The New Daily shows the new way for content marketing
The launch of The New Daily, which has controversially been bankrolled by super funds, is just the latest example of the growing trend towards content marketing, argues Helen O’Neil.
Australian superannuation funds are picking up on content marketing.
In light of Fairfax Media’s decision to focus on content marketing, another giant has arrived. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of room at the table.
Three leading superannuation funds have partnered to launch a free news web site The New Daily.
Australian Super is prominent in advertising on the site, but The New Daily’s Managing Editor Bruce Guthrie says the Funds’ real purpose is engagement with their five million customers.
Providing quality content, that’s relevant, timely and shareable – it’s the challenge before many of Australia’s businesses and organisations as they realise that everyone is a publisher in the digital world.
To bring in business, you develop a relationship with customers, clients and potential audience members by telling them your story.
You have to find the right platforms to connect, and come up with cut-through content.
Guthrie told the ABC the three super fund backers are providing $2 million each, with a strategy to have The New Daily self-funded through advertising revenue.
“Garry Weaven, who is the chairman of The New Daily Propriety Limited, has said that eventually in the medium term, and we’re probably talking somewhere between three and five years, this should pay for itself at least and then move into profit,” Mr Guthrie said.
Mr Guthrie says the commitment from the industry superannuation backers is “open-ended” and designed to engage the 5 million Australians who have their retirement saving in industry superannuation.
Trust is the key here.
Post by post, day by day, publishers of content on websites, social media and blogs must prove they have something to say, and tell their story well. If publishers can do this consistently people will come back again.
The publishers will hear back from the readers and viewers, more content is created, and as the engagement grows an active digital community can grow to.
Bruce Guthrie is a veteran of Australia’s newspaper industry, who has suffered the pain as newspaper circulations plummet and on-line audiences fragment. He knows that replicating newspapers online is not enough. News priorities set by old-style editors in a mass media era of one way communication won’t cut it when your readers and viewers can go elsewhere.
So to up the interactive content, Guthrie has Storify links prominent on his site which bring in breaking social media commentary as a story develops. To succeed he must track which stories attract attention and respond.
- Helen O’Neil, is a senior consultant for Content Group. This post first featured on their website.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Glad it’s not my super
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I just cannot start how this venture, that aims to be a serious & free play in the local news market, is being relegated to the term ‘content-marketing’.
It’s content. Ideally good content will bring in an audience and – somehow – enough dollars to stand on its own two feet. Whether The New Daily will be able to do that under the stewardship of someone who was well known for putting digital last is another matter.
Having listened to the Guardian editors discuss their “newstopia” last week (being able to break big stories via six-month long investigations while still losing 37 million pounds last year) – I can’t see how many local ventures will be able to succeed in such a crowded market…
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