“Different types of information lend themselves to different devices, presentations, etc. For example, smart phone users tend to have them at all times, but you don’t carry your PC around. Some devices are good at search and others are not.”
So begins a story by Kiplinger’s Greg Krehbiel in the just-posted March Hotline on what factors to think through when considering a new digital publication. Greg got added input from SIPA members to come up with a “document” that may become standard for many of us in the future. Questions like “Does distribution need to be controlled? If so, how?’ and “Will the user be incorporating the material into some other work or process?” can help determine early on what—and who—needs to be involved.
The lead article in this Hotline reports on the recently conducted, SIPA-member survey on current business conditions. Something we suspected was confirmed: that SIPA member companies are relying more and more on webinars. Almost 60% said that webinars are either significant or crucial to their business, though one member does express concern about a drop-off and is looking at alternatives.
One interesting note is the continued popularity of telesales, which ranks second when it comes to the word “crucial” for your business. One result of the survey tells that companies are not over the hump quite yet. When you ask Survey Monkey to identify the two most important words/phrases that respondents used, it reported, “Difficult Marketing” and “Economy Recovering Slowly.”
The five tracks for June’s SIPA 2013 Annual Conference are now set, and Hotline gives you an early glimpse of their descriptions. The five are (with the chairs in parentheses):
1. Sales & Marketing (Carol Brault, Access Intelligence)
2. Monetizing Your Content: Creative Ways to Drive Top Line Growth (Kathy Greenler Sexton, SIIA)
3. Content Delivery in a Digitally Fragmented World (Greg Krehbiel, Kiplinger)
4. Managing Your Business: Strategy & Finance for Publishers (Stephanie Eidelman, insideARM.com & insidePatientFinance.com)
5. Audience Engagement (Valerie Voci, CQ Roll Call)
Hotline’s Last Words column always features a member or industry expert (or both!) writing about a specific issue in a more personal way. We have turned again to forward-thinking Astek, specifically Johnny Moran, their digital media planner. He was looking at some newer websites—Delicious, Evernote and Instapaper—to see if advertising were available. It wasn’t but he “did discover how each site had its own unique qualities that could be leveraged as a marketing tool.”
Moran presents actionable tips on usage for each site. “If your goal is to increase your advertising, Delicious can help you get there,” he writes. “By connecting with a particular audience, you can share content for your blog or even special offers for a niche audience. For example, a user may enter a term like ‘digital marketing’ into the search bar. A series of links will appear.”
Two acquisitions may have slipped your attention. The first is that SIIA has bought the Specialist Media Show—a UK-based organizer of live and online events and resources for consumer and B2B publishers—and a fall 2013 London summit for SIPA members and others is now in the works. The second item is that Business Valuation Resources, LLC (BVR) has acquired the assets of EPM Communications, Inc., publisher of The Licensing Letter and other newsletters, reports and studies. EPM co-founder Ira Mayer will continue to serve as president/publisher of EPM, a division of BVR.
Hotline remains a SIPA member benefit. If you don’t know your log-in for access to it, then please let me or Janine Hergesell know. If you are not a member, Hotline serves as one more strong reason to become one.
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Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @RonnatSIPA