditional media such as radio, television, newspapers, and print ads have a long history as the primary outlet for advertisements and dissemination of information.
But before filing excessive pressure on media companies, you need to ask yourself, “what is the major source of income for traditional media companies? and what is the future of traditional media?” These are hard questions that give many people difficult times to get the actual answer. Right? Most content consumers don’t have time and interest in such information of which is also correct; you don’t have to know everything but only what can improve your life experience.
Ideally, the primary source of media income comes from advertisement campaigns. Advertisements are done and planned through the media buying process. And the amount that a company will bid or set aside for media adverts will also determine ad placement and space purchasing. The aim of companies that are willing to run adverts on traditional media is to secure an appropriate time, place, and context to promote campaigns with a high conversion rate or reach. Some programs attract much attention and audience. Such programs require companies or investors to spend a lot on their promotional campaigns to secure a slot in between them to market their products or services.
Now let’s dive into the future of traditional media and the reason for the mass firing of media personalities. The competition between traditional and digital media is taking another new shape. News organizations that used to produce content for a living won’t have long-term survival. Way back when there were newspapers, radios, television, or magazines, there was no existence of internet, content and influencer marketing.
Media companies were big deals. When businesses wanted to reach out to their customers, they had one option to buy ad space from media, but they experienced inefficiency and with low return on investment. Most of the ads were not useful, wrongly targeted, irrelevant and interruptive to content consumers.
But those days are gone! Today you can attract suitable attention to your brand without paid advertisement. Again, you can create and distribute your own content to the targeted audience through online platforms. It means that everyone can build their media in less than an hour. You only require enough effort and motivation to create content and publish it as a blog, social media, or email content to your consumers.
Media companies acted as middlemen between consumers and brands from ever since. But in this era of the internet, they are cut off since brands and consumers can connect online without necessarily having middlemen who are the traditional media. Online platforms can today link consumers to companies from anywhere around the world.
When you want to push your content, Google will connect you to potential customers. For people who love traveling around the globe, Airbnb is the middleman that links them to their desired places. Uber is another middleman that connects passengers with cab drivers. Trip Advisor is the middleman that links travelers to the global hotel markets; they can get all the information before they book for any hotel accommodation.
Businesses are today adopting content marketing that is delivering a message and is useful to their end-users. Additionally, they don’t need to monetize the content with paid ads since their content is funded by building their brand and selling their products. Unlike media programs that had ads inserted in between them and were interruptive to content consumers. When the ads pop up on the Tv screens, some would probably pick up their remotes and click on the next channel while waiting for the program to resume.
Traditional media are today trying to diversify because they don’t have products to sell. Their main product is content, which is provided for free or almost free to their audience. They use the free content to charge advertisers of which generate low returns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Where is the turning point for companies in terms of marketing? Their turning points are the influencers and so they use people with massive followers on social media to improve their brand visibility. If you visit profiles for different influencers now, you realize they are brand ambassadors for various companies; some even have more than one. This is the future and it determines the future of traditional media.
The significant advantage of using modern influencers is because the result is measurable. You can have the records of the number of people who viewed the content, and entrepreneurs can use the same records to scale up their marketing strategies. The other advantage is that with digital influencers, you can target the relevant audience. Assume you sell products that target the youth population, the best strategy is you hire an influencer with youth following to have the right market target.
The massive firing of media personalities is witnessed since companies are trying to predict the future, and they see no income that matches what they used to receive before. This pandemic has caused financial instability to several companies, and media is part of them. They will not be able to sustain the figures and number of employees they have onboard and so they have one option of shaking them off.
The purpose of this blog is to portray the future of marketing and with no ill motive to destroy traditional media. Share this blog if you enjoyed the context of the message provided.