As it happens, I’ve been teaching a course at Solent University about online strategy, which is also very much focused on understanding the business models of the web and how journalism students can exploit them.

We’ve covered a whole range of the usual monetisation options – from banner ads to paywalls. But one of the most interesting research topics has been internet marketing.

I love internet marketers. And I think internet marketing has a ton of stuff to teach journalism. Here’s why:

Internet marketers have clear goals

• Make money
• Build a database of customers
• Use targeted blogs, microsites and email newsletters to reach them

Immediately you can see where this starts to diverge from journalism. Journalism has a tendency to say “we know what we want to do, we know what’s good for you, that’s what we’re going to give you”. And then get all upset and cross when people don’t rush to buy their product.

Focus on the audience

Internet marketers don’t do this. They focus immediately and unstintingly on figuring out what needs an audience has and meeting them. And then figuring out the best way to encourage that audience to buy whatever it is they’re offering. It’s a completely different approach that journalism could learn a lot from.

I know, I know. It’s not journalism. These people are just trying to sell stuff. It’s not the same at all.

But actually, there are important parallels.

Internet marketers are selling information

That is, actually, what journalists do. It’s not such a leap to start thinking in terms of making that information valuable to readers.

There are plenty of other useful lessons:

• There’s a total focus on SEO
• Content matters and is valuable
• They find out what the reader really values
• They offer the reader something they will want to pay for
• They use every effort to find readers and make them want to read

I’m particularly struck by the second point. Sure, there’s a lot of spam bloggery and rubbish available in the murky world of e-marketing. But basically this is a world of information products – articles and e-b00ks.

Content matters

From the appropriately titled YouCanWriteArticles.com sales site comes this lesson:

You already know that writing articles is the single most effective way of building an online business. How do I know that you know? Because everyone says so. All the big name gurus, all the small-time forum junkies, all the bloggers, all the SEO experts, even the people in the know at the search engines. They all agree that articles are the big secret to online success.

There’s one group missing from this list, of course. Journalists are conspicuous by their absence. Because I suspect most journalists don’t, in their heart of hearts, actually believe this. Otherwise why are they talking about getting the government to subsidise their work?

This is a world where the people involved are looking into every aspect of communication to figure out how to make money.

I’ve signed up to a few email newsletters to see how they work and what’s on offer. One is Kickstart by Martin Avis, which has quite a few interesting links and pointers to this strange new world. [NB: I'm not actually making any money from this, don't fret that your pure, journalistic heart will be sullied by reading this. Although I really should be.]

As far as I can tell, Martin Avis really does make his living from internet marketing, so it’s interesting to see what he does. And what he does is use an email list to generate sales leads for information products – both his own, and other people’s (getting an affiliate cut in the process).

His content, bless his heart, is a bit rubbish – he mixes reviews of some of the latest products with inspirational quotes and anecdotes from his life in Sidcup. But you know, that could be deliberate – part of his “I’m not slick, I’m a really normal bloke” brand image.

Internet marketers are multimedia to the core

Interestingly, however, he, and the others, are exploring all the things that journalism should – multimedia, for instance.

Avis has started a series of ten-minute audio interviews with other emarketing gurus on his blog – using his iPhone and the iProRecorder app. Other marketers are running online TV channels to sell their products and strategies, or selling video instruction courses.

As for social media – I thought journalists were are all over Twitter like a rash, but emarketers have them beaten, using paid-for services such as the appallingly named Twitollower to generate followers and traffic to their other sites.

Internet marketers integrate their communications

Most importantly, internet marketers are integrating their different communications platforms. They make their blogs talk to Twitter, use Twitter to generate email leads and channel all their traffic to tailored, SEO-heavy sales material. They use audio, video, images and good old text in whatever combination they think will work best to meet their goals.

And while these goals are pretty much “making money”, the best of them also have an ethos of value that shouldn’t be ignored.

What works is to provide real, useful, naturally-written information. What works is to put the reader first and your profits second.

Which wouldn’t go amiss in the editorial office of a national newspaper.

Five key questions

Let’s finish by looking at five key marketing questions that should actually be five key journalism questions.

1. Are there people out there who want to know what you know?
2. Are there lots of them?
3. Are they hungry for your information or just casually 
interested?
4. Will what you have to say satisfy one of the basic human needs
 that drive us all: money, health, love, security, self-esteem,
 entertainment?
5. Are they already proven to be prepared to spend money on 
information products?

If the answer’s no, you’re not doing your job – whether as a marketer or as a journalist.

(Journalism.co.uk has prepared its own catch-up guide, which is doubtless better. They organised it, after all. Send your blog links to Judith Townend in case they want to keep it updated.)

What the bloggers said:

• Iain Hepburn thinks the event spread itself too thinly and some of the panels missed the mark – he also takes the event to task a bit for overrunning, which forced the pace at times [UPDATE 15 June 2011: he seems to have deleted this blog content].
  Strongest content: Kevin Marsh‘s keynote speech (transcript/notes here), the Local Digital Media panel and David Dunkley Gyimah‘s videojournalism presentation.
• Sarah Booker adds a general round-up and promises session-specific posts.
• Adam Tinworth is excellent on the five stages of grief journalists are experiencing as the industry implodes.
• Jon Jacob from the BBC College of Journalism is a bit self-indulgent but is right when he argues we should forget about labels and trying to predict the future.
• Jon Slattery brings a newsman’s coverage to the event. His general roundup of the event is here.
• Julio Romo‘s Two Four Seven blog has a substantial round-up looking at the implications from a PR professional’s view and featuring some useful extra links.

Keynote: 10:30 – 10:45

Click here to view the embedded video.

George Brock believes he should be a professor of chaos history, and likens the search for solutions to the challenges of digital media as “throwing spaghetti at a wall”.

What the bloggers said:

• Adam Tinworth summarises George Brock’s keynote here.
• Nigel Barlow has a nice summary of the session here.
• Patrick Smith takes on the idea that journalism students can boost local reporting.
• Alex Gamela has an overview of George Brock’s keynote here.
• David Higgerson wonders whether the media’s obsession with Twitter is overplayed – a nice analysis.

I liked Brock’s point that technology is not always the disruptive social force we sometimes credit it as being. Although western media picked up on the Twitter campaign by Iranian dissidents last year, actually the regime is more threatened by opponents stamping slogans on banknotes.

So many banknotes now carry opposition messages that the government wants to recall them all. But that would destroy the economy. Very clever – very low tech.

Presentation: 10:45 – 11.10

Click here to view the embedded video.

What the bloggers said:

• Jon Slattery’s story on Kevin Marsh’s talk is here.
• News:rewired has an audio interview with Kevin Marsh here covering many of the same issues.
• Reuters’ Mark Jones interviewed Kevin Marsh after his presentation on whether using social media makes you a better journalist.
• Oliver Luft at Press Gazette explores Marsh’s views on the transformative nature of blogging.
• Mediating Conflict also briefly picks up on the importance of blogging as a transformative force.
• David Higgerson uses Marsh’s comments on blogging as the springboard for a discussion of the blogging medium.

[Continued on next page]

Key question: Does crowdsourcing = crowd following?

Make sure you’re doing what journalists normally do – go to where people talk and eavesdrop.

Ruth Barnett, multimedia producer at Sky News, outlined some of the issues Sky has had to handle dealing with crowdsourced material.

#Iranian election Twitter coverage:

• As soon as something becomes a trending topic the material becomes less reliable and less useful
• First 24 hours has peak value
• As the conversation becomes wider, it becomes more diluted

Sky also uses crowdsourcing-type tools to allow collaborative professional journalism – dubbed teamsourcing.

Problems with crowdsourced material

• Can exclude the poor and marginal groups
  How universal is access to content creation and crowdsourcing tools? There’s an in-built bias in technology and platforms that means some stories won’t be told
• Legal problems
  Make sure you know where your material is coming from – different territories have different rules (on the use of telephoto-lens cameras, for example, or libel)
• Is the source genuine?
  Make sure you can verify its authenticity. Content mediation services such as NewsCred can be a guide to the authenticity of crowdsourced material.

Kate Day, head of communities at Telegraph.co.uk, noted that you can shape the demographic of an online community.

• The community: MyTelegraph users tend to be 45-65 – the same demographic as the newspaper
• The reason: MyTelegraph was heavily promoted in the offline newspaper – attracting a user-base of readers who are interested in talking to like-minded people
• The result: a community of bloggers and commenters that is older than the normal online readership of Telegraph.co.uk.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s cheaper and easier than video – and there’s less messing around. Can better focus on the story.

Tips for success

• Focus on story and character
• Pre-interview your subject by phone – work out your story in advance so you can plan photos and sound
• Does the story have great audio potential? Think of effects – background noise (traffic, water) and music
• What about photos? Spend time thinking of effective and atmospheric shots
• Let pictures breathe – give the audience enough time to register  and explore them on screen

Tools of the trade

• Decent audio recorder
• Digital SLR camera
• Editing software (he uses Soundslides)

The New York Times has created an evocative series of audio slideshow portraits of the city in its One in 8 million feature.

SoGlos deputy editor James Fryer offered the five dos and don’ts of starting up online.

His prediction: quality, professional journalism is key to success and will see a resurgence in the next decade. User-generated content is not enough to attract advertisers and readers.

Plans for 2010 include: a site redesign, a move into iPhone Apps and the development of a franchise model for others to launch similar regional sites. SoGlos has a target of more than 100,000 readers

Sift Media CEO Ben Heald noted that success online required changes to traditional journalism.

• Write to engage rather than write to inform – the aim should be to start a conversation rather than have the last word.
• Journalists create very raw content – aim is speed.
  Web production team polishes to web publishable quality.
• Advertising model – Sift’s sites deliver “high quality business leads” for advertisers.
  – a specialist audience for conferences
  – customer leads for new products
  Sift site content has to help meet these needs.
• News is actually very valuable – as long as it’s on Google.
  Sift needs to maintain a high number of visitors for lead generation. It lost too much traffic when delisted by Google News. Many sites benefit from churning out low-level news – topping and tailing press releases for example. Sift Media had to learn to play this Google News game.
• Paywalls don’t work – they cut traffic too much (see above).

There’s a whole slew of material blogged and Twittered already (just check the sidebar widget on the right). If you really want more, some will be assembled here over the weekend, complete with grainy, shaky, poorly lit video™.