We are still in the middle of the pandemic, and while that makes it difficult to predict the future, some media trends seen in the past 6-9 months look set to continue. Elsewhere, the consequences of the coronavirus crisis will continue to reverberate and impact the sector.
As publishers begin making plans for 2021 and looking for ways to slim down their sales organizations, many are looking to give more responsibility to their sales teams’ account managers, partly to cut costs but also to nurture the kind of always-on relationship that many publishers are trying to forge with their clients, particularly in an era of compressed planning cycles, fewer RFPs and more pressure on buyers to prove that their spending is driving results.
The subscription model is not new, but it has taken on a new significance. Over the past seven years, revenue for all subscription companies – from software to healthcare – grew by 321% on average. In the case of apps, this positive trend was bolstered by a 32% year-over-year increase in the number of users who sign up for a subscription after installing an app.
The “retail apocalypse” of the past few years grew much worse in 2020. The pandemic led many people to avoid stores and shop from the safety of their homes. The upheaval in the retail industry will continue to shape the role of publishers next year as content and commerce become even more seamless.
Creating the perfect content marketing strategy for your brand is no small feat. No matter how well you know your audience or how long you’ve spent optimizing your content, every content marketer has faced the challenge of gaining readership and brand awareness.
A new browser war is here, thanks to how Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and a slew of startups have positioned themselves in the data privacy debate. While the third-party cookie is the obvious casualty, we can’t overlook the Balkanization of the internet and the hard choices small and medium-sized publishers will have to make to compete.
