This is the first in a series of posts reflecting on some of the key learnings from a recent project to take an established print publication on-line. I had originally started penning a long article about what we’d learned but quickly realised that it lends itself nicely to shorter, more focussed pieces so here is the first: -
Taking your print publication on-line is a scary business. I know, I’ve just been through the process, hence the lack of recent activity on the blogging front.
For the average print publisher, moving on-line is daunting. The digital community has created a brave new world, where the natives speak a different language. To the uninitiated, this makes almost impossible to determine who knows what they are talking about, and who are the equivalent of dodgy second hand car salesmen.
Should you embrace video? what about user generated content, social networking, widgets, Web 2.0 and all the other buzzwords that get bandied around in the press and amongst the knowledgeable bloggers?
One safe route for print publishers venturing on-line would be to look to one of the digital agencies to guide them through the maze. After all, the agencies are at the forefront of the on-line world and should be best placed to advise on design, architecture and strategy.
However, having worked on a number of projects now with the agency community, I think that far from them being able to provide all the answers, the publishers actually know a lot more than they realise. The best projects are those where the two sides listen to each other and respect their specialist knowledge.
Lesson 1 - It’s a combination of the digital marketers knowledge of the landscape combined with the publishers understanding of their content and audience that creates the “magic soup”
