In an attempt to recapture marketing dollars lost to customer content marketing initiatives, many publishers have pulled the trigger on launching their own internal marketing services operations. This “go where the money is” mentality is both strategic and logical, but once up and running most soon witness the plethora of challenges occupying this arena. To run a successful marketing services business, publishers require more than personnel and publishing know-how; several other factors play a critical role in this business.

1. Learn Your Areas of Proven Capability
The term “marketing services” is almost comically More...

The American Business Media Annual Conference last week in Jacksonville, Florida, was a really interesting one, for a whole lot of reasons. This year's conference was certainly the last of a breed.

With the ABM membership voting last week to approve a merger with the Software & Information Industry Association, the ABM is no more, at least as the 107-year-old independent entity it once was. Now, really, all is up in the air. Whether CEO Clark Pettit stays on board beyond the fall is an open question. Probably not. Same for CFO Todd Hittle. I'll be following up in the days ahead with the SIIA chief, Ken Wasch, for answers on these and other questions.

In the meantime, some observations:

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“This was supposed to be a list of engineers at the car manufacturers. Why have you got so many people in here at supplier companies, like Bosch and Goodyear?”

It was a  reasonable question. The BPA statement for our automotive industry magazine showed the circulation neatly categorized by vehicle manufacturers and automotive parts suppliers, and then by job. I should have had no problem delivering a list made up only of design engineers at companies like Ford, GM, and Honda.

Or so you would think.

As I explained to the sales rep fuming over the list he’d requested, all those BPA numbers really represented w More...

In the midst of a national crisis—a senseless shooting in Newtown, CT, a natural disaster in Joplin, MO, or a terrorist attack in Boston—social media becomes a source for instant information.

And the recent events surrounding the Boston Marathon underscore just how complex managing these social channels has become. Misinformation spreads on Twitter, the front pages of major newspapers identify innocent men as suspects and witch-hunts begin in forums like Reddit.

As an industry, publishing is in a unique position: Even if we’re not all go-to breaking news sources, we are media outlets whose core mission is to inform. 

So, how should we handle these sensitive situations? Isn’t it our dut More...

At ABM's 2013 Annual Conference here in Amelia Island, FL today, membership cast their vote as the final step to approve the merger between ABM and SIIA. The vote came in at 83 for, 3 against, but not without a bit of drama.

During the vote count, Lebhar-Friedman's Roger Friedman stood to pay a heartfelt tribute to the ABM of the past, recognizing his own mentors and previous leaders of the b-to-b media association.

While acknowledging both the inevitability of the member vote in favor of the merger as well as the momentum of change in the b-to-b media industry, Friedman called this year's annual conference "bittersweet&q More...

This is the cover for the May issue of Boston magazine. The story behind its creation is equally as awesome (the May issue was just days away from shipping when the bombs went off on that Monday; tweets and Facebook posts were employed to collect the actual shoes from runners.). Editor-in-chief John Wolfson provides the details here.

As we all wait for the white smoke to appear above the Time Warner Center, it appears that many are  fixated on gaming the odds of one CEO candidate or another. Mr. Bewkes has already announced (after talks broke down with Meredith) that he wants to “spin out” the magazine assets into a separate company. Recent reports coming from Sixth Avenue indicate that the HR folks are doing all they can to retain their best employees during this period of uncertainty. Not sure how much Laura Lang (outgoing CEO) can and/or will do in the remaining months of her tenure. The departure of More...

*Editor's Note: This blog originally appears on FOLIO: sister site, EXPOWeb.com

While the Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society produces an annual tradeshow attended by more than 30,000 industry professionals, The Privacy & Security Forum was its first foray into smaller conference territory. A senior executive wondered out loud to me if we would make any money at all. Well, we did.

The event welcomed more than 250 attendees during a day and a half program with 12 sessions and 26 speakers. There was a small exhibi More...

Content marketing or advertising? This budgetary conundrum challenges not just brand marketers, but the publishers who have witnessed customers divest marketing spend from advertising and invest it into content marketing initiatives outside of their brands’ reach.
 
While a reduction in advertising spend poses an immediate threat to publishers, it also enables the opportunity for nimble publishers to reinvent their business model as well as their client relationships.

Publishing sales teams must change their perception of their customers’ roles, as well as their own:
 
• The customers of publishers are not advertisers, they are brand marketers. A brand marketer’s responsibilit More...

We’re addicted to mobile content. We use our tablets to lull us to sleep. We use our smartphones as alarm clocks, we bring our phone to the bathroom for reading material, and we have panic attacks when we realize that we’ve left our mobile device at home or—heaven forbid—lost it. According to a poll by Time Magazine, “1 in 4 people check their smartphones every 30 minutes and 1 in 5 check it every 10 minutes. A third of respondents admitted that being without their mobile for even short periods leaves them feeling anxious.” In fact, they compare mobile content addiction to a form of sustenance and point that, “twice as many people w More...

Yesterday Bloomberg Businessweek reported on a brilliant idea by a Korean tech entrepreneur and magazine professional: Won Hee Chang has developed a strategy for possibly "coercing virality" on the social Web, a move that may help her Seoul-based literary magazine gain new revenue and audiences.

“Readers who share content via social media will be able to access additional articles for free,” writes Businessweek's Caroline Winter. “Content, available in English, will initially More...

Based on my experience planning and buying millions of dollars in advertising for events, and seeing the results first hand, platform allocation—the share of dollars invested across various media platforms like newspaper, radio, TV, outdoor, digital, etc.—is the most important driver of campaign performance.

It defines who sees your messages and the size of the advertising package you deliver to them. If you get this wrong, no follow-on media buy variables (i.e. rates, placement, timing, etc.) will make much of a difference.

If you want the best results—as many attendees as possible—make sure your platform allocation syncs with the current media habits of your target audience.

Don't over-f More...