Publishing industry executives share their thoughts on where they’ll invest this year, and where they expect to see gains.
At the end of last year, the folks at Publishing Executive surveyed their readership to see where they plan to invest, and where they expect to see revenue growth in 2016. The results showed five key insights, according to Ellen Harvey.
“Though relatively limited in sample size, the responses do point to some interesting trends that we’ve recognized in the industry and which we’ve covered in our reporting,” Harvey reports, who notes that “digital content and distribution remains top-of-mind for publishers.”
“App technologies (29.5%), digital magazines (29.5%), and email marketing solutions (25.7%) are the top three technologies and services respondents plan to purchase in 2016,” she continues. And print is not far behind.
“Despite the dominance of digital creation and distribution tech, printing services were 5th on publishers’ shopping lists,” she continues.
Meanwhile, publishers will continue to rely heavily on ad revenues, even as ad blocking usage rises. They remain optimistic in spite of the need to counteract “the revenue-draining effects of ad blockers,” Harvey adds. Website ads and print/digital magazine advertising were the two most cited sources for revenue growth.
Podcasting, meanwhile, isn’t looking like anyone’s darling yet; only 10% of those surveys expected growth in that category this year. And half of the respondents cited a pressing need for educating in emerging tech, digital and mobile publishing capabilities.
“These responses suggest that while digital and mobile content are making a big impact on publishers’ business models today, the next major publishing disruptor may come from a lesser known technology,” Harvey explains.