"As more and more entrepreneurs start building what Fred Wilson referred to as second derivative companies, I think they run a big risk of designing a product/service that is targeted at too small of an audience. Too many companies are targeting an audience of 53,651. That’s how many people subscribe to Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch blog feed. I’m a big fan of Techcrunch – and read it every day. However, the Techcrunch audience is NOT a mainstream America audience."
Paul Kedrosky and Om Malik have great follow-up posts. All of this talk actually coincided with my own review of Read/WriteWeb. I've been delving into my server and Measure Map stats in an effort to identify what's been popular on my blog this year - and what topics my readers like the best. Also recently I got the results of the FM Publishing survey I had on my blog -- and turned out my results were pretty similar to those of Techcrunch. Here are Techcrunch's results, with mine in brackets:
Audience:
· 89% male (RWW = 84%)
· 81% 18-39 (RWW = 71%)
· 50% HHI [household income] above $75k (RWW = 45%)
· 39% Director level or above (RWW = 39%; with 60% being manager level or
above!)
· 55% IT professionals, developers, engineers, or consultants (RWW = 63%)
· 60% publish their own blog (RWW = 68%)
I can tell you that most of the FM blogs have similar stats. Some of them have a more broader audience (e.g. BoingBoing), but there are a subset of FM blogs that have an overwhelmingly male, Gen Y/X, rich, manageriel/executive, IT-based and geeky audience. They include Techcrunch, GigaOm, A VC, Buzzmachine, Read/WriteWeb. The predominance of male readers (and writers) for these blogs is actually pretty worrying and probably sums up how narrow a niche audience this is.
Here are the main summary stats for Read/WriteWeb, from my FM survey:
- 60% of my readers are decision-makers (manager level or above)
- 92% are early adopters of technology
- 60% are computer professionals or consultants
I take that as meaning Read/WriteWeb is successful in providing the information it sets out to: web/media product analysis, market positioning, industry trends and insights. That's the kind of information that decision-making early adopting, IT professionals need. So I'm glad I'm providing it. Indeed my challenge now is to get the full 53,651 people who need it, to subscribe to Read/WriteWeb as well as Techcrunch :-)
OK I do wish that the group of '53,651' people was more inclusive (more women, more over 40's, more non-IT people, etc). That's something we as an industry need to look more closely at. I know Susan Mernit, Dave Winer and others have been keen to have a more inclusive audience, so it's not as if we're ignoring the issue.
Any suggestions on what I can do at Read/WriteWeb to get a broader and more inclusive subscriber base? Tone down the geek-techie talk perhaps? More market research-based posts?
]]>I mean, I had someone going to Map Quest for directions. yeah. I told them go to goolge local and it's easier, better, faster with more information and more accurate.
]]>As an example, I get a tonne of search engine referrals for phrases such as "google maps new zealand" because I wrote about zoomin.co.nz which offered similar functionality.
]]>As for Monty, well that comment is evidence of *why* I need more non-geek non-male readers :-)
]]>This is read/write web right? Not Everything Under The Sun web? I like your blog the way it is.
]]>In fact there is an enormous community of nonwhite, non-tech-industry, non-male people doing "next generation web and media" work. It's not like they don't exist, aren't writing blogs, or aren't reading blogs. The reason they don't read you (or Dave Winer) is probably that you aren't reading them.
]]>Niche publishing (ie targeting niche audiences) can provide huge benefits if done correctly. Also known as 'controlled circulation', your choosing to target a niche audience ensures loyalty among your readers. Commercially, it also means that your advertisers can be confident that their messages are going to chime every time (see what I did there?) with a higher than average percentage of your readers.
I know one major publishing house in the UK that has hundreds of mainstream consumer titles, each one with thousands of readers. However, year on year the magazine that delivers the most profit is a relatively modest b2b medical magazine. Why? Because its loyal audience knows that if they want quality information about the working of the medical industry, they should read this mag. And advertisrs pay top dollar for that reputation.
Assuming you wanted to change it - what exactly woudl you change?
Change coverage / scope: but why dilute your offering with more inclusive content which is a) covered elsewhere and b) covered elsewhere a lot better. instead, do what mediaguardian.co.uk does - mention Google in your headlines on your homepage as many times as possible. Your traffic will soar, even among more mainstream audiences.
Change language / tone: but this could put off your current reader base. The Economist uses the alien abduction approach - explain complex global issues in a way which assumes the reader hasn't read a newspaper or watched TV for the last 5 years. But this can leave a sour tast in the mouth among regular readers. And besides, your content is great.
One thing I'd explore is this: If you're dead set on attracting larger mainstream audiences, then make sure you please both the geeks and the mainstream audience. This (unfortunately) means upping your output and catering for both. As long as you continue to provide the same level of good quality content for the 'geeks', they won't mind clicking past the odd crowd pulling feature.
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