The New Rules of Custom Publishing

Junta42 | The New Rules of Custom Publishing #1 Understand the Changes That Are Leading the Content Marketing Future As a custom publisher, you have a unique opportunity to profit from the growth of the industry and the changing role of corporate content. It’s vital that, as a content expert, you understand why this change is taking place. It is your responsibility to educate your customers and prospects about these revolutionary changes. Search engines such as Google have democratized content to such a point that anyone with a little good content and a bit of search engine savvy can find their content on the first page. Buyers want information fast and search engines help them get it. As long as they get their answers, it doesn’t matter where the content comes from. This means that your customers need to create great content, and they need to find partners and suppliers to create, market and distribute that content for them. There is a change in buyer attitudes toward traditional media and the “credibility” of content. Today’s Internet-savvy consumer looks everywhere for essential content in order to make smart buying decisions. In the last few years, buyer behavior has changed dramatically. Customers are now increasingly knowledgeable about what they want to buy. They aren’t surfing aimlessly, hoping to be influenced by marketing messages that arrive out of the blue. And they aren’t sitting around waiting to hear from you. They have no time to waste, and they deeply resent unwanted advertising messages. In short, buyers don’t want to be sold. They want to make up their own minds based on their own information gathering. Therefore, buyers need content that makes them smarter and more knowledgeable. Businesses that provide such content win their trust – and their business. Moreover, buyers don’t care if the content comes from traditional media organizations. They are open to learning from and acting on quality content, whether it comes from media veterans like McGraw-Hill, NBC, CNN or NPR, or from a custom publication, newsletter, company Web site, favorite blog or RSS feed. That’s if the content is relevant and valuable. The key driver for the buyer is the need for relevant, trusted and useful information. No one understands that better than Google. Shrinking media company budgets reduce content quality. Corporations often have bigger budgets and more resources to find and pay for the best research and content in the markets they serve. Unfortunately, too many media companies have been cutting both research and editorial budgets. Layoffs, pay cuts or freezes, and mass reorganizations are now commonplace within the traditional media environment. Media companies in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer markets are facing a downward spiral in which reduced advertising revenues lead to cutbacks in editorial staff, editorial pages and circulation size of their magazines and newspapers. The issue here is twofold. First, with traditional publishers cutting content budgets and investments in research and development, the door has been pushed wide open for new and innovative content from other sources. As traditional content distribution has diminished, consumer informational desires have escalated. Second, even though corporations are understanding the opportunity to meet these informational challenges in traditional media’s wake, most organizations have difficulty in grasping content needs over product and service needs. www.junta42.com/match 3 http://www.junta42.com/match

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The New Rules of Custom Publishing

The New Rules of Custom Publishing World-Class Custom Publishing... Is Possible #1 Understand the Changes... #2 Be Active in Social Media... #3 Acquire Expertise in All Forms of Content #4 Walk the Talk #5 Position Yourself... #6 Have a Clear Value Proposition #7 Price Your Services... #8 Value the Role of the Project Manager #9 Use Questions, Not Answers... About the Author

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