What are the main B2B publisher's web strategy goals?

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Permalink Reply by Rob Fisher on June 23, 2008 at 12:09pm

In the B2B markets I think you will find that advertises are less and less interested in pageviews or even pricing. The important thing is direct contact with the relevant communities to their products. 'Request for info' is key to this. I think that with the rise of Facebook and Myspace users and advertises want to be sure that they are not wasting their time, it's vital that you have a site that encourages members to provide profiled data that can be used in conjunction with targeted e-newsalerts or can be targeted with specific editorial. Quantifiable data is free it's the qualifiable data that comes at a price.

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Permalink Reply by Marcus on June 24, 2008 at 12:12pm

I agree completely... I don't pay any attention to pageviews on the media I buy (all B2B)... I'm looking for quality. Period.

I pay attention to pricing, but it's relative. If one site delivers me better quality leads, I'll pay more for it.

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Permalink Reply by OlegR on June 25, 2008 at 10:23am

How do you determine whether online media is quality or not?

PS - thanks for your input - it is very helpful

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Permalink Reply by Paul B. Beatty on June 24, 2008 at 9:02am

What are the B2B magazine publishers goals for print? Print is the driving force getting readers to digital. How can a print publisher drive more traffic to digital? How can they prove they are the driving force? What would digital do without print? Print is still the number one source for information. Print to Web is one of the greatest tools in the new world of communication ever.Talk about the "brand" print-digital-face to face and grow the business.
Paul B. Beatty

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Permalink Reply by Heidi Gilcrest on August 21, 2008 at 10:14am

I am looking for answers to your questions, reasonable goals, driving traffic to digital... We have launched a digital edition of our B2B. Our salesman are looking for hard numbers for opens, clicks, page views, etc. I have reports with this information but they are not happy with 21% opens, 2.5% clicks, and number of page views. How can I help them? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Frank R. Chloupek on June 26, 2008 at 8:28pm

Well there's a difference between strategy and tactics. Before you start trying to identify metrics. You first step would be to identify your overall brand mission. As an example, I'll toss IndustryWeek's current one in this response.

IW connects decision-makers within manufacturing enterprises to share ideas and tools that inspire action. Its award-winning presentation of trends, news, analysis, research and peer-to-peer conversation motivates manufacturing leaders to achieve their goals. In print, online and in person, the IndustryWeek community is the leading resource for manufacturing operations knowledge.

After this is set then you're talking tactics to meet this mission. Some that we look at:

* What sort of information is the site a vehicle for? Is it the right information for the audience (including your vendor/partners)?
* Are you getting the right sort of visitor? Does your audience fit the profile that you're shooting for? What percentage of the overall universe of your audience do you have?
* Does your audience seem to stay with your site? Are you the #1 choice? #2? #100?
* What about your advertisers? Are they happy the with the effects of their campaigns? Are you sold out of inventory or is it begging? Can you get a premium for your content or is your site a commodity?
* Is your audience (both page views and uniques) growing? shrinking?
* Do you give advertisers the right vehicles to connect with their customers? Are you bringing buyers and sellers together?
* Are advertisers happy? Do they keep coming back?
* Is the audience happy?

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Permalink Reply by Giridhar Rajagopalan on June 29, 2008 at 10:37pm

For a B2B publisher, the following would be some of the goals in setting up a web site:

Branding & Marketing
• Provide an electronic platform for the print publications to build and maintain the communities of interest (i.e. the reader base)
• Support related conference, seminar and custom event programs
• Cross-promote related web sites and publications

Revenue
• Create opportunities for generating additional revenues through ads, sponsorships of newsletters, forums, sections, etc
• Generate qualified databases that could be leveraged for revenue generation (e.g. lead generation activities for advertisers)

Operational Goals
• Enable tailoring/customization/personalization of content for the user (provide the right content in the right form at the right time to the reader)
• Enable re-purposing of existing editorial content and archives into multiple services, sites or portals (including syndication and licensing)
• Enable new types/forms of content delivery (e.g. PDF, digital magazines, podcasts, streaming video, etc)
• Support subscription/circulation activities (renewals, new subs sales, etc.)

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Permalink Reply by Christina Bashark on July 3, 2008 at 12:07pm

Many B2B publishers are joining co-registration networks to capture additional revenue from advertisers that are paying top dollar for CPL (cost per lead) deals.

This is taking place during the registration process at the end of the sub form after the primary purpose of subscribing the the publication is finished. Once the new subscriber submits their registration form, ads are served up from B2B advertisers. The subscriber has an opportunity to opt in to receive more information from that advertiser at a later time. If the subscriber click "YES" to the offer, the contact infromation of that subscriber is sent immediately to that advertiser and the advertiser pays for that lead.

It is important to become part of a network because the advertiser is looking for volume and optimization.The publishing site may not be able to provide that volume on its own to the advertiser.

The quality and capability of the newtwork to deliver offers that are applicable to the subscriber is a key factor when joining a network. Transparency of the network (advertisers can see who is in it), offer optimization(ability to deliver targeted offers), composition of the network (industries served and what publications are in it), and reputation of the network are all key factors of consideration for the advertisers to advertise on these networks.

Offers can also be served up anywhere on the sites where full contact information needs to be filled out on a form. Subscribing, re-newing, e-newsletters, whitepaper downloads, trade show/conference /webinar registration etc.

Profit center for this service is comparable to list rental revenue programs.

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Permalink Reply by Paul B. Beatty on August 1, 2008 at 7:52am

The major problem of Web management is their focus.
It is on what they want to do and not what the advertiser and reader reader needs.
They lean to do what Wall Street thinks the readers want and advertisers need .The time has come for both magazine and Web management to start thinking like the customer.
Paul B. Beatty

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Permalink Reply by Paul B. Beatty on August 1, 2008 at 8:08am

" Business to Business Publishing is not complicated. Its mission is quite simple:to bring buyers and sellers together in real time,prove it and make a profit. All it needs is management that keenly understands the needs of the readers and the demands of the advertisers.It does not need direction from Wall Street pundits based on armchair guessing and greed,or observations from non- publishing dreamers. It is like running a farm,you must work the farm before you can effectively run the farm. Growth takes care of itself."
Paul B. Beatty

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Permalink Reply by Michael Zingalis on August 14, 2008 at 4:54pm

I'm not a b2b publisher, but I do build websites for them for a living, so I get the generals on their goals.

1. Get the content to the web

If manual by people (vs. robots), keep the expertise level low so anyone can switch positions on the web and not have to go through a grueling training session to put in a record.

B. If Automatic

The dequarkifier - There are some good companies out there that can not only define the issue / content / images / but the categories for the site....but these two need to match up consistently, and web/print should be on par here before swapping out the whole categorization of the site.

2. Target content into channels that
A. Customers go to
B. Advertisers will sponsor - This is less departments, and more business specific categories.

3. Re-use the content, and at each stage / allow for advertisers to get in
A. Site
B. Channel Site (B2b Specific Categories)
C. Rss
D. Email Broadcast - (Scheduled based on vertical)
E. Lead Generation - Leads sent to companies when advertorial type stories are done.

4. Lead Generation - member info vs. ip addresses, quantifable reporting on real people.

5. List Rental
A. Global
B. Filtered lists - By Category / Criteria / Company Specific

6. Email Alerts - Instead of manually made broadcasts, rss content is automatically scheduled to go out per user based on their requirements, ads there too...

7. Interactivity - Blog - Publishers are very fearful to open the fray here...it always seems to be by a few to post, and many to read. I think that this is one big piece that Publishers miss. Yes, it takes resources to manage the blog, and to keep filth off the site, but...free content, free loyalty, and of course, additional category specific ads and email broadcast opportunities.

8. Marketplace - Companies / Products - Auto Renewals / Scheduled Emails

9. Being Found on the internet in the first place - Should be higher in the list, but I am already writing.

10. Subscriber Features - Whatever tie in you can think of from free classified ads / partially / fully accessible story bases / etc.

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