At the recent Online News Association conference, Mark Cuban threw around his thoughts about niche marketing as it related to newspaper Web sites.
Here's what he said: "Every high school talent show and every high school theatrical performance should be reviewed and put up on your Web site, news sites could better serve their communities by incorporating user-generated content for such niche audiences. The content would be free, easy to access, and would give small community groups a forum which would build a site's brand."
When asked what he would specifically do if the owned a newspaper Web site, he said that he would work to understand what his core product was, and create and promote what it was that made the business different from all the others.
"What is it that you have access to that distinguishes you? What assets do you have?" he asked rhetorically. "How do you make people know that what you have is different?"
I like what he says about the "scoop" aspect of the business, where in his opinion it's pretty much worthless to scramble to be the first one to get out something that seconds later everyone else will have covered anyway.
Comment Preview