Last week, several members of the Parse.ly team attended the Digital Media Strategies conference in Kings Place, London, where hundreds of CEOs and senior leaders discussed how to develop a sustainable media business in today’s digital world.

Examining topics like distributed content, video, monetization, and branded content, conference attendees certainly kept us on our toes. Following are four of the recurrent questions we heard digital publishers trying to answer  at  the show.  

What is the impact of distributed content on the media industry?

For many digital publishers, distributed content is a necessary evil; the possibility of it is both exciting and terrifying. For the most part, they agree that distributing content to third-party platforms is inevitable, and that a few platforms will eventually dominate the market. But instead of trying to pick the right platforms right now, they are hedging their bets by working with all of them — hoping that the cream of the crop will show itself sooner rather than later. Digital publishers know that if they “get it right” before others do, they will have a competitive advantage.

How can digital publishers improve their video operation?

Video is one of the biggest emerging opportunities in digital media right now. As such, digital publishers want to know everything there is to know about it: how to create it, how to measure its success, how to engage their audience with it, and how to monetize. They realize that understanding the ins and outs of their video operation is one of the best ways for their brand to engage their audience.

How can we monetize new audiences?

Everyone is talking about ad-blocking; and although it may be good for the industry as a whole, the consensus is that ad-blocking is bad for business right now. So how can digital publishers monetize?

Events, sponsored content, subscriptions, and other monetization models were discussed at length during Digital Media Strategies. But digital publishers agree that — if the market is telling them they no longer want to see advertising — readers need to pay for the content they are consuming in other ways. In short, we need to figure out a better, less intrusive, more valuable way to monetize for the user experience.

How can we capitalize on branded content?

Branded content is growing in popularity and presents a significant opportunity for digital publishers. If done well, many digital media organizations feel that quality branded content may be the best way to monetize in today’s market. Although it is difficult to strike a balance between editorial integrity and doing what is best for advertisers, it can be done! One publisher we spoke with at the conference even scrapped all of its display ads and only uses branded content to monetize — even offering guarantees for packages worth more than $10k.

Interested in seeing how Parse.ly can help you answer some of these questions? Request a demo at  https://www.parsely.com/demo/.  

At Parse.ly, we truly enjoy attending industry conferences like Digital Media Strategies because we learn so much from the online  publishers who spend their days in the trenches with us. Did your team attend the show? What were some of your main takeaways?