The New Rules of Custom Publishing

Junta42 | The New Rules of Custom Publishing Three core components are shifting the technological balance of power away from media giants and toward companies of all sizes: • • • The ability to create sophisticated online publications, whether Web site, digital magazine or e-newsletters. The ability to manage huge amounts of data relating to current and future customers. The ability to do both of these simply and inexpensively. Because the software technology required to manage a customer database is now affordable for any size organization, even small companies have less need of the services of trade and consumer publishers. The result: affordable and easy-to-use technologies are enabling a broad range of companies to circumvent trade publications and their media parents because they can now communicate directly with customers and prospects. In so doing, companies are both reducing costs and increasing precision. Effective and efficient distribution powers the very best content marketing strategies. After all, there is not much point in creating great content if you can’t deliver it. Now a company can do both. Low-cost, easy-to-use Web technology now enables organizations of all sizes to build online content solutions that are more sophisticated than what most media companies were putting online just a few years ago. In fact, with focus, creativity, and a little outside help, they may be able to do a better job of providing targeted content to their best customers than some billion-dollar competitors. High-quality editorial, from a business? The key to successful media programs for corporations is great content. Not just any content. Great content. Buyers know the difference between great content and a blatant sales pitch with no inherent value. Corporations can and do address this issue by, in many cases, establishing editorial standards that exceed those of some traditional publishing companies. For example, Best Magazine, from Best Buy, targets their very best buyers with high-quality content, rich in both information and design. Best Buy does not compromise quality because their goal is to strengthen their relationship with those customers who invest the most time and money with them, year after year. Conversely, some media companies are often headed in the opposite direction. Media companies serve two masters: their readers and their advertisers. Sadly, as ad revenues crater, they are caving in more and more to advertiser demands to compromise content, which shortchanges readers. That weakens the editorial product, which ultimately results in lower reader engagement, lower reader response and an ongoing downward spiral of ad revenues. Bye-bye, Middleman! In the past, all but the biggest corporations were powerless to target anyone. Sophisticated customer relationship management software was expensive and hard to manage. Business organizations relied on media companies, because of their sophisticated circulation databases, which included lots of demographic information, which in turn would permit precise targeting. This meant that you could advertise in a magazine or you could choose a direct marketing campaign to an important subset of your buyers. In the early days of the Internet, media companies were also doing the best job of capturing e-mail addresses – which have become an essential part of any corporate customer database. Businesses would even rent an expensive e-mail list from magazines and list brokers whose readers matched up with their target audience. Today, corporations and associations have created powerful databases that in some cases are better than audited trade publications and Web sites. www.junta42.com/match 5 http://www.bestmag.com/ 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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