USA Today Marketing Strategy

Perreault, William D., Joseph P. Cannon, and E. Jerome McCarthy. Basic Marketing: A Marketing Strategy Planning Approach. 19th ed. N.p.: McGraw Hill, n.d.

Tom and the USA today team faced a new rapidly developing internet information boom. News was not just becoming accessed more by digital sources, but it was being created or changed into digital sources of information. The internet had created, in the context of the news industry, a disruptive outlet to the newspaper production, sales, and distribution. Whole new infrastructures and business strategy focused on web design, rapid information updates, media outlets, and becoming more up to date with the current technological trends in news, information, and communications. With that, Tom realized that the business expand and use its core competencies in content distribution into three formats, which would allow USA today to impact different market segments with one of three particular product/service changes. With the new divisions, the overall strategy would need to become more ambidextrous to guide and coordinate the branches under a single

The internet is our modern source for news media; the importance of the newspaper has not only declined, it is in a sense, obsolete. We now turn to the internet for opinions, news, and entertainment. Even though the way in which we consume information (PBS) has changed, the importance of an unrestricted and watchful media has not changed. (Magleby, Light, & Nemacheck, 2010)

USA Today was founded in 1982 and is a newspaper that brings in the ideas of a modern day world. The newspaper also brings in new ideas and facts about how the world is evolving from writing, to technology or other things that show evolution is the human mind and way of processing things. The company is owned by Gannett Company. Gannett has many other smaller companies under it’s belt and has a revenue of over five billion dollars. Including USA Today, Gannett Company owns 41 smaller companies that help build up their revenue. Basically, USA Today is a company owned by another company bigger than them. Gannett owning USA Today can affect the material the news source gives out because of how the other smaller companies inside

The main challenge that news and media outlets face every day is technology. There are several categories under technology that affect how successful an outlet like USA Today can be. As technology advances, we are moving toward electronic versions instead of print because of faster access with lower costs. As it takes less money to start a website to promote information than it does to start a print version of a publication, today there are many more sources that consumers have access

On its debut in 1982, USA Today was reckoned as America’s first National general-interest daily newspaper. Being the global information juggernaut that he is, Gannett managed to identify a gap in the market that he identified as an opportunity for the leading to-be newspaper of the united States. The opportunity was the void gap in the market. Attention to the business traveler was the least attended to

The opportunities and challenges in today’s economy which have affected and are still affecting USA Today is primarily due to our technology-driven society (Ferrell and Hartline, 2014). In a generation where information is easily accessible through a mobile device or PC, few people think about leaving their homes or walking in a store to purchase a newspaper. The innovativeness of social media is a great method of communicating with millennials;however, USA Today must ensure that the stories reported are those that will intrigue this target group. In a 1997 article by Fabian, USA Today is seen as a news source that delivers boring and unentertaining news. The paper is also referred to as a sleeping pill, rather than an informative source of

An example of USA Today’s relevance in the marketplace was in 1998 when the NBA had a lockout and players refused to play and USA Today used this scenario to modify their newspaper (Stoldt, Smetana & Miller,

USA Today is a well-known newspaper company who dominates print news in the United States. Currently reaching nearly three million readers, USA Today has climbed their way to the top by evaluating and consistently re-evaluating their strategies to maintain and grow their consumer base, which consists of businessmen, professionals, and politicians (About USA Today). One of their greatest strengths is the wide range of their distribution. USA Today distributes newspapers in all fifty of the United States as well as parts of Canada and the United Kingdom (About USA Today). Their content is styled in an easy to read and understand way, making it more desirable to their readership versus other competitors’ newspapers. The company has established a well-recognized design for their newspaper, making it stand out among its competitors. USA Today is a “go-to” choice for consumers who daily read the newspaper.

Presiding in my role as Chief Marketing Officer for USA Today, I aim to develop a plan that allows readers to fully customize their online newspaper and have audio/video content automatically sent to their mobile devices. In order to thoroughly accomplish this goal I would take an inventory of the target market accessing our online newspaper and their habits while online, and I would create a marketing strategy in form of promotion of the product.

USA Today has been able to differentiate itself and stay away from the commodity status of most news sources. Commoditization is to “render a good or service widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company” (Merriam-Webster, 2017, Para. 1). Commoditization is everywhere and it is basically results of major markets lacking any differentiation between products and services (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014). When products and services are similar customers will only care about price. One reason why the USA Today has been able to differentiate itself and stay away from the commodity status of most new sources is because it has the free availability online that makes itself different from competitors, and the list doesn't stop

The New York Times has a strong brand presence, name and equity in the United States. According to Michael Hirschorn, contributing editor at the Atlantic, “You really can trace almost any major story these days to something that originally appeared in The Times. The problem is that once it reaches the public, they may not even know it came from The Times.” Readers of The New York Times are extremely loyal as well. A daily issue is priced at $2.50 compared to $2.00 for the Wall Street Journal and $1.00 for USA Today. In addition, within nine months, 390,000 consumers have subscribed to www.nytimes.com for a premium price of approximately $4.00 a week [Table B] and 70% of print subscribers have taken

This case study looks at the type of news people want to read, and rankings of importance among types of newspaper readers, however all of the other original research cited in this article is no longer available via the web to legitimise the sources.

From the viewpoint of a journalism historian, Donald L. Shaw identified a recurring pattern amongst American media in comparing the prevalence of newspapers, radios, motion pictures, and televisions when they were in their primes. They differed in that the later mediums were quicker to receive popularity; however, all four forms rose, stayed on ‘top’ for a period of time, and inevitably fell as they were replaced by a more popular type of media. Despite this pattern, Michael Wolff recently reported that, albeit the internet being widely considered the most popular media of current day, television is beginning to increase in popularity as the internet, meanwhile, is finding itself reliant on advertising. This contradiction leaves one important question to be asked: Will the next media mogul be a new, evolutionary technology, or a blast from the past?

So much so, another external factor attached to decision making is competitive influence. Nowadays, due to rising competition in the market, organizations prefer news that sells. Tabloidisation of news as defined by McLachlan and Golding (2000) is characterised by, “fewer international news stories, more pictures, less text, more human interest and entertainment news stories and less political or parliamentary news.” Tabloids media that dominate popular culture are replacing hard news and the distinct line between what people need to know and what they want to know are blurring out. Increasingly, due to competition, newspapers want to be the first to publish certain news. Thus, added pressure is laid on the back of journalists. Usually, in trying to report news first, stories are poorly researched, opinionated and biased since