The Chinese name of DIGITIMES has often been mixed up with another Chinese publication in Taiwan. During one recent event, a friend of mine asked if DIGITIMES would consider changing the Chinese name in order to clear the confusion.
I replied that the cost of high-quality information is relatively higher and is often "tailor-made" to meet customers' needs. The best strategy is to find a way to forge a "seller's market," or at least a business relationship on equal footing. Otherwise, it is bound to bring limited results, or even go down the drain. Compared with general media and financial media, DIGITIMES offers premium services.
Customers will not pay simply because they've heard of the name of the consulting company. Enterprises have to really understand our value to become our customers. Those who don't know much about us will not become our important customers in terms of B2B business positioning. So why don't we focus on customers who know us well and fully trust us to provide in-depth and systematic information?
In its inception stage of business, DIGITIMES had a hard time in the B2B media market. But I always believed if we made long-term commitments, more and more customers would recognize the value of what we could do. Of our loyal readers, about 20% have their companies pay for the subscription fees. They have the right to access our database, read online, and download reports. They regularly log in to come by meaningful information to work on their projects. Their average time spent on our website is 35 minutes, far beyond Google's study which disclosed that people spend only 70 seconds on average reading news online.
People who read all kinds of news on the Internet can barely become our loyal readers. We need to face many competitors once we decide to convert all the digital footprints into business opportunities. Thanks to unique positioning, DIGITIMES has been dedicated to well serving this 20% of our core readership.
DIGITIMES is invested by Taiwan's industry leaders who don't expect me to make them rich. Therefore, we are committed to letting DIGITIMES become the common platform of the industry: Promoting prosperity for the industry is our mission.
It is a difficult task, but I have been working towards the goal for 24 years. A variety of digital footprints and business indicators have proven we are on the right track, so why should we change our brand name?
(Editor's note: This is part of a series of analysis of Taiwan's role in the global ICT industry.)
