Geoffrey Tumlin (pictured here), author of the new book Stop Talking, Start Communicating: Counterintuitive Secrets to Success in Business and in Life, argues that expediency—not comprehension—has become the crux of our communication exchanges today. “We want to plow through our inboxes, respond to new text or voice messages as soon as they come in, and get face-to-face conversations over quickly so we can move on to the next thing.”

There’s even expediency in getting products out to the market. It used to be you could take time to get a new product in the marketplace, but today, it’s better to roll it out, listen to the feedback and make it better. That makes sense. But Tumlin would want you to be careful:

“The glut of messages we process on any given day encourages us to think of communication as something we do mechanically, when, in fact, communication is how we make our life. Smart communicators slow down when forming a message and consider whether or not the other person is likely to understand what they’re communicating. Without understanding, there’s no communication.”

Tumlin’s thing is that digital communication has let us pretend that overall communication is now better whereas it may just be faster. “…no matter how fancy our devices may become, they’ll never be able to eliminate the misunderstandings, the confusion, and the errors that occur when people talk,” he said.

There’s another interesting parallel: “…communication gets much more difficult as you increase the number of people [you’re sending to],” says Tumlin. “More people means more perspectives to consider. When we fail to account for these additional viewpoints, we run the risk of talking, texting, or typing right past each other…It’s not practical to think through every possible perspective before posting to Facebook or sending a group email. But we should take the extra step to consider key viewpoints…”

So what’s the answer?

1. Involve everyone from the start. If your marketers and editorial people—and even those who may answer the phone—understand the product, there’s a much better chance the customers will as well.

2. Start or propel your community/forum. This will give people a place to air their concerns and you a chance to listen and respond.

3. Communicate your vision of the product well to your customers. Perhaps send out a couple test emails to customers who you know well. See what they say.

4. It’s not about you; it’s about them. “Technology has encouraged communication on our terms and led to an explosion of self-expressive, me-first messages,” says Tumlin. Survey your customers early on or call a few one-on-one. Find out what they need to become better.

5. Think about rolling it out at a live event. “Our devices can’t handle anywhere near the amount of interpersonal nuance and complexity that human interaction entails,” Tumlin said. This might be a way to get your “champions” on board (and social media-izing). “If we put people back at the center of our conversations, this really could be the golden age of communication.”

6. Empathize with your customers. Teachers are harried, health workers may be lost in a sea of red tape, HR people are drowning. “Our technical capabilities have raced ahead of our actual abilities,” Tumlin said. Be realistic about your audience.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA website.

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 @SIPAOnline

Here are some interesting notes:

1. Here comes mobile. Tablet usage has doubled in the 10 months since the last survey. In many countries, smartphone users are now in the majority, and most of them use these devices to access news every week. Across all the countries surveyed, 46% use a smartphone and 31% say they used the device for news at least once in the past week. (See the next Mobile Essentials webinar Oct. 24.)

2. Get to know your audience better. “In all countries we asked if people agreed that they preferred to get news from sites they know and trust. The figures were universally high, with 90% supporting the proposition in Brazil, 82% in the US, and 77% in the UK.”

3. Twitter, etc. may be as important as SEO. Social media is now rated more important than search among the ‘under 45s’. In the U.S. 47% of under 45s use social media to find news. (How’s your social media involvement?) In the U.K. it’s only 27%. (Hear a social media case study at the Las Vegas Marketing Conference.)

4. Encourage your audience to share. In the UK 18% had shared a news story in the last week by email or social network but among those actively interested in news the figures are much higher. Almost a third of those with a high interest in news share a news link at least once a week.

5. Publishing information daily (and maybe at various times of day) makes sense. Only older people are staying on any schedule for accessing news. Younger people tend to access news at all times, and “even the 35–44s seem to be losing the commitment for appointment-to-view news bulletins in the early and late evening.”

6. Americans like local. We have the highest interest of any country in news about our city or town (59%). (More women indicated that as an interest than men.) We are near the lowest to be interested in news about technology or science (26%). Wonder if that has anything to do with our students’ test scores in those areas.

7. Find tablet users. While smartphone users say the convenience not the experience draws them, tablet users like the experience more than PCs. Tablet users are also more likely to pay for news than smartphone users.

8. Americans consume video and audio. Are you using any? Only Brazil was higher (64%) for consuming news through video and audio than Americans (55%). (See a hands-on video session in Las Vegas.)

9. Check your analytics. People in the UK find news more by trusted brands, where in the U.S. people use more social and search. In both countries, the number of people who use search does not vary much by age. Of course, social does vary by age when it comes to search, but it again differs by country. In the UK, under 45s are three times as likely to use social for search; in the U.S., the numbers are much closer (38% to 23%).

10. Have you built your app yet? Those who use smartphones and tablets are more likely to go straight to a news brand. “The data also indicate that certain mechanisms – like social newsreading apps and ‘push’ news alerts – are disproportionately used on these devices to discover news content.”

11. Appeal to smartphone users to reach out. Of those who share news in the UK, 56% do so through Facebook, 40% through email and 26% through Twitter. In the U.S., Apple smartphone users are 41% more likely to share news than other digital news users.

Interesting stuff. Again access it here.

 To subscribe to SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA site.

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 @SIPAOnline

Tempting August NUSA Specials!
Your April Website Stats
MotorCycling Magazine Reader Survey
Final reminder for complimentary entry to attend the West Freelands BCI Cluster Conference 2006
Preliminary Floor Plans for Southern Village Neighborhood Circle members
SALE ends soon – up to 50% off all bras at Kara!

MailChimp just updated their second big email subject line study, revealing some interesting dos and don’ts for getting high open rates. Here’s a hint for you: You should also be aware of your own behavior. Which emails do you open? Where does your eye go first? Mine often looks at the From line (see number 6).

Here are eight more of their guidelines:

1. Keep subject lines fewer than 50 characters. “The exception was for highly targeted audiences, where the reader apparently appreciated the additional information in the subject line.”

2. Personalization does not increase open rates much. You’ve seen the subject lines, “[your name], this webinar is for you!” Their research says that personalization does not increase open rates very much. Providing a city name helps more. That makes sense. If I saw, “A new restaurant in Falls Church, Va.,” I would open it.

3. Don’t repeat subject lines. So maybe my SIPAlert Daily Week in Review should always have one or two words describing what follows—SIPAlert Daily Week in Review: Branding and Digital Ads. “While it is important to establish continuity and branding of the newsletter, ideally each new campaign should provide a clear indication in the subject line of what is inside this newsletter that is of interest.”

4. Build a good list. You’ve heard that before.

5. Valuable information tops promotion. There’s a reason content marketing is all the rage (and one of the four tracks at our Marketing Conference in Las Vegas, Dec. 11-13). But, if you are sending promotional emails: “Keep the message straightforward and avoid using splashy promotional phrases, CAPS, or exclamation marks in your subject lines. Subject lines framed as questions can often perform better.”

6. The From and Subject lines should work together. As much as possible, the “From” entry should not change and should concisely convey who you are. Save any humorous phrases or concepts for the subject line.”

7. Don’t sell what’s inside, tell what’s inside. People are currently being bombarded with email. Don’t be vague, don’t be too constant—although some will say that it does work for webinars, especially if you remove the people who already signed up—and be careful about using “free.”

8. Three words to avoid: Help, Percent off and Reminder. (That gives you a strong hint on one of the above questions.) Funny about “reminder.” I think we’ve all probably used that one—I guess we just ignore it.

Oh, about the subject lines up top. Here are the results:

Tempting August NUSA Specials! - .9%
(“Special” and exclamation points test poorly.)

Your April Website Stats – 92.6%
(Timely and useful information)

MotorCycling Magazine Reader Survey – 88.1%
(High affinity to activity/experience)

Final reminder for complimentary entry to attend the West Freelands BCI Cluster Conference 2006 – .5%
(“Reminder” is bad and subject line in this case too long)

Preliminary Floor Plans for Southern Village Neighborhood Circle members – 93%
(Timely information. Implied benefit for quick action. Over 50 characters in length – which is good for this targeted audience)

SALE ends soon – up to 50% off all bras at Kara!  – 1.9%
(Percent off and exclamation point are not good)

Now I need to come up with a good subject line for this. Definitely not, “[your name] Reminder: Get % off help from us!!!”

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, go to the SIIA site. 

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 @SIPAOnline

Marchesano most recently was President and CEO of Aequor Media, a consulting firm dedicated to providing strategic, customized technology solutions for B2B and consumer magazines, newspapers, and Fortune 1000 companies.  Marchesano was also Managing Director at the Jordan Edmiston Group, an investment banking firm, where he led the sale of Congressional Quarterly to the Economist Group. Before that, he was Executive Vice President & Chief Transformation Officer at The Nielsen Company; President and CEO at VNU Business Media;  President and CEO at Bill Communications (an operating company of VNU), and President at BPA International (now BPA Worldwide).  Marchesano was an ABM board member from 2001-07, serving as chairman in 2006-07, and a SIIA Content Division board member from 2007-11.

SIIA President Ken Wasch said:

“With changing business models, new delivery platforms and new competition, the business media industry will benefit enormously from someone with Mike’s perspective and experience. With Mike at the helm, the ABM division will develop new programs and services that help to advance the business media industry.”

Marchesano said:

“With the merging of ABM and SIIA, the opportunity to showcase the unique and powerful role business media and information provides its audiences and marketers is very exciting. I am thrilled to take on this responsibilty for our industry and privileged to lead the organization.”

Neal Vitale, Chairman of ABM and President & CEO of 1105 Media, Inc. said:

“We are immensely fortunate to have been able to recruit an executive of Mike’s expertise and stature. I am looking forward to working with him as we grow ABM.”

Laura Greenback is Communications Director at SIIA.

The “It’s” in this case is advertising—more specifically, native advertising or sponsored content. We’re seeing it more and more these days, ads that companies are running—sometimes even designing and writing for clients—that mirror the content around them. It’s proving very effective to the point that the Federal Trade Commission has decided to look into it. And SIPA and SIIA can play a part in this.

The FTC will host a workshop on Dec. 4 here in Washington, D.C., to examine the practice of blending advertisements with news, entertainment and other content in digital media. The workshop will unite publishing and ad industry representatives, consumer advocates, academics, and government regulators to explore changes in how paid messages are presented to consumers and consumers’ recognition and understanding of these messages.

According to the FTC, this fits snugly into their role of helping consumers identify advertisements as advertising wherever they appear. They have made recent updates to the Search Engine Advertising guidance, the Dot Com Disclosures guidance, and the Endorsements and Testimonials Guides, “as well as decades of law enforcement actions against infomercial producers and operators of fake news websites marketing products.”

As I said, SIIA wants to take a role in this, based on input from our members. If you have feelings or opinions about this, please let us know—for or against. (Here’s my email.) Here are some of the topics that the workshop may cover:

- “What is the origin and purpose of the wall between regular content and advertising, and what challenges do publishers face in maintaining that wall in digital media, including in the mobile environment?”

- “In what ways are paid messages integrated into, or presented as, regular content and in what contexts does this integration occur?” How has mobile affected this?”

- “What business models support and facilitate the monetization and display of native or integrated advertisements?” Who controls this?

- “How can ads effectively be differentiated from regular content, such as through the use of labels and visual cues?” Does social media blur these lines?

- “What does research show about how consumers notice and understand paid messages that are integrated into, or presented as, news, entertainment or regular content?”

A MediaBrix survey found that “the majority of online adults who have seen advertising that appears as content in the past 12 months find the ads misleading”—as high as 86%” (for sponsored video ads). Close to 50% of those polled find promoted tweets, one of Twitter’s revenue-producing methods, misleading.

FTC blogger Lesley Fair called this “the trendy topic du jour,” so it is probably a good time to take a look. The popular site BuzzFeed pretty much blurs the lines completely. And it seems to be working. (An article a few months ago said it was their sole revenue source.) They have “Featured Partners” on certain stories that look just like the rest of the stories. So “The 10 Greatest Comebacks in Entertainment History” is sponsored by The Michael J. Fox Show. It has 33 comments, none mentioning its ad status. And “12 Lengths That Robin Williams Has Gone to Make Us Laugh” is sponsored by his new show, The Crazy Ones. That one has 12 comments, all complimentary.

Those stories actually change each time you click on it. For the Michael J. Fox Show we get “10 Ways All Families Are Basically the Same” and “12 Things We Love About Michael J. Fox.” It’s an interesting strategy—multiple content pieces based on one sponsor. And here’s something funny. I found a Washington Post article about a Church of Scientology advertorial that appeared on the Atlantic Magazine website and went “a bit too far.” The article is broken up by what looks like a subhead to the story—“Get Your Business Online” is the one I saw—but it’s actually an ad. Now I’m confused.

And thus the workshop. Again please contact myself or David LeDuc, SIIA’s senior director of public policy, if you have something to add on this topic. Thanks so much.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

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 @SIPAOnline

Now they host Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, going at it on sports items of the day—but being paid A LOT more. They’re both very well-branded with podcasts, video, radio, Twitter feeds and who knows what else. That’s a bit of a high-profile example, but you can see the value that branding has for journalists these days. The more that the editorial people – and thought leaders – where you work can build their brand, the bigger the audience can be for them and the company.

I encourage anyone at your company who writes or leads to register for tomorrow’s webinar titled Personal Branding for Journalists. This is a great example of the value of your new SIIA/SIPA/ABM membership. ABM is delivering this webinar, featuring Robin J. Phillips, digital director of the Reynolds Center for Business, free for members. The cost is $125 for non-members. It will take place from 2-3 p.m Eastern. The presentation was originally created for the Kiplinger Program at Ohio State University in April 2012. (More on your membership value: On Oct. 31, ABM will present a webinar on Developing a Video Content Strategy.)

Said Phillips: “People have an image of who you are … whether you like it or not. First things first, it’s important to know who you are, what you offer and then take control of your image so others get the picture.”

“Branding has been part of journalism going back to Nellie Bly, Hunter S. Thompson … these were people known for their brand of journalism,” Sree Sreenivasan, dean of student affairs and digital media professor at Columbia Journalism School, told Poynter in March. What has changed, he said, is the speed at which journalists today can develop such a brand.

What has also changed is the encouragement by publishers to their journalists to get out there as much as possible. I remember back in those early times I mentioned, I had to get permission to do a radio interview about an event that I covered. Today, reporters who appear on radio or TV and have a strong social media presence are coveted. It means more publicity and gravitas for the publishing entity.

In a quote that tells you why personal branding of journalists is good for the company, Brittney Gilbert, social media editor for NBC Bay Area, told Poynter: “People would much rather interact with NBC Bay Area’s meteorologist or sports reporter than a faceless entity such as NBC.”

That’s true with blogging as well; it brings the blogger—and company—closer to your audience. At the Las Vegas Marketing Conference, Dec. 11-13, we will have a session on team blogging. This can help an entire team build its brand. SIPA members Astek and AHC Media do a great job with this. I recall reading a post on Astek by Johnny Moran, who I had never talked with or met. We exchanged emails and it felt like I had a new source to use. With excellent posts like a recent one on Google Analytics, Moran establishes his voice and contributes to the company’s loose and very knowledgeable persona.

Your reporters can be writing, blogging, tweeting, conducting podcasts and anything else that would help establish them as thought leaders. (Hopefully, sleeping falls in there somewhere.) In this day and age and with a few rules built in, it should all reflect well on the company. Tune into tomorrow’s webinar for more.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

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 @SIPAOnline

Of course, you want to be seen, heard and found, and building a mobile app is a good way to do that. “Mobile Internet traffic is building very quickly and desktop access is falling off,” Schwartz said. Apps now account for 82% of all mobile access. He suggested that you look at the percentage of your traffic that is coming from mobile. It’s probably growing.

[This webinar with the full presentation is now posted on the SIIA website for SIIA/SIPA/ABM members to access.]

Schwartz then proceeded to lay out the various business models that should drive a publisher’s mobile strategy:

1. Mobile extension to desktop product. The purpose is not to replicate your desktop product, but to provide a mobile product to complement it. For example, CQ did this and it has enhanced the value of their content. The app is free to download from the app store, but users need a log-in and password from CQ.

2. Newsstand subscription. If you publish your content no more than once every 24 hours and bundle your content into issues, then the Apple newsstand app may for you. Your app will be available in both the app and newsstand store. “Our experience is you should publish at least four issues per year,” Schwartz said. Apple charges 30% fee, but they handle all the side issues. “If you’re interested in expanding to the international market, Apple’s a great way to do it. I think they’re in more than 225 countries now.”

3. Freemium model. It’s designed to drive awareness and interest in your content in a free app while generating upscale opportunities to the free version. The Guardian uses this model for their mobile app. You can access content on an ad-supported basis or pay 69p for their premium tier (the lowest price allowed in the U.K.). The key to success is that the free version must be able to stand on its own, Schwartz said.

4. Digital Print Bundle. This is a current favorite among publishers because it provides a means to extend the life of your print to figure out how to replace those dollars. It allows publishers to experiment. A magazine like Consumer Reports will give their print subscribers access to their digital tools—a kind of best of both worlds.

5. Sponsored or ad-supported app. These treat mobile as a specialty product. The CQ Roll Call app, for instance, is ad supported and can be downloaded free from the Apple store. Banners can be placed in the story. You must think through the design for this to work. Size and placement do matter here.

6. Native ads. These are effective but controversial—indeed, the FTC has started to look into them—because the advertiser seeks to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user experience. Native ads match the form and function of the content. If they are publisher produced, then it’s similar to an advertorial. The intent is to make paid ads feel less intrusive.

7. Transactional or In-App purchase. Allows you to download a free app and then make a purchase to keep using it or to upgrade the app by using Apple’s In-app system. Amazon has also just launched a system. LexisNexis offers a free trial and then you choose a subscription level. It’s also very international and you can sign in on multiple devices.

Schwartz offered one last tip: Smart App banners. When a user comes in on their IOS device using Safari, they would see a pop-up banner that shows the app on their iPad. If they have the app, it comes up. If they don’t, it tells you to download it.

Next up was Ed Keating, chief content officer for BLR and in charge of new products. BLR has a long history of experimentation, first with the HR Daily Advisor. “Luckily, we’ve migrated to a new [mobile] platform,” Keating said. “It just launched over the weekend—covers all of our verticals.”

What process did BLR use to get to that stage? There were three steps:

1. They researched their customers, checking their mobile traffic and what people said they want to use.

2. By working with an established provider—in this case, Newstex—they learned a lot.

3. They debated business models. How were they going to pay for this and how is this going to work within BLR’s business?

They did a lot of surveys and found differences in the breakdown of devices being used. The critical question they asked was, “What are you using mobile for?” They were reading news, taking training, keeping records. “What kind of workflow thing might we want to be thinking about?” Keating said they next asked. Interestingly, there was not a big difference between their paid and unpaid audience.

What were the challenges? “On the strategic side, are you mobile first or mobile second?” Keating asked. “We were probably mobile third. We have been digital for a long time and still have print products and need to support those. But our mobile traffic is up.

“How do we integrate mobile platforms into our overall strategy? The challenge for BLR products is that their use is episodic,” Keating continued. “They answer questions. If people are not getting a lot of questions, what do you do? Mobile allows us to be in their forefront all the time. We can be more pervasive in their day. Trying to own your customers share of day is a good goal and metric.”

From the operational side, here were BLR’s concerns:

1. How do you budget? It’s like the Internet. You just need it.

2. Content readiness. Self-explanatory.

3. Not built here. BLR had some mobile expertise in Tennessee. But because no one there owned it, it “did not get in [their] way.”

4. Ignorance. “We don’t know what we don’t know,” Keating said.

5. Timeline. That was tough. Who owned it? “It took us forever to get the thing launched,” Keating said. “Where in the organization should this thing live?” You need your top people to communicate.

6. Business model. How do you pay for this? “We got caught up on that one,” Keating said. “We played around with a couple ways to make this work for us.”

The sponsored and ad-supported model proved most appealing. “BLR has been building an ad business here—growing quite well,” Keating said. “It was great to have something else to put in the bags of our sales reps. Having mobile was a logical extension. And maybe it could grow towards [a] Freemium [model].”

The ad-supported model was also the easiest way for BLR to get new names to follow. “It’s incredibly trackable and metric oriented.” BLR was already offering some free content to potential subscribers. With the added capabilities of the platform, they could ask for an email address and give a lot more functionality. That would make them more alluring.

Keating also had a final tip. At first, he said BLR looked around at what others do. “The most, well-thought out strategy came from the head of mobile at Thomson Reuters,” he said. “’We are striving to design and develop best-in-class platforms to facilitate agility, quality and consistency across products that will help people work as efficiently while mobile as they are in the office—and seamlessly no matter what platform they use.’

“For many of us in the SIPA, ABM and SIIA world, that is something to strive for. Can we match where our customers want to go?”

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

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 @SIPAOnline

I thought of this quote reading an interview yesterday with Daniel Pink, the author of To Sell Is Human,” in The Washington Post. Asked what the hardest sell is, he responded, “It’s harder to sell a really bad idea than a really good idea. I think that’s always been true, but I think it’s become even harder to sell a really bad idea today because you’re so easily exposed.”

He said that we have gone from a world of “information asymmetry”—where the seller always had more information than the buyer—to information parity. So “you have to take the high road: be more honest, more direct, more transparent.” Customers’ ability to “talk back” and “do battle” has changed the landscape, Pink added.

That landscape will be explored further by SIPA at its Marketing Conference in Las Vegas, Dec. 11. Fortunately for attendees, Bobby Edgil, BLR’s director of sales, and Lexie Gross, BVR’s VP of sales, will return to lead what was a very well-received Pre-Conference Workshop last year in Miami titled, Sales Management for Online Publishers. This truly is a workshop. Gross and Edgil are not theorists; they are doers.

They believe that your best practices should be shared among all of your marketers and salespeople. Whether that happens during meetings or other in-house communications doesn’t matter as much as that it just happens. Edgil told how customer service and sales are now side by side at BLR—to “make sure the managers get along and communicate.” It’s not ideal if your customers make a purchase and then hit a roadblock on how to use it. Gross also emphasized the importance of communication vehicles, one being customer surveys which she uses as a tool for product development and referrals. Another being hand-written notes.

In his interview, Pink also talked about the value of good communication. He has three new ABCs to replace what he calls the outdated ones of Always Be Closing. “Attunement: Can you get out of your head and into someone else’s head, see their point of view? Buoyancy: Buoyancy is staying afloat in what one salesperson I interviewed called ‘an ocean of rejection.’ Clarity: being able to curate, distill, make sense of information, and identify problems people didn’t realize they have.”

Pink has strong feelings on who makes the best sales people. He believes that the idea of the extrovert naturally being best “is fundamentally not true. The best people are what researchers call ambiverts. Like ambidextrous, they’re in the middle: a little bit introverted, a little bit extroverted. Research shows that most of us are ambiverts. Some of us are very strong introverts, some of us are very strong extroverts—but very strong extroverts and very strong introverts aren’t good at sales.”

He also advises you to look for people who are confident. But while saying “I am awesome” and “I got this” is better than not doing anything at all, he would like to see more self-interrogative talk from sales people like, “Can I do this?”

“Questions elicit an active response.” Pink said. “In answering your question, you prepare yourself. You go over your game plan. You say, ‘Yeah, I can do this. Last time I did it, but I was a little nervous and talked a bit too fast, so I am going to slow down.’ You are preparing. You are like an athlete at batting practice before the game.”

And you look for good ideas to take a swing at.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

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 @SIPAOnline

I think any writer in today’s age has wondered that at times. Why am I hearing from people on this topic and not that one? The story on that one is better! It used to be, said Geneva Overholser, Pulitzer Prize winner and former director of USC’s Annenberg School of Journalism, that journalists published what they thought the public needed to know. Now the mechanisms are in place to find out.

“Fundamentally, journalists do need to care about what [their audience] is interested in,” Overholser said. “You have to care about what people want.”

The occasion for this discussion was a talk this week at GWU’s School of Media and Public Affairs on Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective. How do we maintain that level of professionalism for journalists in this new age when everyone is a writer? People may not want to pay for great journalism, but they probably won’t pay for bad journalism either. May’s story—plus the ensuing discussion—led to one of today’s fundamental questions: Are we trying hard enough to find out what our audience wants?

Specialized publishing has the advantage of a niche community that you are helping to foster with resources and information. Building that community and providing it a forum then becomes a huge factor. How are you listening to your audience? Are you getting comments from articles or blog posts? Are you testing? Are you talking to them at your live events and through social media? Are you monitoring Twitter? Do they have their own forum? Are you surveying at the end of webinars? It’s probably worth an incentive or two to get that feedback.

The panelists still believe in the power of good journalism. However, they did wonder aloud, “How do you make that part of someone’s everyday routine?” Columbia Journalism School Professor Michael Schudson said he was surprised that when he visited a music school, they were not just teaching musicianship. They were also teaching entrepreneurship. It’s something journalism can learn from, he said.

“It’s still a great moment to be a journalist,” Overholser said. “I don’t think professionalism has been undermined [by citizen journalism].” You would just hope that people will realize the value of “having a professional journalism source as part of their daily diet.” This is also part of the reason that building your mobile business becomes essential. If you are to succeed at supplying a “daily diet” to your community, then it has to look appealing on every platform.

Overholser said that the most important element today is the “collaboration between journalist and reader.” Do they trust us? Are we telling them what they need to know? Do they follow you? It may just be that the definition of good journalism has changed. Yesterday it was more about ethics and fancy prose. Today, good may just mean helpful.

She ended by using a Churchill quote to defend journalism: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.” Journalism may not be perfect any more—indeed, citizen journalism can make us cringe at times—but it’s still what some of us signed up for and remain passionate about. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

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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 @SIPAOnline

This summer, the Sun, Britain’s largest newspaper, launched a new digital subscription package that turned their website into a paywall, where you have to take out a membership to access. It was called exciting at the time. Two days ago, it was called “disastrous” in a blogpost in The Guardian. (Monthly site visits down by 62.4% from 37.3m visits in July to 14.4m visits in August.) Something about codes in the newspaper that could be redeemed sounded way too complicated.

In specialized publishing, the landscape is also varied. Joe May of Pro Farmer told me that they are going to offer more free content in hopes of lead generation. Others prefer to keep most of their content behind a wall/gate/enclosure. Regardless, you can see that there is no consensus on what works best. After an excellent discussion on the SIPA Member Listserv a couple months ago, Molly Lindblom, principal of Business Transformations, adeptly and kindly wrote up the following: 

A Guide to Formulating Your Paywall/Free Content Strategy

1. Define the objective. Are you trying to drive traffic to support an ad model? Generate leads? Upsell? Build a community? Lots of ways to go. Defining your objective will help you determine your strategy and ways to measure success. Let’s go with Generating Leads.

Strategies:

- Consider your target. A high level decision maker (VP,CEO, CFO) may require a different offer such as a white paper or strategic industry analysis, etc. A director/manager may find news or analysis on a very specific topic rings their bell.

- Require something in kind. Contact info (name, title, company name, email) and/or other commitments such as spending 10 minutes on a call to provide feedback on a new product or answering a five-question survey. Not only does this help you achieve your goals, it’s a way to reinforce the value of the content that is being given away and moves the sale along.

- Don’t let them get their fill through a freebie. Limit free trial duration and restrict content access. There needs to be incentive to purchase.

- Build awareness/drive traffic. Email, SEO/key words and highly targeted paid Google ads are just a few ways to do this.

- Name it well. The name should reinforce the value of paid vs. free. A few options:

** Levels: Silver, Gold and Platinum or Value vs. Premium 

** Description: Today’s Headlines vs. In-depth Analysis 

** End Benefit: Quick Tips vs. Insight

- Always brand. Include your brand—such as MDM Premium. If you get nothing else, you will build brand recognition.

2. Define next steps. Sales or customer support should follow up on leads within a few days if not same day so they don’t go cold. Sign up for a free offer is an indicator of immediate need for your content. If you are entirely marketing driven, nurture the lead to build knowledge of your offerings, benefits and special incentives. This can be time consuming but it generally pays off.

3. Metrics. Make sure you have a measurable goal so you can determine what worked/didn’t work (opens, click throughs, time spent on site, bounces, leads generated, alignment of leads with target market, content accessed, sales driven) so you can determine how to modify your campaign going forward.

To subscribe to the SIPAlert Daily, create or update your SIIA User profile and select “SIPA interest.”

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 @SIPAOnline