The executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association crafts a very strong post this time on the challenge of understanding the audience.

Earl Wilkinson has some fun identifying the historical approach --- vague as it was --- and touting the contemporary approach --- precise as it is --- in comprehending who is reading content. What he notes is that the industry's leaders are losing sleep because they can't figure out how to monetize content by weaving together audience and story.

Instead, sites are fetching audiences through sensational headlines to optimizing search engine-driven traffic --- the most significant marketing measure today, he notes.

"Oh, for simpler times," he writes. "Ignorance was bliss."

The International Newsmedia Marketing Association gathered last week in New York to look at industry trends and its executive director has posted what he thinks are seven key takeaways.

Earl Wilkinson has some surprises in store in his list:

1. Paid content is an important discussion, but not the whole discussion news organizations need to have.
2. The iPad isn't a killer application or device, but it is the start of something new.
3. The advertising business is smitten with social media over all else.
4. Advertising is a commodity buy.
5. Nuanced multimedia buys are emerging and timing is everything.
6. Perceived value can support pricing or be its downfall.
7. Commercial value is created by linking audience, content and platform, so it's necessary for CEOs to get it.

Earl Wilkinson, the executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association, has issued his annual outlook for the newspaper-based industry.

It's called Last Minutes of Danger, Last Minutes of Opportunity for good reason: Wilkinson sees too much fiddling and not enough really new music in the way the business is transforming. The shifting sands of audiences now provide new platforms for consumers to make smarter choices.

"Writing more or selling harder won't produce the growth needed to fund the journalism that is the DNA of our industry," he says. "We have to change the rules. We have to restructure the people and technology at our disposal to serve smaller audiences more profitably."

The report is proprietary to INMA members (disclosure: I am one), but in broad outline it identifies strategies for publishers, how audiences need to be redefined, the challenge of advertising and the revenue and expense outlook for the business.

It suggests new thinking needs to be applied to the value of content across platforms, how consumers interact with news brands, whether there are other ways than brands to build value, and how the industry can sell marketing solutions.

Its tone is impatient in places. While Wilkinson sees great change in places, he also thinks the recession's economic distractions haven't served to reorient the business sustainably --- instead, the cost-cutting process took up the attention.

The executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association is a well-travelled observer of the thinking by executives and practitioners on the craft and business of journalism.

When he vents a little, it pays to pay attention, because Earl Wilkinson has had enough with the "digital Taliban" and the notion they want to help the newspaper industry find solutions. He believes they're largely mischief-makers who might have good intentions for journalism but have neither interest nor aptitude to build a business plan or help newspapers survive.

"The Digital Utopiasts want the Bottom-Line Guys to fail so a new order can be imposed on how people consume information," he writes.

On the other hand, he's also frustrated with the inertia inside newspapering and the lack of identification of new value propositions that might position the business for better times.

He's interested in the middle ground, using the parameters of the digital enthusiasts to help furnish passion in the pursuit of new newspaper goals.

"How are newspapers, magazines, and professional purveyors of deep rich journalism different than the emerging chorus of clever and low cost-amateurs that are legitimately contributing to the emerging map that governs our daily lives?

I ask these questions because newspapers need to publicly provide good reasons to fight on. Many publishers believe this is a silly exercise, yet in the absence of differentiating reasons newspapers are being defined by critics who want to slit our throats and take our wallets."

The new report this week from the International Newsmedia Marketing Association focuses on the pursuit of value in the new media environment. It isn't an easy path.

The report's author, INMA executive director Earl Wilkinson, identifies some key principles:

"1. Creating value for content will require publishers to carve scarcity from an abundance of information.
2. Value has a different definition involving linking unique content, a coherent audience and effective platform.
3. No value, no price tag possible.
4. Publishers need to see value on return on investment.

The 53-page report isn't available publicly, but those summary points indicate a certain impatience with the progress to date. Rather than generate new value, Wilkinson asserts, new media are playing by old rules on cost per thousand eyeballs.

As the executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association sees it, 2010 is the year newspapers decide what they want to be post-recession.

Earl Wilkinson holds an optimistic position. He's assuming newspapers will get to decide instead of having matters decided for them.  That said, he finds the following three main questions in need of an answer as he begins preparing for predictions for the year. Simplified:

1. The value of content across platforms.
2. How consumers interact with each medium.
3. How to market each medium.

Wilkinson says the largest issue will be the obvious one: Whether it is possible to charge for content.

The executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association has been producing a very sage, provocative blog in its early going. 


The Earl Blog, from Earl Wilkinson, has been imploring the newspaper industry (no matter than INMA now is named after Newsmedia and not Newspapers, it's still ostensibly aimed at the print operations with Web companions) to capitalize on difficult times instead of tucking its tail between its legs.


His latest concerns what he perceives as the fainthearted effort to market newspapers during the recession. He doesn't see a widespread industry effort to push the value of the newspaper and market it aggressively. Which, he notes, is ironic considering papers encourage advertisers to spend about five per cent of their revenues on marketing.


"In short, newspapers don't practice what they preach when it comes to marketing," he writes. "This is a shame because marketing works. And there's plenty of evidence to support it – especially during recessions."

Newspapers deserve praise for their survival through the worst of the recessionary impact, says the executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association. Now it's time to turn to the next questions.

And Earl Wikinson has some tough queries. In very brief, they ask if newspapers are:

1. Investing in services to understand the consumer?
2. Carving out funds for marketing, research and development?
3. Shifting funds to narrowcast media?
4. Creating online tools for marketing?
5. Focusing on smaller advertising accounts?
6. Collaborating with other news organizations?
7. Developing audiences and community?
8. Investing in niches?
9. Redefining local?
10. Holding everyone accountable for metrics?


Wilkinson says anything less than a high score suggests all the paper has to show for its efforts is a decent profit-and-loss quarter.

The executive director of the International Newsmedia Marketing Association believes the cost-cutting at newspapers has been necessary in making them competitive as they transform.

But Earl Wilkinson believes the short-term is vital in redefining the newspaper and working inside a new business model.

"As the smoke clears from these tough cuts, the issues now are about:

• Quantifying editorial output. Because pages printed won't work anymore, daily output is a good beginning measurement.
  
  
• Re-imagining the role of newsrooms beyond narratives and beats.
  
  
• Going below our current definitions of “local” and defending that against all competitors.
  
  
• Matching output with the proper medium."

Wilkinson's post makes clear that quality isn't simply about hiring more people, but about determining better what the audience needs and wants.