Why Issue Promotion Matters for Publishers

April 23, 2014Joanne Costin1 Comment

Promoting the benefits of advertising in a single magazine issue is still an important aspect of the publishing business. Some publishers maintain an aggressive stance — promoting through targeted print or email campaign on a frequent basis. But others have allowed their efforts to weaken. With marketing budgets dwindling and staff reductions commonplace, a “do more with less” mentality is often prevalent among publishers.

Issue promotion matters. It helps remind extremely busy ad managers of special advertising opportunities that might come about infrequently. Fundamentally, during a time when advertisers are bombarded with promotional messages, issue promo maintains and often creates, awareness of the publication’s niche, editorial approach and value-added offerings. A trade magazine has established authority with its built-to-subject audience. Editors have identified topics for the year and many post these editorial calendars on their websites. But ad managers need to be alerted of when the topics will be covered and why it is important for them to be present. In this way they can match the advertiser’s interest with an upcoming topic or theme and the end result is a win-win outcome. This keeps the single issue ad relevant.

In an age when it is increasingly difficult for advertising sales people to make face-to-face appointments, issue promotion might be the only opportunity for a magazine to promote itself to decision makers. Reaching out helps publishers re-establish relationships with advertisers that may have been sidetracked by the latest online distribution tool. Advertisers who align themselves with publications often find a friend when and if they ever need their side of the story to be covered in an objective, fact-based manner.

Issue promotion could be the difference between a successful and lackluster year for your publishing business. Find out how much it matters by implementing an issue promotion plan this year.

About the Author

Michael Porcaro is Marketing Director for Scranton Gillette Communications and SGC Horizon and a contributor to Content for Biz. He is the former publisher of several construction journals, including Aggregates Manager, Better Roads, Building Design & Construction, Concrete Construction and Construction Equipment.

3 Ways to Personalize Your B2B Content Marketing

April 15, 2014Mary KlestLeave a comment

Recent research completed by CEB Marketing in partnership with Google and Motista reveals that B2B buyers are more likely to purchase from companies that provide personal value over business value. Why? The risk lies with the buyer, that person who most likely wants to retain his job, make good decisions, get promoted, and be held in high esteem for what he knows and what he’s achieved for the company. That’s the person who reads your content. How do you reach him or her?

Getting personal is not about manipulating people. It’s a way of offering a good customer experience. Something we all appreciate. Here are three ways you can personalize your B2B content marketing.

Content consumption

Historic demographics is not the best way to understand your audience. Look at their content consumption habits for better insight. It is a signal of interest. From there you can measure what they share, how many leads are generated and ultimately who purchases. Content consumption is incremental and doesn’t stop at an initial response, page view or click through. Sourcing leads and tracking conversions will familiarize you with how prospects and customers behave online. What are their brand preferences? Interests? What online channels are they on and what are they sharing on social media? Knowing this you can personalize your approach by adding context when introducing new products or services. You can also make recommendations based on their known preferences and past purchases.

Email marketing

Most people subscribe to an email list to get deals, information and values. Behind every email address is a person who has shown interest in your company and its products. Segmenting your email audience by industry, title or whatever category is relevant is the first action to take. This guards against buyers of construction equipment receiving your promotion for automotive widgets.

You can personalize the subject line with your subscriber’s name or company name by inserting a [first name] dynamic tag. You can use tags in the body of your text as well. Use any field in your marketing database. For example, include the brand name of a product that the recipient recently purchased (John Deere), their industry (construction) or reference the town in which they live (Bloomington). Refer to your Google analytics behavior stats or CRM system to reference an action they took. Service providers such as MailChimp, Office Autopilot and InfusionSoft can automate triggered emails based on a subscriber’s activity on your website.

Direct interaction

Ask people to rate your products. Include polls and surveys on your website, blog, social sites or newsletter. This can help you get into your audience’s mindset. In this way you can make a unique product offering. Think of Amazon’s one-to-one target marketing or Netflix. They make offers and recommendations based on visitor interaction.

Are you willing to customize your product or at least personalize your content marketing approach? Put your customer knowledge into practice. Hold onto what is known about them so you can indeed deliver a good customer experience.

How Content Helps Companies Compete Beyond Price

April 8, 2014Mary KlestLeave a comment

Customers are establishing buying criteria before talking to vendors. To compete beyond price, vendors can create content that moves customers past the obvious checklist. Insight-led content can do this and should be a part of your company’s differentiation strategy.

In recent surveys of B2B buyers less than 15 percent see a big enough difference between suppliers to pay a premium. That’s a lot of companies competing on price alone. One way for your company to stand out is to create content that introduces new ideas that they haven’t thought of before. The ideas connect customer goals and lead to your differentiation value.

For example, Quaker Chemical, a provider of process fluids, recently rebranded the company to emphasize not only their expertise and solutions but also responsibility. One headline on the company website reads: ““Our Fluids Come With A Special Additive. Heart.” And, “Machine’s Quit. People Don’t.”

To get close enough to your customer so that they will pay a premium you need to know and understand a few things about them.

What are their top goals and hoped for outcomes?

What do they believe drive those outcomes?

How will the outcome affect them personally?

You can then connect the dots between their goals and your company’s unique value. Customers can’t or won’t do this on their own. Prominent in your messaging is what you’ve discovered to be the customer’s top concern and your unique ability to address that concern. See the John Deere Construction website page with its emphasis: “Building. Together. “

Good content captures attention. Introduces new ideas. Addresses personal value to drive action.

When a company listens to their customers, content writers can pick up on natural language used and incorporate that language into the content. For example, in the food service industry, a chef might say “slow and low” when talking about how to cook barbeque ribs. It’s relatable phrasing. Much better than “cook ribs for 2 hours at this temperature” because conditions vary for professional chefs and they like to interpret, rather than strictly follow recipes.

Insight on natural language can be accomplished through social listening on forums, Twitter and Facebook or through customer interviews. Vendors may not get the candid, objective information they are looking for during the customer interview so you may want to outsource this part. Connecting with content writers who understand this process will help you compete beyond price.