I missed the beginning of this panel but the key phrase that grabbed me came from Malcolm Netburn of CDS regarding the balance between publishers and audiences: "Are you worried about losing control? We already have." He focused on listening to everything that you audience "tells" you through online use and to never assume that you think that you know what an audience wants. The goal is to manage your audiences better by letting them manage themselves. Tracking audiences that come in directly offers a different sales funnel than people who come in from search engines. Things as simple of a chat community can generate interactions if they feel that it will lead them to their community. Toni Nevitt points out that online, like television, is not a census-based medium, it's more of a rejection-based medium; efficient reach is the key to online measurement. I am sorry for the sketchy entry, this was a busy spot for me away from the program. What's clear is that although publishers are moving quickly to provide better measurement of online audiences the traditional advertiser metrics are not easily served by online measurements. This is difficult for advertisers to absorb in terms of their expectations, even if they do intuit the difference and understand that online audiences oftentimes are not the same audience or the same demographics as print audiences. As panelist Lorrie Thomas noted it's important to focus on listening to what your audience wants. This creates different kinds of metrics. The satisfaction of a site that leads people to stay there may be far more valuable than typical subscriber card metrics: it means that regardless of their categorized metrics the person has self-qualified as an engaged audience member. Print cannot do this: we have no way to know in print to the degree that we do online how engaged people are with the content. For those who do engage print the net endorsement level per reader may be higher but overall there is a greater quantity of endorsements to be gained through online content.

Labels: ABM, Audience Development, Best Practices, Digital Velocity, events, Malcolm Netburn