E-News : June 15, 2010
Committee Watch
Business Information Council
Tomorrow, June 16, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
ABM Headquarters
During this meeting, the Business Information Council will welcome three guest speakers: Jeff Pence of Farm Journal Media, who will present a case study on using data collected about the producer markets in agriculture; Ric Pratte of Jitterjam, who will discuss how to generate true ROI from social, mobile and e-mail engagement; and Reilly Cobb of Summit Business Media, who will explore converting free data to paid data. Contact Kate Patton for information on how to tune in.
Top Media Moves
Questex Media Group LLC announced it has chosen Superior Media Solutions (SMS), a new production services company founded by b-to-b media veterans, to handle the digital pre-press and production of its 31 publications and directories.
Greener World Media announced that media and events veteran Eric Faurot has joined its management team as president and chief strategist.
Reflecting broader experience and capabilities in interactive technologies, MedTech Publishing Company, LLC has been renamed MedTech Media following a vote of its board of managers.
SourceMedia announced that Karl Elken has joined the firm as EVP/managing director of the company’s banking and capital markets group.
Gaye Sussman, founding president of ID Media, was re-elected Chairman at BPA Worldwide’s board of directors meeting.
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Job of the Week
Sales Manager, Advanstar Communications
In addition to the “Job of the Week” highlighted in each issue of E-news, ABM has recently expanded its online job board to better reach out to the membership and media community with quality career opportunities. Powered by mediabistro.com, the site is updated constantly with openings across the country and enables you to search by industry and location. So what are you waiting for … Click here to begin your search!
'Gaping Holes Exposed' in Online Privacy
AT&T ate some humble pie on Sunday, apologizing for the security breach that allowed a watchdog group of hackers to attain nearly 115,000 of iPad customers' email addresses – including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and New York City Mayor Bloomberg – reported PCWorld. AT&T gave a backhanded apology for allowing the group, Goatse Security (whose motto is “Gaping Holes Exposed”), an avenue into private data by not requiring iPad users to sign into their email using a password. The oversight has been fixed.
While AT&T assures its 3G customers that, now, they can “(r)est assured, you can continue to use your AT&T 3G service on your iPad with confidence,” the fact remains that more than 100,000 iPad users are now at the mercy of spammers, which is unlikely to end well.
What does this mean for publishers? As draft online consumer privacy legislation is swirling around Congress, this incident is a high-profile argument for the kind of online consumer privacy protection legislation that could complicate online publishing business best practices. Reuters reported that the FCC is stepping up its “scrutiny of online security and privacy issues following recent security breaches involving Apple Inc.'s iPad and Google Inc.'s collection of private data by its Street View cars.”
As publishers, the best antidote for reactionary public attitudes toward online privacy is a hands-on approach to crafting online privacy best practices, and demonstrating the effectiveness of those ideals as an industry. ABM is currently working hard to protect your data and marketing businesses (see story below). Contact Kate Patton to get involved.
Last Chance to Enter ABM’s 2010 Sales Promotion Awards!
Do your promotional materials have what it takes to stand out among the competition? If so, there are just days left to submit your entries for ABM's 2010 Sales Promotion Awards!
Click here to enter (by this Thursday, June 17), and here to download the Call for Entries PDF and a sample entry form.
The program was originally instituted as the ABM Media Kit Awards to recognize the hard work and creativity of the marketing and publishing teams that create media kits. Whether to promote a product launch or event, inform the industry about M&A or a new company division, or simply to call a press conference, media kits have been integral in allowing companies to remain transparent via tools that likewise provide sales teams with tangible assets for selling advertising and sponsorships.
Now, the ABM Sales Promotion Awards reflect a new focus on the entire suite of promotional materials that support all sales efforts, including e-mail promotion and other digital collateral.
The categories are:
- Brand Media Kit/Printed (print)
- Brand Media Kit/Digital Interactive Format (online only)
- Exhibitor Sales Kit/Printed (print)
- Email Promotion (excludes all e-newsletters)
- Stand-Alone Flyer/Printed (excludes campaigns, must be independent)
- Stand-Alone Brochure/Printed (excludes campaigns, must be independent)
The deadline to enter is this Thursday, June 17. Finalists and winners will be celebrated during a special breakfast ceremony this summer in New York City.
Visit the ABM Video Network to watch highlights from the 2009 Achievement Awards breakfast, and listen in as Kevin Arsham and Glenn Laudenslager share media and marketing insights.
For more information or questions on the entry process, contact John Beisner at j.beisner@abmmail.com or 212-661-6360 ext. 3330.
Key Online Marketing Takeaways from ABM's Boston Regional Program
More than 60 ABM members and b-to-b media professionals gathered in “The Cradle of Liberty” on June 3 for ABM's Boston Regional Program to learn from new media and marketing thought leaders, including Tom Cintorino, EVP of digital media at Northstar Travel Media, W2 Group Chairman Larry Weber, and Janice McCallum, managing director at InfoCommerce Group. The agenda focused on digital media's impact on the transforming marketing space, including social marketing and mobile opportunities.
According to McCallum, who moderated the panel “How Content Marketing is Shifting the Role of B-to-B Publishers” and later posted an item to InfoCommerce Group's Health Content Advisors blog describing her experience at the event, takeaways from the sessions were:
- Marketers have to be content creators;
- Content first, then transactions; and
- The Web is becoming more mobile, more emotive, more experiential.
So how can marketers leverage this information? According to McCallum, key recommendations from the event included:
- Listen to your customers. This may seem obvious, but most industry publishers aren’t using social media and the interactive nature of the Web to its full extent to gain understanding of the characteristics and needs of their buyer and seller audiences.
- Facilitate communications between audience members to create a community. Prospects and buyers are more likely to exchange views on a neutral publisher’s site than on an individual vendor company’s Web site.
- Once you have an engaged community, consider live events that enable the community members to interact in-person. The quality of the event is enhanced when attendees have already interacted online.
Click here to read more recommendations in McCallum's full post. For more information about ABM's regional events, contact Megan Andrews.
Virtual Events: Lead Gen Goldmine
During ABM’s Annual Conference last month, there was much focus on lead generation – how to attract the right kind, and what that's worth. In fact, 68 percent of respondents to a recent Unisfair survey reported that lead gen was their number one marketing priority. Likewise, it seems that lead gen is a top-of-mind opportunity in the virtual event space – in the same survey, 40 percent of respondents reported that they expected virtual events to help them pull the data they need to curate a robust list of leads.
Unlike face-to-face events, virtual tradeshows and conferences offer a never-ending array of data gathering opportunities. Registration information, survey questions, social media access and more can be gathered at the point of entry, for each session, in exchange for downloads, in order to connect with other attendees, or in exchange for any other product or service producers can dream up.
That is not to say that attendees should be continuously harassed for their information throughout a virtual event experience. Rather, with effort, holes in each attendee's profile should be artfully filled as appropriate opportunities arise. For example, want access to attendees on LinkedIn or Facebook? Offer access to a virtual networking lounge in exchange for attendees logging in with their social media profiles. Or have them join the event's Facebook fan page or LinkedIn event group in order to network with fellow attendees.
But be sure to remain abreast of changes in privacy legislation, as it may affect your data collection practices. Click here for an executive summary of proposed privacy legislation, which ABM is actively working to shape.
Five Ways to Expand Your Audience with Video
ABM’s Wally Koval authors new blog for the Content Marketing Institute
“Video has increasingly become a mainstay medium for distribution and consumption of content online, and it continues to grow in popularity, scope, and reach. In April 2010 alone, over 178 million U.S. internet users watched online video; that’s more than half of the entire U.S. population!”
In his latest blog post for the Content Marketing Institute, a new source of how-to insight for b-to-b media professionals, ABM’s Wally Koval explores online video as an invaluable opportunity for extending the reach of your content … and he says it’s easier than you think!
Click here for Koval’s guide to expanding and engaging your audience with video.
This Week on the ABM Video Network:
‘The Future of Digital is Print’
During ABM’s Annual Conference last month, Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer at Tippingpoint Labs, turned traditional publishing on its head, challenging the entire audience to stop cutting costs and diversifying revenue streams and, instead, start differentiating product offerings and restoring the value of print. Attendees left his session wowed and armed with 10 starting points for transforming their businesses.
Visit www.AmericanBusinessMedia.com to view highlights from Davis’ highly-popular (and entertaining!) session, entitled “The Future of Digital is Print … And Ten More Paradoxes That Will Define the Future of Media.”
ABM Follows Congressional Meeting with Proposed Legislative Language
As mentioned last week, ABM recently provided detailed comments on omnibus federal privacy legislation in a letter to Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), and in a meeting with key House Energy and Commerce Committee offices, urging policy makers to modify the bill and prevent it from impeding b-to-b communications and activities. Click here for ABM’s comments on the bill.
In its letter and meeting with Congressional offices, ABM expressed support for the broad outlines of the privacy bill that Rep. Boucher initially disclosed at ABM's Annual Conference last month, but expressed concerns about some overbroad elements of the draft legislation. During the meeting, ABM was asked to provide specific legislative language on its call for an exemption for the offline collection of business information. That language, here, was submitted last Friday.
As one of the key functions of your Association, ABM has been actively tracking legal and policy developments with respect to privacy and behavioral advertising. Through our Information Policy and Government Affairs committees, ABM has adopted policies, commented to agencies, and lobbied on Capitol Hill on behalf of members, always championing the unique needs of the b-to-b industry.
Stay tuned to E-news for updates on this important legislation.
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