FOLIO: Section Blogs by B2B

Goodbye, American Business Media

traphael — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:31:44 -0400

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:

• I had a brief conversation with Wasch at the Saturday night dinner hosted by Glenn Hansen and the folks at BPAWW. There were perhaps 30 people at that dinner, which was a terrific networking event. But I was there in prior years when that BPA dinner was three times as large as it was in 2013. That dwindled group was somehow symbolic of the state of the ABM itself.

• Back in the day, in the 1990s, the ABM event—then called the Spring Meeting—was a true annual gathering of anyone who mattered in the business-information space. It included all the big players of the big companies—mostly middle-aged men whose surnames were also their companies’ names. Everyone wore tuxes and gowns to a formal event on the Tuesday night. (One of those meetings, at the Greenbriar Resort in 2001, especially stands out.) Those executives were the core of the ABM, and there were enough of them to support a robust association. Some are still around, but not enough. It was left this year to Roger Friedman, whose father founded Lebhar-Friedman in 1925, to offer a final tribute to that old American Business Press.

• Later, into the final years of the 1990s and the early 2000s, the ABM meetings were where operating executives and their private-equity backers converged to do deals. The brokerage firms would be there in force, hosting invitation-only dinners and sponsoring lavish cocktail parties and golf. This year, I saw one person from JEGI, and he might have been the only investment banker I saw, other than John Wickersham of Atwood Capital Partners, who noted from the stage that there were no private-equity firms there this year. Again, a barometer of the health of the association.

• The ABM board members and senior staff were remarkably frank about the financial state of the association—one of the reasons for the merger with SIIA was a small cash reserve and a burn rate that might have jeopardized the association's existence by the end of the year. It was striking.

• I think what happened to the ABM was several things:

1. The disintermediation of marketing communications caused a flood of dollars into search, into lead-generation, and into marketers' own Web efforts, and out of b-to-b media companies.

2. Spending on digital advertising doesn't generate the same amount of revenue as print did.

3. Data providers and information companies became much more important, and they didn't join ABM.

4. Digital-only startups proliferated and began achieving scale, and they also didn't join ABM.

5. Technology media companies like Ziff Davis, IDG or UBM either stopped being involved in the association or they downsized themselves into oblivion.

6. Traditional b-to-b media companies struggled through the recession and vast secular changes, and some opted not to be members of ABM—which as a staff-dependent organization charged relatively high dues.

7. As ABM revenue declined, so did its level of services, causing an acceleration of the pattern.

• At any rate, here we were at ABM 2013, watching the last of the independent ABM conferences. Many sessions were strong, and told of the great amounts of innovation among ABM companies. Wickersham in particular offered one of the most insightful looks I've seen of what the traditional model of b-to-b media looked like, and what the advanced model needs to look like (see accompanying slides). The merger with the SIIA seemed promising to most people, and the larger association gives ABM members access to rich resources from like-minded companies.

• One session perhaps summarized the conflict that the ABM of the last 10 years has faced. Rafat Ali, founder of Paidcontent.org and more recently of the b-to-b travel-industry site Skift, called out Northstar Travel Media by name, even as Northstar CEO Tom Kemp sat in the front of the room. Ali lit Northstar up, claiming that the company (and other traditional players in the space) are basically resting on their laurels, have an old-school approach to media, don’t link to other sources in stories, are not innovative, are afraid to take on major advertisers, and don't have a cohesive view of the travel industry that includes air travel, hotels and destinations under a single umbrella.

Ali described his own startup company as one that doesn't sleep, that works on weekends, and doesn't need to own the "story," just the "conversation." In response, Kemp sarcastically noted that it’s true Northstar has an "old-school" problem: It’s called revenue. In response to that, Ali tweeted that, “a 60mn company, with tiny margins, isn’t exactly a revenue behemoth in travel, for being decades old.”

Goodbye, American Business Media.

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Tony Silber is General Manager of FOLIO:. Follow him on Twitter: @TonySilber.

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Advertisers Don't Sell to People Who Check Boxes

Bill Mickey — Thu, 02 May 2013 10:45:20 -0400

“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 was how many people checked a particular box on our subscription form and had one of twelve words in their job title. Yes, we had suppliers who checked the car manufacturer box, just as we had design engineers at Ford who checked “other” because (as they would explain in precisely lettered corrections) “there is no manufacturing at this location.”

My ten year old son accidentally put it best, when he said something about Dad needing “more describers for his magazine.”

“That’s right, Matt,” I told him. “I don’t just need more subscribers. I need subscribers who describe themselves the right way.”

Twenty-five years later, that remains an issue with b-to-b audience databases. We pride ourselves on how much we know about our audiences. We can target by industry, by job function, by annual revenue, by products bought or specified. Yet almost all our information still comes from a controlled circulation process with inherent weaknesses—not the least of which is relying on individual customers to categorize themselves.

Who knows if some respondents are genuinely confused by our questionnaire, or just not paying attention, or trying to make sure they get a free subscription? The end result is people at big companies saying they have less than $100,000 annual revenue, while mom-and-pops show up among giant multinationals. Auto glass repair shops mysteriously become window and door manufacturers; a Denny’s restaurant gets classified as a fine dining establishment.

Or, as happened to me with a publication called Big Builder, hundreds of subscribers who worked for the single biggest homebuilding company in the country, at the height of the housing boom, claimed their firm sold fewer than 100 homes a year.

Maybe this wasn’t such a big deal back when our primary focus was the BPA statement. After all, everyone dealt with pretty much the same errors, so our overall numbers were still valid for comparing one magazine to another. But today, our clients want to target the audience database in new ways, to find contacts in very specific companies and markets.

“I want to reach the owners of the top 25 kitchen and bath remodeling companies in 32 metropolitan areas.” That’s a typical request. A list of whoever checked the K&B box on our qual form doesn’t quite cut it.

We need a new structure for the b-to-b audience database, one built around companies as well as individual audience members—a structure that can function as a business directory and contact management system just as much as a list for sending magazines and newsletters.

For the Big Builder magazine I mentioned above, we stopped reporting subscribers by the answers they gave individually. Instead, we linked subscribers back to their companies, and then used published data to identify how many homes those companies built annually, how much revenue they had, and so on. Not only did this give us a more impressive BPA statement (and yes, the whole process was audited), but the information was far more accurate than what we were getting from individuals puzzling over a subscription form.

Linking audience by company is not a simple matter. You have to struggle with endless variations and misspellings of company names, keep track of mergers and takeovers, figure out who is the parent or subsidiary of what. We need to push our fulfillment and database companies for tools to make that process easier and more accurate, and move away from the focus on the sacred qualification form.

Our clients don’t sell to people who check boxes. They want to reach specific companies, and the right people in those companies. They’re looking to us to identify our audience in the same way.

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ABM Merger with SIIA Officially Approved 83-3

Bill Mickey — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 11:03:08 -0400

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" as he took the opportunity to officially cast his vote against the merger.

"I know the merger is going to pass," he said, "but because of my conscience I am casting a negative vote. It's just my way to express my feeling over the whole process."

The objection came across as more of sentimental one, rather than a practical one—with Friedman taking the opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of some of the "old guard" b-to-b leaders who put so much effort into the organization and how it, in turn, educated its membership over its more than 100 years in existence.

His speech, which he admitted to writing at 3 am that morning, drew a standing ovation.

It also succinctly drew attention to the reason for the merger in the first—that the b-to-b media industry has changed so quickly that it's almost unrecognizable from what it was only a decade ago.

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Launching in a Saturated Event Marketplace

traphael — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:20:28 -0400

*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 exhibit area where 16 sponsors and exhibitors presented their solutions.

It took meticulous pre-planning, carefully crafted content and marketing, seamless on-site management and thoughtful post-show follow-up. Here are the most important lessons we learned.

Timing is critical. There are many variables that contribute to a successful event and a lot that can go wrong. Having time on your side is a must. Four to six months in market and a couple of months of pre-production time are essential. Everything must be spot-on when you go to market. After the launch you must assess and adjust throughout the process.

In our case, we changed the date of the event three times before finally signing a venue contract. After a competitive assessment we selected a target date of late October, got bids from several venues and then had to redo the process due to a scheduled internal management meeting.

Option 2 was the week of the 2012 presidential election, a distracting time all around but especially for the key government speakers we hoped to secure who would not want to be away from the Capitol that week. Option 3 was the second week of December, a risky choice as event season is winding down and the weather can wreak havoc, but we had committed to doing this event as part of our business plan.

We knew the topic was hot and holding an event outside of the busy season could be an advantage. We decided to go for it, but had burned through a few weeks by the time we had a signed contract.

We spent even more time testing and selecting a registration system. The first one we tested was used in-house to sell paid content, but did not provide a customer-friendly experience for event registration, so we moved to another system that required the same cycle of testing but proved to be the better choice.

We had been building the event web site while all of this was going on and were finally ready to launch. We held our breath and dove in head first.

Content always rules. Stick to what you know and make sure the market wants to hear about the topic you choose. We based our choice for privacy and security on a recent reader survey.

We sent out our first announcement five months in advance of the show. At that time we had the entire agenda complete and 70 per cent of our speakers secured. Our speakers were the leading executives and government representatives that our audience wanted to hear from.

To insure that time out of the office was well spent, we upped the ante by releasing a respected industry report during a dedicated session at the event and provided the report to all of the attendees. We received 12 registrations out of the starting gate, what we thought was a very good sign for a brand new event. We felt like we had a winner on our hands.

Integrated marketing campaigns are essential. You need them to get your message out. We sent out 15 e-mails over the course of the marketing cycle to a targeted segment of our database and the same messages through our social media channels.

We also ran digital and print ads, sent out a press release through a wire service, listed the event in the ‘What’s New’ sections of regional HIMSS chapters, sent collateral to tradeshows we participated in, ran pre-show editorial on the event and offered discounts to university alumni groups, targeted associations, speaker contacts and exhibitor clients and prospects. Our messaging was tailored for the health care provider and payer audience that we built the event for.

On-site we provided plenty of Q&A and networking opportunities. Interacting is really the point of live events and this human contact and relationship building is why the event business continues to thrive in the age of web seminars, Skype, Twitter, etc.

Glitches are guaranteed on-site, so make sure your staff is professional and prepared to handle anything. Above all, don’t let your attendees know there are any problems—just solve them.

One of two key government speakers canceled two days before our event started. She was scheduled to speak the afternoon of day 2. We moved the other government speaker, scheduled for day 1, to her slot because that second afternoon needed a strong session to maintain the interest of the audience.

We asked two CIOs who were speaking in other sessions to take the first day’s morning session and provide insights into their security strategies. The session was moderated by one of our editors. We quickly printed an addendum to the agenda and announced the changes during the forum’s opening remarks. We made sure the adjustment sounded like a positive development and everything went off without a hitch.

See Also: What's Your Story?

After the event, don’t forget to thank your attendees for participating and let them evaluate their experience with one of the numerous easy-to-use online survey tools. We got invaluable feedback on topics, speakers, location and attendee testimonials. In return, we gave them the event presentations and a discount on registration for next year’s event.

Launching a new event is never a sure bet, but we beat our attendee projections by 27 percent through hard work and planning to ensure that all the parts involved in holding a successful event were moving together like a well-oiled machine.

When the event was over we received numerous inquiries from attendees and vendors alike about next year. We’ve got a few good years ahead of us with this one and have established a strong foundation from which to launch other events. This year’s Privacy & Security Forum will take place Sept. 23 and 24 at the InterContinental Boston. The topic matter will have the same focus but the facility is larger to accommodate the additional attendees, sponsors and exhibitors that we expect.

Mary Long is a marketing consultant specializing in event management and marketing, audience acquisition and lead generation. She can be reached at marylongac@yahoo.com, on Twitter @marylongac or on LinkedIn.
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Study: B-to-B Marketers Lagging With Social Media

traphael — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:36:05 -0500

Business-to-business marketers are underutilizing social media and its potential, according to new data from Eloqua, a marketing automation company. Of 548 b-to-b marketers surveyed by Eloqua, about 40 percent say they are not yet using social media marketing. Additionally, about 25 percent of respondents say they don’t know how their company plans to use social media marketing in the future.

Although many departments may contribute to social media, respondents say that social networking platforms are most often managed by a public relations department (26 percent), followed by a variety of departments (23 percent) or a website team (11 percent). Still, about 23 percent of respondents say that social media is not under the control of any one department.

About 43 percent of respondents say that their company has no strategy in place for incorporating social media into demand generation. About 20 percent said a lack of tools prevent them from using social media for lead generation and another 33 percent say a lack of strategy is attributed to an unclear understanding of the value of social media.

Business-to-business companies that are using social media platforms for a variety of reasons:

83 percent use social media to create awareness for their company or brand.

56 percent use social media to get visitors to share messages socially, broadening reach.

55 percent use social media to increase trust by accumulating social followers.

32 percent use social media as an outbound marketing channel for demand generation.

22 percent use social media for a better understanding of market perceptions of their own brands and or products.

In the future, b-to-b companies expect a variety of benefits from social media, with most respondents (50 percent) saying it will help to increase reach and brand awareness. About 35 percent say driving inbound leads to increase revenue will be a benefit of social media, with 28 percent saying social networking will benefit their company when it comes to measurable impact on demand or revenue.

This data reinforces the notion that b-to-b marketers still need help when it comes to the social networking space—something that content producers can assist them with. Publishers should look to expand marketing services groups to have a strong focus on social media, which will help publishers position themselves as a unique solution to a need in the marketplace.

T. J. Raphael is Associate Editor of FOLIO: Magazine. Follow her on Twitter.

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The Joss Group's Hurricane Marketing: Case Studies from the Bad Taste Department

Bill Mickey — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:21:06 -0400

We received this e-mail from the Joss Group on Monday, as the hurricane was about to hit. Not only did they take a shot at our decision to postpone the MediaNext event—we didn't cancel it, we postponed until January—but they also made hurricane jokes.

For the record, Joss Group, here's some of what Hurricane Sandy did:
• Caused 51 deaths.
• Knocked out power for 7.5 million people.
• Caused the cancellation of 16,000 flights.
• Caused unprecedented flooding on New York's 100-plus-year-old subway system.
• Left much of Manhattan in darkness, with Lower Manhattan flooded.
• Caused the New York Stock Exchange to be closed on consecutive days, the first time since 1888.
• Destroyed scores of houses in fires in New York City.

So you can market your event by making light of the impact of a hurricane, and you can offer hurricane pricing, and mock our decision to postpone our event. But don't expect everyone to think it's clever.
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ABM Adds Nine Companies to Membership Roster

Bill Mickey — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:24:39 -0400

ABM, which is wrapping up its Executive Forum being held in Chicago this week, voted nine new companies into membership at its board of directors meeting Monday.

Media members include Editorial Projects in Education, InsuranceNewsNet.com and new international member Beuth Verlag GmbH.

The association also added six associate members, including Adobe Systems Inc., bXb Online, LiveIntent, MagToGo, Tout and WeiserMazars LLP.

"These new members—ranging from traditional and international media companies to progressive businesses focused on app development, social media, virtual event technologies and digital monetization solutions—support ABM's initiative to represent the wide range of platforms and models leveraged by business information and media companies," said ABM president and CEO Clark Pettit in a statement.

Meanwhile, news out of the Executive Forum includes a bit of research ABM did in partnership with Outsell that examined mobile content and business models. B-to-b executives responding to the joint survey, it seems, are not in it for the money—yet. Instead, brand enhancement, content delivery, serving advertisers' needs and creating a superior digital experience were the top mobile objectives, with 64 percent, 60 percent, 60 percent and 52 percent of responses, respectively.

At the bottom of the objectives list were "new revenue from mobile users (29 percent) and "enable mobile e-commerce" (24 percent).

Additionally, only 20 percent of respondents indicated they have a formal mobile strategy in place. The majority of respondents (56 percent) say their mobile strategy is somewhere between formal and ad hoc. A quarter, or 24 percent, say mobile is on an ad hoc, project or case-by-case basis.

Given that objectives aren't quite standardized and that 40 percent of respondents expect to break even with their mobile investments and 48 percent expect a negative ROI, mobile initiatives are clearly still in the experimental phase.

For more results from the study and the slide deck on the ABM/Outsell presentation from the Executive Forum, click here [pdf].

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Quartz May be a Diamond

Bill Mickey — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:32:00 -0400

Four days in and I really do like Quartz. I like the catchy categories like “Energy Shocks,” and “Low Interest Rates,” and “Modern States.” I like the simple and clean look. And I like the ease of navigation on my iPad and my iPhone5 (just had to throw that in—kinda like a middle school student who inserts, n’est pa? at the end of sentences, because, well, n’est pas?).

It has its quirks and bugs to work out (some bylines show up with name and “Today at Invalid Date”). It runs a tad slow compared with other sites on my devices (today). But they are smart people and will figure this out. I like how they’ve aggregated some good content (good and obscure, which is why I generally use Zite rather than Flipboard on my iPad). And I also like how there is good newly-created content.

So that gets me to who is this for? David Carr’s New York Times’ piece of Monday suggested, “The editorial product is aimed at the front half of the airplanes that crisscross from Zurich to Sao Paolo to Singapore, serving executives who are increasingly having similar conversations no matter where they land. It was built for tablets, conceived as a mobile product for mobile people.” So, since I do want to be Tyler Brule when I grow up I wonder what’s his take on it.

QZ.com confirms everything we’ve said in b-to-b media since the year one: We have highly specialized audiences that are valuable.

What is fascinating about this product is that it takes on trying to appeal to a rarified slice of the world through some original and a lot of aggregated content. Will this work, or will users realize that, since this wasn’t their first morning read as they hop scotched across the planet, they are rereading an FT or Reuters or New York Times piece. Might it not be more effective if one only found that content that cannot be found easily? (Note: stay tuned for such a product from Penton to launch shortly)

Anyway, nice start and I look forward to sharing with all of my friends in the Delta Sky Clubs around the globe, n’est pas?

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Folio: Taking Content-Creation Summit Series on the Road

Bill Mickey — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 16:50:39 -0400

FOLIO: unveiled a one-day, nuts-and-bolts training workshop this week focused on presenting essential new skills for content creation and deployment. The workshop will be conducted three times in 2012—in Los Angeles (October 10), New York (November 14) and San Francisco (December 4).

Called C2, the workshop is built on more than 70 case studies and best practices from around the media industry. FOLIO: general manager Tony Silber and editor Bill Mickey will host the event.

“There’s never been a more exciting time to be in media,” Silber said. “There are new channels, new formats, new expectations and new opportunities. The basic relationship between content creators and content consumers has evolved.”

The workshop's core curriculum is an analysis of case studies that show how media companies are leveraging social, cross-platform tactics, video and much more to build content creation strategies that address today's reader behavior. Learn what’s on the minds of the innovators in consumer, b-to-b, association media, city and regional, and hear what’s right around the corner.

To register and to learn more, click here.
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Three Core Elements Marketers Want From Tradeshows

Bill Mickey — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:39:35 -0400

Like most of you, I pay close attention to what is going on in the event space. I find myself particularly interested in trends and the overall outlook for our industry. Not surprisingly, some events are up, others are down and many find themselves relatively flat. However, being internal optimists, we always look for the silver lining—exhibit space was off, but attendance was up. We had more exhibitors, but the average booth size was down. We are the masters of the spin for our customers, but what is really in store for trade shows?

The Center for Exhibition Industry Research recently released research on “The Role and Value of Face-to-Face Interaction.” Even during the “Great Recession,” and now in the midst of an increasingly digital world, in person events remain an important tool for many marketers. Your customer’s still have a desire to show their products and services to a highly concentrated group of targeted influencers.

This is the good news, but there are still many risks to our overall business. Budgets are decreasing and every dollar is being scrutinized. Simply put, you cannot afford to rest on the historic influence the event industry has had as a marketing tool. We need to challenge the norm and look to adjust our model for the future. Savvy marketers want a simple, measurable and hassle free experience. So what does that mean?

Simple: Everything from the contract process to payments to registration needs to be easier. Consider an alumni program that will take basic information (address, phone, contact, product category, directory listings, etc.) and carry it over year to year. Give them the opportunity to update that information, but why should you ask your returning customers to recreate the wheel with every event?

Measurable: We all deal with question on ROI. Unfortunately, there is not a one size fits all approach, but if your staff understands a marketers objectives in advance of the event, you can work to formulate and define what is or is not a realistic outcome. How will you ultimately be graded?

Hassel Free: If you have been in the business for any period of time, you know the single biggest complaint is drayage, labor and other variable costs. Most exhibitors do a poor job of planning, and far too often they are surprised by their invoice. Make it easy and look at “all in” packages that are inclusive of drayage, basic utilities, etc.

What are you doing differently to make for a better customer experience?

Brian Pagel is a Vice President at Nielsen Expositions, where he runs The Kitchen and Bath Industry Show. Since re-joining Nielsen in 2001, Pagel has also served as a vice president in the Decorated Apparel Group. A 15-year veteran of the publishing, convention and exposition industries, Pagel has also held senior account executive positions with Leader Publishing and Bill Communications.

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Foliomag.com Changes to Metered Paid Access Model

Bill Mickey — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:37:43 -0400

An announcement went out today, but if you haven't seen it, we've decided to put Foliomag.com on a metered paid-access model. Here's why:

Our mission has always been to provide you with the most up-to-date and in-depth resources to help media companies succeed. Our news and analysis lead the industry. Our blogs, columns and more offer the context and perspective you need to optimize your business.

At the core of our decision was this: We felt that it's very important to place a clear value on our content, and to recognize the value that our best customers see in what we do. Also, as a brand that covers the digital-media transformation, we seek to not just reflect what the industry is doing, but to lead it as well.

This paid-access initiative will also allow us to invest in Foliomag.com—to significantly improve it over time. We'll be adding regular multimedia features, more voices, more connectivity and more content.

Our paid-access model begins immediately. Here's the way it will work: Each month, you'll get to read eight stories on a complimentary basis. You'll be reminded as you get closer to the eighth report. After that, you'll be given the option of buying an annual subscription to Foliomag.com for $69.95. Alternatively, you can gain full access to the site on a monthly basis for $14.95.

As a leader of the digital-content marketplace, we to need to adapt to the changing times. Our new format allows you, our most loyal customers, to choose the level of information you need.
Feel free to comment below; you can also email me at bmickey at red7media.com.

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The Demand Generation Disconnect

Bill Mickey — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 17:47:11 -0400

Only 20 percent of sales and marketing executives are confident that their current demand generation campaigns are effective, according to recently released research from Corporate Visions, Inc., a leading sales and marketing messaging company.

Based on a poll of more than 440 b-to-b sales and marketing professionals around the globe, the survey results aren’t really surprising and highlight both a challenge and opportunity for publishers and their clients.

While there is a lot of great data, which is detailed in Corporate Visions' Q2 2012 Sales and Marketing Messaging Report, I suggest publishing executives focus on three key takeaways:

• The Content Gap: When asked to name the biggest barrier to successful demand generation campaigns, 37 percent of respondents said their content isn't engaging enough. This represents a prime opportunity for publishers to help their clients upgrade their content campaigns with offers that are relevant to their prospects.
• Off-Base Offers: 60 percent of respondents said their organizations’ demand generation campaigns focus too heavily on their own products, features and services, rather than focusing on their customers' pain points.

With many of our clients in the high tech sector, we refer to this as “speeds and feeds” disease. The natural inclination for sales and marketing is to talk about how much better their solution is, but prospects are more interested in talking about their own business challenges and how to solve them.

According to the results of our recent 2012 Content Preferences Survey, 75 percent of the respondents want companies to curb the sales messaging in their content. Another 60 percent said they’re placing a greater emphasis on the trustworthiness of the source when they assess the value of a piece of content.

Because publishers are dialed in to the issues that are top of mind within their communities and have experts on the topics, this represents another perfect opportunity to step in and bridge the gap from publishing one-way narratives to establishing a real dialogue with prospects.

• The Disconnect Between Sales And Marketing: 65 percent of respondents said their sales teams use less than half of the demand generation content their marketing department produces.

Over the years, I’ve worked on a lot of business publications where our sales reps were only talking to marketing executives. When publishers get closer to the sales team at their clients they can identify the pain points and gaps where the sales team feels like they need new and improved messaging.

With many of our current clients, we’ve been able to create e-books that are wildly popular with sales teams, in addition to being used as bait for lead generation campaigns. This should be the goal for publishers: Become a partner in driving the messaging that will help drive revenue.

I’d recommend checking out the full survey from Corporate Visions, as well as some of the content work the company is doing. There are ideas publishers will want to adopt and bring to their customers.

Andrew Gaffney is the President of G3 Communications, Inc., a firm specializing in digital media and custom contnent. G3 Communications publishes DemandGen Report, Retail TouchPoints and Channel Marketer Report. In addition to its digital publications, G3’s Content4Demand marketing services division creates custom content optimized for lead generation and lead nurturing campaigns for more than 100 different clients ranging from Fortune 100 firms to venture-backed startups.
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Make Your Content Marketing Relevant

Bill Mickey — Thu, 31 May 2012 13:25:59 -0400

It’s sad but true, Virginia—less than half of IT decision makers consider the marketing content they receive from the vendor community to be of any use. How do we know this? We polled them of course! Surveys never lie, but there’s reason to believe that this one was particularly accurate. For one thing, the sample was quite sizeable—over 860 corporate IT buyers. For another, its conclusion is supported by droves of anecdotal evidence: Literally dozens of formal interviews, casual conversations and email exchanges that we’ve conducted with corporate IT managers during the past year echo this view. (A survey and whitepaper, “Tech Marketing Best Practices: The Complex Purchasing Process” can be downloaded here. )

So how do we get on the right side of this equation and ensure that the content we deliver to this audience is both useful and well received?

If you chat with an IT executive, and ask what sort of content he or she finds useful when researching a new project or purchase, that executive will generally mention three things:
1. The information has to be credible. In other words, it has to be derived from information sources that are recognizable, verifiable and respected.
2. The information has to be relevant. More on this in a moment.
3. The information has to be accessible. In other words, if your prospective buyers can’t find it quickly and easily, it doesn’t matter how relevant and credible it is; it’s just not going to do them any good.

Of these three concerns, the second is the most pivotal. After all, if an IT decision maker isn’t interested in the topic you’re discussing, then he is not going to care whether he can locate the information or trust its source. So the more closely your marketing content is aligned with the immediate needs, concerns and perspectives of the prospects, the more relevant they will find it.

In our experience at UBM TechWeb, the chief reason so many IT buyers are turned off by vendor content is because the material is presented from the vendor’s point of view—not the IT buyer’s. This is a very easy sort of error for a marketing department to fall into. Companies, like people, get caught up in their own dealings and end up seeing the world through their own prism. It may be a perfectly valid viewpoint, but it tends to reflect your boss’s priorities—not the buyer’s.

Instead, tech marketers, or any other brand marketer for that matter, need to develop content that deliberately and explicitly addresses the buyer’s viewpoint. Here are some key things to consider:

• Are you speaking to the right audience?
Different segments of buyers in a market vertical look at the same issue differently. For instance, in the IT market, it’s often much easier for small to medium businesses (SMBs) to outsource certain services, since they have smaller IT departments and fewer legacy systems in place. Enterprises, on the other hand, often have much higher thresholds for governance, regulatory and security requirements that have to be met. Your content should reflect the concerns of the group you want to target.

• Are you answering your buyer’s most important question?
Nine times out of ten it’s this: Why is the product or service being promoted important to the prospect? In other words, what business benefits will the buyer receive from the offering? Do a good job of answering this and the content’s relevancy goes way up.

• Are the prospects' most important concerns being addressed?
What’s the current business environment like for the target buyers? What are their biggest challenges? What opportunities are they trying to seize? Addressing these questions puts the message in a context that really matters to the prospects.

• Are you providing data and analysis your audience can’t easily get someplace else?
This is a great way to provide unique value that will engage prospects. Conducting a survey is one way to get this kind of information. It gives a report credibility and the opportunity to collect data that’s specific to a target market.

If you want your content to be useful, it has to pass the buyer-perspective litmus test. Once it does, then you’ve taken an all-important step towards attracting and engaging with your target audience.

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IT Versus Marketing

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:32:23 -0400

Frank Cutitta, CEO of the Center for Global Branding, speaking at the American Business Media Annual Meeting in San Francisco Tuesday, offered an insight into the relationship of IT and Marketing. With a slide showing a road sign warning drivers to slow down next to another of a rocket careening out of control, said: “IT is the land of slow and no. They’re like, ‘Frank, we have to really think this through.’ And marketing is the unguided missile. Like me.

“There are few people with ‘double-deep’ skills, expertise in IT and in marketing,” he concluded.

MORE 2012 ABM ANNUAL MEETING COVERAGE:

ABM Annual Meeting Coverage
Jack Griffin at ABM Annual Meeting: Not Enough Advertising to Support All of Us
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Ideas For Growing B-To-B Audiences

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:50:45 -0400

Expanding the b-to-b audience is something all publishers in this demographic are trying to do—growing circulation beyond traditional bases is essential in 2012 and something Nick Cavnar, vice president of circulation for Hanley Wood Business Media, understands.

When looking at new media versus a qualified model, media professionals can see that the results provide somewhat of a schizophrenic audience model, Cavnar told an audience of about 30 at a recent meeting of the National Trade Circulation Foundation, Inc.

Print circulation sticks with the old rules, Cavnar said. The cost of print, paper and postage favors the highly qualified audience model, while new media focuses on new metrics of tracking what an audience views, opens, clicks and likes as a way to validate qualifications.

The question of breaking with the traditional, said Cavnar, is worth considering.

“Adding additional ‘expanded’ circulation by sending the digital edition to newsletter lists, event attendees and others normally means going to a broader list that isn’t as tightly qualified as the print circulation,” he tells AD. “Expanded circulation might include business groups outside of the core advertising market—smaller companies, distributors and manufacturers as well as end users. Expanded circulation may also show up as non-request sources in a BPA statement that’s always been 100 percent direct request, or might include 3-year dates.”

Cavnar is right. Looking beyond your traditional audience to target and convert newsletter recipients, trade show and conference attendees, and Web visitors as part of your qualified audience is an easy and effective way to expand reach. But, what about less obvious means of expansion, and not just with digital editions?

Young people in colleges and universities around the United States could be a perfect source to expand your b-to-b audience, capturing an entirely new generation of professionals while they are in the beginning stages of their careers. While converting new bases and young professionals can be an effective way to expand reach, there can be some issues associated with breaking from the norm.

“The ‘problem and concern’ here is whether sales people and advertisers will understand the added value of these broader audiences, when for so long they’ve focused only on very tightly qualified print circulation,” says Cavnar. “The challenge for publishers is to show that they are still delivering the tightly qualified core, but can offer additional broader coverage to the advertiser at very little or no additional cost, due to the lower cost of delivering the digital version.”

What about taking it a step further, beyond just the digital edition? A b-to-b magazine about construction, for instance, could contact college and university level architecture and design programs around the country and offer a subscription to students that could be incorporated into the course curriculum. Courting college professors could grow circulation--they could position a publication as a vital information source on the current market climate in a particular industry and secure new demographics for years to come.

Furthermore, if offering a subscription at cost, a reduced price subscription—maybe $100 a year—is considerably cheaper than the majority of academic textbooks and something the majority of students and educators would likely be open to. Take the New York Times as one example. While it isn't b-to-b, the paper offers journalism and communications students a discounted subscription, and the news reported in the publication is leveraged into classroom discussions and courses.

Whatever the avenue, the market is ever changing and looking beyond the traditional audience is not only an effective way to expand circulation, but vital to capturing overlooked bases of professionals.

T.J. Raphael is the Associate Editor of Audience Development Magazine.
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