BtoB Media Business - September 2011 - (Page 5)

“The revenue mix, instead of being one 800-pound gorilla and a lot of little monkeys, is one or two 200-pound gorillas and a lot of Page 7 50-pound monkeys.”Ed Fitzelle, managing director, Whitestone Communications Outsell study projects growth for b-to-b media BY SEAN CALLAHAN For b-to-b media companies, much of the past three years has consisted of filling figurative sandbags, as publishers have scrambled to stem the flood of departing print revenues. A recent study by research firm Outsell indicates that what publishers have done—creating new digital offerings, expanding events, moving into marketing services and maintaining their print brands—may be beginning to pay off in terms of genuine growth. The report, “Annual Advertising and Marketing Study 2011: B2B Advertising,” was based on an online survey of 1,267 marketers in January and projected that overall spending on marketing is growing. The report anticipated a combined 4.5% increase in U.S. spending this year over last, to $384.4 billion for consumer and b-to-b marketing across a number of categories, including broadcast, digital, events, print and public relations. B-to-b marketing will increase 3.5% to $133.4 billion, according to the report. “There’s no great leap, but it’s up from last year,” said Chuck Richard, Outsell VP-lead analyst and author of the report. In the study, Richard said several opportunities exist for b-to-b media companies. The report projected that b-to-b marketers will spend $26.8 billion on their own websites this year, up 4.8% over last year. But b-to-b marketers need help getting these websites to generate traffic and leads. Richard said there’s an opportunity there for media companies to provide marketing services, particularly in developing the qualified leads that b-to-b marketers prefer. “There’s the potential for publishers to become more important to advertisers because they can help solve some of their biggest problems.” Richard said b-to-b media companies have an advantage they are not exploiting to the fullest: their capability to produce integrated marketing programs for marketers. In the study, Richard wrote: “Across all size firms and across all industry sectors, the percentage of b-to-b advertisers who rate crossmedia campaigns higher than single-media campaigns ranged from 1.6 times higher to 1.3 times higher, an overwhelming 30% to 60% increase. Furthermore, in all cases, campaigns including in-person events rated 11% to 38% higher than campaigns using only digital plus print.” Richard added that in-person events are particularly effective in boosting the effectiveness of campaigns: “Adding in-person events raises the effectiveness so significantly across multiple major industry sectors that the burden is on the publisher or agency to justify why in-person events are not part of any given campaign.” Hanley Wood farms out local freelance writing to software BY SEAN CALLAHAN AGENDA SEPT. 21 ‘BtoB’s’ Top Digital Marketer Awards BtoB Julia Morgan Ballroom San Francisco www.btobonline.com A software program is now generating hundreds of local stories per month on Hanley Wood’s Builder Online site. The beta program, developed by Narrative Science, uses the same basic approach that enabled a computer to create short game stories by using baseball box scores. Andy Reid, president of eMedia and Hanley Wood Marketing Intelligence, said Hanley Wood has three main goals for the local stories, which are generated using data from HWMI. First, the stories will provide coverage of local markets that Hanley Wood, which traditionally has had a national focus, doesn’t have the editorial resources or budget to cover in depth. Ideally, that will attract a stronger local audience to Builder Online. Second, the stories in about 350 local markets are intended to create more local inventory. “This is a five-time expansion of the editorial content on the Builder Online site that previously carried about 100 mostly national and regional stories per month, all of those written by human editors,” Chuck Richard, VP-lead analyst at Outsell Inc., wrote in a report on this data-driven editorial program. “At its simplest level,” Reid said, “more volume equals more advertising.” These additional stories provide Hanley Wood’s sales staff with more inventory to sell to local construction industry suppliers. This additional inventory should also provide access to the local budgets of national advertisers. “It opens up a larger advertiser budget to go after,” Reid said. Third, the use of HWMI data, which can include local information on home unit sales, home prices and foreclosures, may attract additional buyers of HWMI’s information products, Reid said. “The story templates are infinite,” he said. “These are just the ones we’re launching with.” Hanley Wood plans to go live with the new local coverage this month. Additionally, it intends to launch monthly e-newsletters in its 350 local markets. OCT. 24–25 ABM Executive Forum 2011 American Business Media Intercontinental Chicago www.americanbusinessmedia.com NOV. 7 Pearl Awards Custom Content Council Guastavino’s, New York www.customcontentcouncil.com NOV. 9 ABM Mobile Drill Down American Business Media New York Academy of Sciences www.americanbusinessmedia.com NOV. 10 ‘BtoB’s’ Best Awards BtoB Edison Ballroom, New York www.btobonline.com mediabusinessonline.com | September 2011 | Media Business | 5 http://www.btobonline.com http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com http://www.customcontentcouncil.com http://www.americanbusinessmedia.com http://www.btobonline.com http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of BtoB Media Business - September 2011

BtoB Media Business - September 2011
Table of Contents
Outsell report bodes well for b-to-b media
Companies plan for growth amid economic uncertainty
Dealmaking picks up, raising hopes of a comeback
Sales & Marketing
Events
Audience Development
Production
People
Benchmarks
How SourceMedia transformed its operations

BtoB Media Business - September 2011