Business Media Matters : June 2011

Gallup and B-to-B Panel to Examine the ‘New Normal’ Economy

On Tuesday, June 28, in partnership with the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM), American Business Media will host a meeting and webinar addressing ways “the new normal” in the U.S. economy will impact b-to-b marketers, agencies and publishers.

The first half of the event features Gallup’s Chief Economist Dennis Jacobe and Ed O'Boyle, global practice leader for marketplace practice at Gallup. Jacobe will provide up-to-the-moment insights into the health of the U.S. economy based on the behavioral metrics of consumers, workers and job seekers Gallup tracks and analyzes daily, while O’Boyle—who brings 18 years of experience in brand marketing, brand management, strategic planning, and innovation—will interpret economic and consumer trends for an audience of b-to-b marketers, agencies and ABM media members.

Following the presentation by Jacobe and O’Boyle, a panel of b-to-b experts will drill down further into the details they consider most relevant for their peers at agencies, marketers and media companies. The panel includes Heide Rowan, global brand director for DuPont; Kevin Arsham, VP/account director on Lockheed Martin at TargetCast tcm, and Larry Greenberger, group publisher at Cygnus Business Media and the chair of ABM’s Publishers Committee.

The event, which will run from 2:00pm – 4:00pm ET on June 28th, is complimentary. To attend, please RSVP to ABM’s Kevin Bartlett at k.bartlett@abmmail.com or (212) 784-6353.

Survey of LinkedIn Members Identifies a Surge in Content Marketing 

Holger Schulze, founder of the B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn, conducted the survey entitled, “B2B Content Marketing Trends” in May 2011 with the 20,000-member B2B Technology Marketing Community on LinkedIn to better understand the current state of content marketing in the b-to-b space, and to identify key challenges as well as best practices. In less than two weeks, more than 500 responses flowed in.

Here are some key takeaways from the results:

• Content marketing is growing dramatically in popularity with more than 71% of respondents doing more of it than a year ago (in contrast, only 2% are doing less).
• The biggest motivator for content marketing is its ability to drive awareness, leads, and engagement with prospects, to compensate where traditional tactics are falling short.
• The most popular content formats are case studies, presentations at live events, white papers, online articles and videos.
• The biggest challenge: producing truly engaging content.
• The most popular channels to deliver content are websites, live events, email.
• The top performance metric for content marketers is leads.
• Corporate marketing owns content marketing in most organizations and spends an average of 20% of budget on content marketing.

To view a full copy of the report, click here.    

B-to-B Magazines Continue to Show Revenue Growth   

In March 2011, b-to-b print revenue grew by 2.0% versus year ago, while ad pages declined by 0.7%. Year to date, print revenue showed 3.3% growth while ad pages declined slightly, by 0.2%.

Of the 21 BIN categories, eight showed revenue growth in March, with the greatest growth in Business, Advertising & Marketing (23.4%); Building, Engineering, Construction (19.0%) and Agriculture (12.4%).

The March BIN data by category is available here.

ABM’s Business Information Network examines 21 markets comprised of all b-to-b books tracked by IMS/The Auditor, and PERQ/HCI for healthcare figures.

The BIN categories are:
Agriculture
Architecture, Design, Lighting
Automotive
Aviation, Aerospace & Military
Banking, Financial, Insurance
Building, Engineering, Construction
Business, Advertising & Marketing
Computing, Software, Telecom
Electronic Engineering
Government (Local, State, Federal)
Healthcare**
MFG, Processing
Miscellaneous*
Movies, Radio, TV & Video
Pharmaceuticals
Professional Services
Resources, Environment, Utilities
Restaurants, Foodservice, Lodging Gaming
Retail, Services
Science, Research & Development
Transportation, Logistics
Travel, Conventions & Meetings

*Miscellaneous includes Arts, Coin Operated & Vending Machine, Security and Classified pages across all categories
**Supplied by PERQ/HCI

More Advertisers Agree to Adopt DAA's Self-Regulatory Program  

In an industry wide effort to forestall regulation or legislation, advertisers, agencies and online ad networks are voluntarily adopting more stringent codes around how advertising is targeted to people online. A coalition of trade groups announced last week that 98 companies have agreed to comply with a program to self-regulate their digital tracking practices.

The article that was published in Advertising Age listed the roster of participating companies as major online advertisers AT&T, Verizon, Dell and Bank of America, as well as most of the major ad networks, including AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and ValueClick. Ad companies Cobalt, MiG and Omnicom Group are also taking part in the effort.

Contradicting earlier reports that only a small number of advertisers had signed on, the coalition claimed that adoption of the program was increasing every month. "We are seeing tremendous interest from advertisers, ad agencies and ad networks," Peter Kosmala, managing director of the Digital Advertising Alliance, said in a statement. "Adoption of the DAA's Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising is currently growing at an average rate of 55%, month over month."

Online privacy has become a hot-button issue in Washington. At the urging of President Obama, prominent members of Congress have put together bills that would protect people's identity and behavior online. Senators John Kerry and John McCain have recently introduced legislation to that effect; Sen. John Rockefeller put out a competing bill last month that insiders say was a parliamentary maneuver to attempt to claim the issue for the Senate Commerce Committee, of which he is the chairman.

Urgency to self-regulate digital tracking has been heightened in light of this renewed government scrutiny. The Federal Trade Commission has actively pursued companies that have failed to offer consumers a clear choice in whether or not they want to continue to be monitored for the advertising purposes. In a recent interview, FTC head of consumer protection David Vladeck said the agency would be reviewing the self-regulatory program in the next three to four months.

When asked how he'll evaluate the industry's efforts, he said he would examine if people are clicking on the icon that serves notice to consumers they're being tracked, and if they're in fact opting out. "We want to see how it plays," he said. "This is all new. I want to give credit to the industry for moving forward on this, but there's no guarantee that it'll work."

ABM has been actively meeting with policy makers in Washington on this issue. In fact, Tom Carpenter, the ABM’s lobbyist, and ABM members from ALM and the McGraw-Hill Companies, met with Congressional staff for Stearns, Kerry and the Senate Commerce Committee, in advance of the introduction of their different legislative proposals, to communicate the need for a business capacity exemption to protect the b-to-b industry from legislation focused on consumer privacy.

To read more about ABM’s government affairs pertaining to industry self-regulation, click here.

DMA Reports Steady Improvement in Q1

The direct marketing and advertising community continued to see steady improvement in all key economic performance measurements during the first quarter of the year, with revenue, investment and bottom-line profitability all rising over the previous quarter, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

DMA's “Quarterly Business Review” based on an online survey in April that drew 216 respondents, found that 83.7% of marketers saw their investment in direct/digital marketing activity grow or remain steady - compared with the fourth quarter of 2010; 41% reported higher revenue in the first quarter versus the previous three-month period; and 37% said profitability improved during the period.

Marketers' leading priorities in the first quarter included a general demand for digital marketing investment and better understanding of the needs of multichannel integration. In previous quarters, marketers were more focused on analytics tools and processes, according to the DMA.

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