BtoB Media Business - February 2011 - (Page 9)

FEATURE The race to innovate B-to-b media companies help marketers keep pace with social, mobile and leads BY MARIE GRIFFIN Richard said. To handle these new activities, media companies are required to invest heavily in new technology. “I call it a technology tax,” Richard said. “You have to have technology to get things done, but don’t look for mobile, social or any other technology to be the salvation of your business.” Although most business media companies have diversified their revenue with live and digital events and user-paid content and business information, revenue from advertisers is still critical. On that side of the business, business media leaders are focusing on five key areas in 2011: analytics, marketing services, advanced lead management, mobile devices and social media. usiness media companies have returned to the ongoing Analytics become challenge of building revenue after putting some plans on essential hold during the recession, and they are depending on digiBeing able to dive deeply into audience analytics will separate the winners tal media for much of that growth. ¶ Media executives remarketers’ port that the pace of activity in digital media—driven by from the losers in the battle foradded that business, Richard said. He more sophisticated metrics- and ROI-driven marketers—is gaining general analytics that measure monthly speed. ¶ Experts agree that two trends are fueling a surge in demand uniques, page views, clicks and average must give for new digital products and services: the broad adoption of social me- time on site differently. way to valuing individuals “Being able to dia and new wireless devices that are changing the way digital media gauge the level of engagement of individual audience members gives publishers is consumed. B Facebook notched its 500 millionth user in July 2010. Apple sold more than 14 million iPads between the wireless tablet’s April debut and the end of last year. Those figures display the power of social media and mobile in raw numbers. In the bellwether technology vertical, the race to innovate is approaching a fever pitch. “We’re in a constant state of evolution; we’re running to stand still,” said Jeremy Rueb, VP-program development for IDG Communications’ Strategic Marketing Services. “There is constant pressure for us to keep offering up more functionality, more features, more content and more rich and engaging experiences.” Rueb said that being able to respond to marketers’ new demands has been critical to IDG’s success in maintaining its position at the premium end of the price spectrum. “Your organization needs to be constantly evolving,” said Scott Vaughn, CMO of United Business Media’s TechWeb. “You have to have a collaborative organization that can move across silos. No organization can afford to be hierarchical. Markets move too fast.” The b-to-b marketers served by business media companies are challenged by the rapid evolution of digital platforms and consumption, but most are not able to adapt to these changes as quickly or as well as business media companies. Business media leaders have talked for years about taking a larger piece of their clients’ marketing budget beyond advertising, but this confluence of forces may be setting the stage for that to finally happen. Chuck Richard, VP-lead analyst for Outsell, said marketers “who became enamored of going direct to their customer,” are finding that they do not have the internal resources to do the ongoing work of content creation or to master the different platforms of digital, mobile and social media. “Publishers are in a race to provide these services, but there’s lots of competition from agencies, other publishers and hundreds of third-party companies,” the power to price and package their inventory of impressions with much higher yields,” he said. The importance of data mining and deep analytics to top management was underscored in a report co-published in January by Jordan, Edmiston Group and Econsultancy. The report, “Media Growth Trends, Issues and Opportunities,” was based on nearly 500 responses to a survey of C-level executives across the media, information, marketing services and technology sectors conducted during the fourth quarter of 2010. Almost half of survey respondents (46%) reported that the “rise of data and analytics and how to best use them” will be the predominant trend in their businesses over the next two years. While all sorts of online companies and ad networks use cookies to track the activities of users on their sites, business media companies are starting to employ systems that personally identify “cookied” users. This opens up the ability to link all the data b-to-b media companies mediabusinessonline.com | February 2011 | Media Business | 9 http://www.mediabusinessonline.com

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

Btob Media Business - February 2011
Contents
Upfront
State of B-to-B Media
Social, Mobile Drive New Lead-Gen Techniques
Sales & Marketing
Audience Development
People
Benchmarks
Endnote

BtoB Media Business - February 2011