The Niche Media Publishing Newsletter: 20 February 2024

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Affiliate Disruption, Forums are New Again, Ways to Monetize Media, Niche Media Finds

Welcome to this week's issue of the Niche Media Publishing Newsletter.

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Alright, let’s get into the topics for this week.

Is Programmatic Content More Effective than Editorial?

Programmatic SEO isn’t a new concept by any stretch, but it may be comparatively more attractive as compared to the current search uncertainty around traditional editorial content.

What is programmatic content?

Simply put, it’s using backend data points to procedurally generate templated content formats.

A good example of this back in the day might be a DSLR camera comparison site that compares different models of cameras. The backend data exists in a database or spreadsheet, but can be used to generate articles in a low cost comparison format (“x” vs “y”).

Another interesting use case is CrimeRate.co.uk which uses publicly available data to create content around crime rates in specific geographies.

There’s also a good local business opportunity:

The key oxygen for programmatic is DATA. Commonly available data is one thing. There’s certainly room to run in many verticals (like crime data) to create a more usable front end wrapper… but less defensible.

What’s more durable is using HARD TO FIND or proprietary data to generate programmatic content. I’d bet this is a more durable long term trend… As someone said to me recently, “Data is the new oil”.

There’s now an even more intriguing opportunity and pairing original (closed loop, controlled) data with the creative capabilities of AI.

Some programmatic Tools and Resources:

1. Allison Sebolt: Allison has shared some case studies publicly and runs PageFactory, a programmatic middleware for WordPress.

2. Ian Nuttall: A good twitter follow with some excellent courses.

3. SEOmatic: Another (more developed) programmatic tool that pairs data with AI and integrates via API to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and others.

And there’s another angle to connect with developing your OWN data…

Reddit Sells User Data to AI

Using an owned forum or UGC platform (discussed last week) to train an AI model on seems promising as well.

Any owned original content is interesting, but owned USER generated content has the potential to be the exponential content source that AI needs to “feed the beast” with original insights.

Reddit seems to be doing just that…

As a Reddit user, I don’t feel great about this & Reddit has a larger issue of compensating their top creators (especially in light of their upcoming IPO)….

Over time, data QUALITY will also take on greater precedence, particularly if Reddit continues to get spammed to death (thanks, Google). Imagine the AI insights from a expert moderated niche community of experts / enthusiasts?

The Next Email Evolution: Inbox Organization

The inbox is increasingly becoming a “clogged” artery to reach customers. As I’ve discussed in previous editions, an email address is a relative constant in a sea of unpredictable algos (Facebook, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, etc..).

The resurgence of email is real, but all this additional focus means more and more readers are facing cluttered messes.

It’s going to get more difficult to BREAK THROUGH the inbox noise.

As a consumer of newsletters, I’ve experimented with adding custom email address variants to route newsletters to just one inbox. I often miss editions in the daily influx of “emails”.

Enter: Meco (affiliate link)

Meco is basically an e-reader for your inbox. And I love this concept.

My inbox is both an real-time “work” flow and a place for news and information consumption. And a whole sundry list of other things…

Side note: they also offer an affiliate / referral program ($4 sub) and launched a growth platform to get your newsletter in front of their in-app audience.

Niche Media Finds This Week

Here are some niche media businesses I’ve found this week that piqued my interest:

• StoneAlgo: A fascinating programmatic / database site, growing rapidly in a highly lucrative (diamond) niche. Basically the Kayak for diamonds. Interestingly, they have a handful of vendors but not the MAIN retailer (Signet), which sells the majority of retail diamonds in the US. What other verticals could you do this for?

• Krazy Coupon Lady: Definitely impacted by HCU, but what a juggernaut! This site ranks for almost everything, certainly not just coupons anymore.

Interesting News Below the Fold

These are some other interesting things I read recently. Didn’t quite make the main feature, but worth reading.

• Horseneck Media Acquires: The owners of BroBible (and other publications) have acquired MotorBiscuit and SportsCasting.com. There’s a pulse to the M&A market, despite the broader media headwinds.

• WSJ Calls Out Google: Typically when major publications like WSJ publicly call out Google… that gets their attention. Pointing out the objectively poor current array of search results might prompt Google to re-evaluate. Here’s to hoping…

• Detailed’s Report on Forums: Glen is out with a phenomenal deep dive on the current Google search landscape, specifically highlighting forums as the big winners. Nests with a lot of what I’ve been discussing here….

Other Newsletters Worth Following

Here are some other publications I subscribe to, author, or co-sign.

If you are operating a newsletter (or even just interested), this next one is one of my “must opens” every week:

If you leverage affiliate relationships in your media business, Affiliate Insider is where I share my in-the-field experience.

Our COO (Amy), publishes an incredibly detailed and thoughtful newsletter for content marketers here:

We also cover the latest MarTech trends and deep dives with a monthly (soon to be weekly) newsletter for B2B operators:

OK, that's it for this week...

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