Introduction
In nearly every introduction to content marketing, you have come across phrases like “you are now the media,” and “think like a publisher”. But one key thing publishers have always focused on that B2B marketers traditionally have not is the profitable creation and distribution of massive amounts of content. So how do you begin to find or create the content you will need to succeed?
In Part 1 of How To Think And Act Like A Publisher, we focused on defining your core objective (Profit), the importance of both editorial quality and variety (Editorial), and the systematic creation and production of your content (Production).
In Part 2, our focus shifts to building and growing readership (Circulation), getting the editorial content into the hands of your readership (Distribution), and seeking the next opportunity. Understanding and defining who your content is meant for (Circulation) and getting it to them (Distribution) are the core elements of the publisher’s mindset that marketers need to adopt.
These posts are for marketers interested in learning how publishers think and act. It’s a mindset that, when applied to your B2B content marketing strategy, will open up a whole new world of ideas and possibilities.
A side note before jumping in: this is an introductory article intended to provide marketers some insight into the discipline and business of publishing. It offers suggestions on how to think and act like a publisher and how to apply that thinking to your content marketing. It is by no means exhaustive or all inclusive. Publishers do much more than what is presented here.
Circulation
Circulation is readership.
As a publisher, when it comes to readership, the main objective is to acquire and sustain a population of people that a target advertiser will be willing to pay a premium to get in front of. Therefore from a circulation standpoint, the publisher’s mind is always focused on achieving the following two outcomes:
- driving growth (i.e., increasing the number of readers) and
- retention (i.e., keeping readers loyal).
But before starting either one of those activities, the first place a publisher must start is with the definition of the optimal target prospect for their advertisers. As without a qualified circulation, a publisher has little hopes of generating revenue.
Sound familiar? Where should you start your content marketing strategy? That’s right, with defining your ideal buyers. Enter Buyer Personas. Buyer personas define your optimal buyer(s) – the human beings, (the people with emotions) for whom your products and services are intended.
Once armed with the definition of the readership, publishers set out to create a marketing strategy to continuously acquire, grow, and maintain that readership. Publishers invest significant time, resources, and capital to ensure that their readership can support the growth of the publication.
Actions:
- Start your content marketing strategy by creating buyer personas. You must have a clear understanding of who you are trying to attract for your readership.
- Review your registration and opt-in forms. Are they simple, easy to use? Do they have good calls to action? How many steps does it take to complete the process? Whether it be your e-mail marketing list, your newsletter, or your blog RSS feed, pay careful attention to simplicity, ease of use, and placement.
- Be mindful of the *age* of your subscribers (length of time subscribed) and their level of activity (or inactivity). If you have old, inactive subscribers, make one attempt to reach them, and if you receive no response, dare I say it, remove them. And then acquire new ones.
- Create a way to track and monitor the growth of your readership. A simple spreadsheet will do.
Distribution
Distribution, from a publishing standpoint, deals with getting the editorial product into the hands of the readers. The focus is on understanding and utilizing all of the channels through which content can be delivered and consumed, then working to spread the product as widely as necessary (to existing and potential readership) to achieve the publisher’s circulation goals and deliver value to their advertisers.
This is accomplished in a variety of ways: snail mail, digital magazines, the publication’s web site, newsstands, grocery store lines, events and trade shows, syndication, strategic alliances, and on and on. You see, the goal is to spread your content as far as possible, though in a very targeted way, based on where and how the defined readership interacts with the content.
Enter the social web, and your readership is just as capable of distributing the content for you.
Actions:
- Look for external destinations to distribute your existing content. For blogs feeds, consider Alltop.com and Technorati. For blog articles, of course Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, but look for other niche destinations too – BusinessWeek Exchange is great for B2B.
- Seek places to contribute content – distributing your “thought leadership” in the form of contributed articles.
- With every piece of content you create, you must answer the question, “have I made it easy for my readership to share it?” (and that means in all channels, on and offline. Email, Twitter, events, etc.)
- You have time, but begin thinking about the answer to the following question: “How do we make our content more touchable?” (Think: iPad)
A side note: Two of the most exciting things happening right now relative to distribution in publishing happen to be related to the iPad. The first just launched: Flipboard. [note: possibly link to their site or Twitter feed?] (It makes an iPad imminent for me.) The second, “Adobe plans to make the tools used to create the Wired Magazine App for iPad generally available late this summer. Exciting news for publishers and B2B marketers.
Seeking the next opportunity
To be honest, most publishers were not very good at this. If they had been, the industry would have fared much better over the past 10 years. Prior to the internet, publishers basically printed money. When it came along, there wasn’t any urgency to act because their pockets were full. Wham! Enter the recession, open source publishing platforms, and the next thing you know everyone is a publisher, and it seemed no one was spending money on print advertising.
So publishers had to adapt, and the good ones have. And with the lesson of the past ten years learned, keeping an eye on the horizon and seeking the next opportunity are musts for long term sustainability and vitality.
Action (just one):
- Adapt and Think Bigger. Embrace the times in which we live and seek ways to utilize the new technologies available to you.
Recap
The six core areas:
- Profit – define your core objective and have a laser focus on it
- Editorial – focus on the importance of both editorial quality and variety
- Production – having a system for content creation using schedules, deadlines, and the right people to manage the process
- Circulation – defining readership, and driving the growth and retention of those individuals
- Distribution – getting the editorial product into the hands of the readership
- Seeking the next opportunity – always keeping one eye on the horizon
When listed together (and thought of in this way), these six areas provide you with a framework to begin thinking and acting strategically with a publisher’s mindset, and it becomes easy to see how thinking and acting like a publisher translates directly to acting and thinking as a B2B marketer today.
There is a direct correlation between structuring your marketing department in a way that enables you to systematically create targeted helpful, useful content on an ongoing basis and influencing your buyers in a way that generates demand for your products and services.
Our purpose at Make Good Media is to help you accomplish that goal.
While hindsight tells us that publishers as a whole could have done more to embrace and adapt to the changing media landscape, we can still learn so much from publishers and the way they run their businesses. Tapping into a publisher-worthy understanding of your readership (your customers and potential customers) will help you get into the mindset that is driving the shift to content marketing, web content strategy, and ongoing content creation.
Conclusion
We are at a pivotal time in history, where we are not only experiencing the convergence of print, digital, and social media, but also a transition in the way content is created, packaged, and consumed.
We are all publishers now. And as publishers (and B2B marketers) it is important to understand how to think and act like to attract, nurture, engage, convert, and love our customers.
At both B2Bbloggers.com and Make Good Media, it is our purpose to help you become the marketers shaping the future of B2B marketing. I hope you found this two-part article useful.
Thanks for your time, and I look forward to you sharing your comments.
