Media companies should think "customers" and learn from FMCG

There is an undercurrent within media companies at the moment, driven by the proliferation of interactive channels through which media can touch end consumers, that perhaps they should be thinking 'customers' rather than 'viewers', 'listeners', 'readers' or 'users'. It is part of the same shift away from demographics and mass communications to behavioural segmentation and personalised communications.

This more customer-centric approach is beginning to win a lot of interest from these companies who, along with everyone else, are competing for a share of customer time. A term such as 'broadcaster', with all its mass, one-to-many connotations, seems an increasingly inappropriate term.

If you look it from the customer's viewpoint, they are faced with an overload of information, content and brands. In the UK, TV viewers are moving from an environment of 5 channels to over 200. At the same time they have the internet, interactive TV, mobile phones and all the traditional channels providing yet more choices. Couple that with increasing pressures on their time and it is clear that the battle for media companies is to achieve enough salience in the customer's mind that the customer is willing to spend some of their value (be it money, time, referrals, etc.) with the company. By understanding customers' needs and providing them with something of value you can begin a elationship with them. Over time the value exchange should continue and build to form a much stronger relationship.

This relationship is fundamental to the long-term success of any media company. As "users", "viewers", "readers" or "audience" become increasingly fragmented across the proliferation of media propositions, media companies need to make sure they extract as much value as possible from the small amount of time a customer might give them.

Increasingly advertising revenues are not enough for many media companies and they are looking to commerce revenues. Interactive channels such as the internet are a good means of enabling commerce, which is promoted off the back of the content that lures customers in. This customer-centric approach is essentially what CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is all about. And CRM is one of the hottest buzzwords around at the moment. Whereas Financial Services companies tend to see CRM as very data and systems driven, media companies typically have comparatively little customer data but are much better at intuitively understanding the brand/qualitative side of things. After all, they are experts in devising content that people are interested in. This is quite an advantage in a customer-centric economy. Customers, after all, are not interested in systems or data. If you are to establish a successful relationship with customers then it is important to gain some qualitative insight into what they like and don't like, how they think and behave, and it is important to build a brand, or brands, that customers can identify with.

If Financial Services tends towards the quantitative, data end of customer-focus and media companies tend towards the qualitative, intuitive and "experiential" end of the spectrum, perhaps FMCG is a good mid-way point for media companies to learn from? Is persuading someone to opt for a particular toothpaste so different from persuading them to give your content and services the benefit of the doubt? Can media companies trying to move into commerce learn from the direct marketing, branding and sales promotions expertise of FMCG companies?