Lou's Commentary

It is a new year, but business is tough and publications are still disappearing. So what’s new? That is the exact question you should be asking about your company. To differentiate in an increasingly demanding market and a turbulent economy you need a new you. What does that mean? Innovate. Create. Add something different to your equation.

Continuing my series on the Seven Game-Changing Steps to Position for Recovery, this post examines how to make this one of the best opportunities to elevate strategic direction for your company.

Don’t Waste the Crisis

Many companies are retreating or relying on the same plans used in previous years. It is still important to support your core business, but we encourage you to take this time to abandon crutches. Find creative ways to look at your business and your audience.

The near term future for media enterprises, all subject to the current environment, will involve renewing exisitng products, identifying new markets and launching new products in whatever medium is appropriate to the opportunity. While you defend existing positions, you must actively build new ones. The strategy of finding markets and matching products to them is relevant to media companies of all sizes.

Everyone is a Marketer

Involve everyone on your team. Bring the company together and brainstorm new products, directions, and goals. Host creative planning sessions on individual ideas and the company’s direction. Most importantly, create open communication channels where ideas are respected and evaluated. Not only will this develop better ideas, it will help company culture and foster a more creative atmosphere. Remember, everyone in your company is a marketer.

According to a recent HBR blog post titled “The Decade in Management Ideas”, www.blogs.hbr.org, the past decade spawned a commitment to finding ways to produce creative output more reliably.”

Dream Big

The economic crisis may have wreaked havoc on your business and recovery is not certain. However, few individuals and companies are taking the initiative of coming up with deep convictions for recovery.

Innovation drives optimism, new ways to solve challenges.

For more information on this topic, contact us at sabatierconsulting.com

Over the next three months I am going to analyze the “Seven Game-Changing Steps to Position for Recovery.” The first step is to assess your publications past and current performance. In order to establish a plan for the recovery, it is important to first understand where you are. Now is the perfect time to step back and rigorously analyze your advertising sales strategy, your circulation numbers, and the performance of your staff.

Asking simple questions like, “How have things changed in the past year, three years, five years?” and “What does our company data really mean?” will give you a clear picture of where you are. Once you have determined the strength of your foundation, it is important to ask three key questions as you build a plan for the recovery.

How do you improve your core activities?

The core activities are the building blocks of your business. One of the biggest mistakes many publications make is to not examine their core offerings and operations. Often there is a routine that many companies get stuck in and continue to count on. This is a new age and things have changed dramatically. Although it is important to understand your core, by not questioning it and evaluating every element of its performance, you risk falling behind and missing your chance for recovery.

Take a look at your mission, your readers, and your advertisers to see how you can improve on your core activities moving forward. What do you do well? What needs work? By focusing on improving your core and not just resting on your routine, you will strengthen your potential for growth and success.

Do you have a defined vision for the future?

Take the time to create a planning committee of key members of your publication and allow everyone company wide to make suggestions for content and business operation improvements. Once you have built a team, make sure everyone stays on the same page as you move forward through a documented plan.

Even though many publications have big plans for the future, there is often a lack of communication between decision makers. It is more important now than ever before to have a “defined” vision for the future. Make it clear, build it on your core products, and make sure everyone involved stays informed and are held accountable for their positions.

How do you communicate a value proposition to your customers?

Today’s readers want more than a free umbrella, old news, and a gift subscription rate. While planning for the recovery, it is essential that you find creative ways to communicate a value proposition to your customers. Most of them have heard all of the “pitches” and they are use to turning an eye to traditional forms of marketing. Figure out something new to offer them and most importantly live up to your promises. More content. Better content. Real-time delivery. These are all things readers are demanding and if you can’t give it to them, they will move on. Another publication is competing for the same readers and might be cheaper, more accessible, and more creative than you. Be prepared to offer something extra and make it count.

Your ability to communicate a value proposition to your customers is integral in order to maintain and grow your readership. If you fall short, you will the opportunity for a new reader or in many cases, keeping the ones you have.

In the next post I will focus on how to innovate and move forward creatively in your recovery process. The most creative and forward thinking publications are going to best meet the dynamic and increasingly demanding needs of readers.

If you would like more information on this topic or have another publishing question, contact me at louann@sabatierconsulting.com or visit our website and www.sabatierconsulting.com.

Most economists say the worst of the recession is behind us, but they stress that recovery is going to be slow and extremely difficult. The GDP grew 3.5% this past quarter and consumers are spending money again. But the recession has changed the attitudes of these consumers, who are now demanding more and better content for their money.

Although many companies won’t survive the journey over the mountain, it is noted that the recession has created a level playing field for many organizations. Ultimately this is an opportune time for a company that wants to gain ground and compete at a level they never imagined pre-recession. Over the next three months I will examine seven key steps to help position your company for recovery and expand your market share. The following is a brief summary of each step.

Assess Performance

Before you cut more costs, look at your pre-existing business strategy and assess your current position. Focus on where you are now and be prepared to build a plan on your foundation. Pay special attention to core activities and how you can improve on them. Do you have a defined vision for the future? And how do you communicate a value proposition to your customers?

Innovate

Don’t waste the crisis. Involve everyone on your team; in a recession, everyone is a marketer. Can you accept new ways of thinking and abandon crutches of previous years? What is something you have always wanted to try? Companies that innovate are going to have an advantage as they move out of the recession period.

Protect Profits

Protect your profits by improving competitive tracking, price testing, and trying to maximize revenue. And it is a priority to identify and nurture the customer segments that can lead you through recovery.

Revenue Diversification

Construct a detailed picture of your new and loyal customer. Make sure you focus on how new customers find you product and look at what they are buying. If you have the pulse of your customer, this can lead you to create new products and services. Diversified revenue spreads your risk.

Partnering

To reduce costs and expand opportunities, look to partner for business development, shared learning, and marketing needs. When looking for a partner, evaluate complementary competencies, how they can help minimize costs, and create other business opportunities.

Staff Hiring and Retraining

Many businesses today require a smaller, more flexible work force with diverse skills. Smart staffing decisions will save your business and help it grow during the recovery. Make sure you keep long-term staff and positive people on-board to boost morale. Also offer training and career growth opportunities to your entire staff.

Accountability with Customers

See your business as your customers do…the solution to a problem or problems. Take their pulse and measure your success.

In closing, businesses that embrace these practices can develop new revenue, effectively manage resources, develop a stronger team, and position themselves for strong growth moving forward. Each of the seven steps will be examined in greater detail in our bi-weekly blog/newsletter.

If you would like more information about this topic, contact us at www.sabatierconsulting.com for more information.

Guest post: Senior Consultant Ed Fitzelle 

It’s no fun being a celebrity these days.  Keeping your name and picture in the headlines is not easy.  There is one sure fire way, however, to get ink, and that is to bear children or to adopt from a third world country.  Like over-sized handbags, lavish jewelry, and goofy hats, the baby bump is a sure fire way for a star to get noticed between films. 

For men, the question of how good of a celebrity father you are is cause for a paroxysm of coverage, especially if the relationship that originally sponsored the offspring has broken up or is on rocky ground.  Good is to be seen with lots of kids climbing all over you at some public function, better is to be seen heading to court with your lawyers in tow to assert your parental rights, and best is to bring the kid from the broken relationship to dinner with your new love interest.  Let’s just say that children in Hollywood, Washington, and New York have become accoutrements or very noticeable accessories for the people who show up regularly on the gossip shows.

Now to the point of this blog.  We aren’t just rambling on about the ethical or moral implications of this adoption of kid power by the power elite.  It would take someone with a far higher moral calling than me to do that.  The purpose here is not to express indignation, but to run a scientific experiment to test how a word can get diffused through the web.

Writers for tabloids and celeb mags love to coin words for shorthand references to celebrities and their lives.  Think of Branjelina or TomKat.  In that spirit then, we are offering up two coinages that we think will be quickly adopted by the working celeb press and offer them gratis for their use:

1. “ACCOUTREMENFANTS”  This term describes children acquired for headline purposes whether through natural causes like all the little kids appearing after photos of every stage of pregnancy by the mom-to-be have appeared at every supermarket checkout counter in the universe, or through legal means involving a foreign trip and the intervention of the U.S. State Department.

2. “ACCESSORIES-AFTER-THE-ACT”  This refers to children acquired the old fashioned way, only we think its most apt usage will be to describe the results of encounters for which there may have been an ulterior motive on the part of one of the participants.

So there you have it.  We are releasing these terms onto the ‘net, tagged like fish in a biologist’s field study.  As soon as you see one in print or hear it on a cable show, let us know.

State governments whose revenues are dramatically lower because of the recession and are required to balance their budgets are reluctant to cut spending. Thus, state tax authorities are looking everywhere for additional revenue and turning their collections people loose on easy targets.

Who might be an easy target? Could be out-of-state publishers that do business within that state. State authorities might look at whether or not the “foreign” seller of a product has been collecting taxes on sales made within their state and whether the seller has been paying state income taxes.

Out-of-state publishers usually feel protected because they don’t believe they are required to collect taxes and where they don’t have any physical location or employees in-state, they believe that they are exempt from state income taxes. But in one instance that was recently shared by someone, aggressive state tax authorities came up with novel interpretations of what it means to have “nexus” in a state and therefore to be subject to taxation. A publisher who distributes data via CD’s mailed to customers in other states got caught up in just such a mess. It took thousands of dollars and countless hours of staff time to fight this in just one state!

Another area to watch is states that determine state tax liability where a publisher has hired a collection firm to dun overdue accounts. And who hasn’t done this? The collection agency is considered an agent of the seller which, through creative interpretation, mean that the foreign company has a location in that state.

Last? There is no statue of limitations on back tax liability.

Talk to your lawyers and review your situation.

Don’t miss the recent announcement by the Magazine Publishers of America [MPA] a couple weeks ago, http://www.magazine.org/ditital/14321.aspx, wherein they detail their members’ digital initiatives for all of 2009. These examples are great reading and hopefully provide incentive for other publishers to serve their audience with more offerings. While not referenced, these actions represent a wide range of financial investment.

Look at the titles. I don’t call them leaders because they are members of MPA. They are leaders in their respective fields and the point should not be missed that the leaders continue to evolve, step out, and experiment with digital tools and resources.

Here are my TOP Ten 2009 magazine digital initiatives:

1. More Magazine responded quickly to digital sub request from outer space and launched a blog

2. People en Espanol’s virtual makeover tour that drew 60 million visitors!

3. Women’s Health iPhone pre-loaded workouts

4. Scroll Motion’s iPhone app work with distribution and revenue models

5. Martha Stewart’s Martha University online

6. National Geographic’s Web site user generated content print pub: Your Shot

7. Sports Illustrated’s Web site relaunch: user friendly just got friendlier

8. Zinio’s partnership with hotels; guests can read digital magazines in room

9. This Old House June issue - all user generated from a community Web site

10. ESPN begins to charge for online content.

 It is my hope that many of you will step out and follow the leaders.

What to do when there are piles of files, albeit organized, on all corners of your desk and your email in box has 200 messages to be read? Take a couple hours and go clear your head. The Walters Museum in Baltimore beckoned me and two friends this Saturday afternoon.

First, who was Walters? There were two…father and son. Father was a self-made millionaire who scored his fortune in wholesale liquor and the railraod. Son was a faithful sidekick who was equally successful. They spent all their money on art and antiquities and when their collection got too big, they built themselves a museum. And a very interesting one at that.

The reason for this post, however, is not to talk about Walters or their museum. No, out of four floors on two buildings, one small cubby that housed an exhibit about communication stuck with me. The graphic was prepared for school children, but often the simpler the presentation, the more profound the message.

 There was a timeline that read as follows:

Hieroglyphics 3000BC     Pictograms 3500BC     Alphabet 1700BC     Parchment 200BC     Paper 105AD

Books 400AD     Printing 1455AD     Digital 20th century

A gentle reminder that you can’t stop progress. The difference between today and the last 4000 years is that it is transpiring at a much faster pace. A question we are asked frequently and that I pose to you is:

How do you respond to and manage change in your publishing operation? I believe this is a fundamental issue that separates the boys from the men.

Today’s Washington Post, August 11, 2009, pages A2 and A3 [yes, I read the print version], gave pause to the topic of privacy. Much of our work with clients is about strategy, business models, tactics, creating, measuring impact, making and keeping readers, visitors, and customers happy to meet missions and make money. Rarely do conversations focus on privacy.

Few would question the impact that social networking [and tracking technologies] have made with how we communicate.  And guess what? With today’s announcement that Facebook purchased Friend Feed, if you are so inclined, your friends can track what you are doing on social media sites. The Post also reports that the Obama’s aides view social networking as good for you and me…something about transparency…and good for government. [George Orwell is flipping in his grave on this one.] And the government’s information czar indicates that as long as we can “opt out” on government sites, it’s not a big deal.

Here comes the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Democracy and Technology, among others, to protect U.S. citizens.

Congress has fiddled with this topic recently, but nothing major to report yet. 
Take heed, privacy policy is going to become increasingly important to content creators and consumers from a personal and a business perspective.

“A challenging experience!”

“…great presenters and content that was on target. An incredible experience.”

“Thanks for a fabulous learning experience.”

“So much information in such a short time!”

“There was a TON of valuable content.”

“I knew nothing about usability before attending and I am already putting the information to work with my Web site.”

Cia Romano, President of Interface Guru, and I presented the inaugural FutureReady digital media seminar last week at the University of Virginia/Virginia Tech graduate center. Class participants [limited to 25] received 24 hours of content and team exercises about:

digital trends - content strategy - site strategy - social media tools - generating revenue online and with digital tools - usability case studies and guidelines - metrics - advertising that works online.

The relevant and rigorous curriculum presented a 360 view of digital publishing. Coming soon: tools and materials from FutureReady content that you can use with your staff and advertisers.

Many sites gate their content for lead or customer management purposes. This is a solid marketing objective. Examples of successful publishing sites doing so include ConsumerReports.org., Taunton.com, Chemweek.com and eRepublic.com.

There is ongoing discussion among publishers about why gated content might not make sense for websites. This thinking is predicated on sharing content as broadly as possible. Putting content behind a wall cuts off conversation. Using editorial content to drive traffic can be an audience development tool. But this is done within boundaries of business rules. 

Key questions to ask include what are the business goals, i.e. how do you convert the increased traffic into more members and/or more revenue from existing customers or members?

At the same time, some sites that have relied on site advertising as the primary source of revenue are qustioning whether this is a sound business model. The reason cited is that CPMs (cost per thousand) are going lower and the bar is rising higher on how much traffic is needed to generate online advertising revenue. Creating online revenue in addition to advertising is highly recommended.

Online veterans Jeff Jarvis and Alan Mutter had this to say in March 2009:

Point: “In the old-content economy, one could make maoney selling many copies of a product. In today’s link economy online, we need only one copy, and it is the links to it that give it value. We should be spending our effort figuring out how to get more links to original reporting to support it” [Jarvis]

Coutnerpoint: “It is vital that publishers produce content that is sufficiently unique, authoritative and valuable to motivate customers to pay. If there is powre in the brand, consuemrs recognize quality and value.” [Mutter]

To read more, go to http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-mutter-jarvis19-2009mar19,0,5832874,full.story 

Trend? 

According to a December 2008 business to consumer (B2C) paid content five-year forecast conducted by Forrester Research, an independent technology and market research firm, there will be a decline in transaction based content sold online. There will most likely be a rise in sites that rely on advertising revenue to provide free content in two ways: 1) most content free and ad supported with premium services available for sale and 2) give content away and drive purchases in a more profitable channel such as events or products.

Sabatier Consulting recently queried several database fulfillment companies to ask if their publishing customers are gating content online. All responded that they are noticing an increase in both gating and charging for premium content. Approximately 25 to 30% of their clients are following these practices .

Member OrganizationsSNAP, the Society of National Association Publications that serves several hundred publishers providing publications to members in print and online, conducted an e-publishing trends survey in 2007 [most recent]. When asked how content is made available online, 64% indicated that they place some content and/or publications behind a gate [password protected] while 11% put almost all content behind a gate.Information provided by SIPA (Specialist Information Publishers Association) indicates the following reasons why people pay for access to some niche sites. These include:   

• When the organization has privileged access to source material, e.g. insider industry information
• When the site has a specific personality
• The site aggregates information which saves the visitor time
• The site hosts a specialist community
• Charging acts as a filter to ensure members have a reason and interest in participating
• Exclusivity
• Passionate about a subject and want to submerge themselves
• Training
• Help sites

SIPA goes so far as to say that the future of internet publishing is niche.

News and Portals

Primarily news sites [pure play and some publishers] and portals are the group dominating the conversation about gated/premium/paid content. They have legitimate concerns and face big challenges, but their issues are not quite the same as those of most consumer, B2B, and publishers serving membership organizations.Closing

Let’s stop wringing hands and focus on sound business principals: strategy and planning with clear voice and value proposition online supported by additional sources of online revenue. This is the challenge, not free vs. paid.