ABM's Annual Conference 2013

Sunday, April 28

2:00 p.m. -3:00 p.m.

Private equity has been a dominant force in b-to-b—but that doesn’t mean independents that are looking to grow without taking on substantial debt are without options. Two of the most successful entrepreneurs in both the b-to-b and consumer enthusiast worlds will show attendees how to navigate capital investment—from growth options while staying independent to positioning and protecting yourself with investors.

Speakers:

Don Peschke Founder & President, August Home Publishing

Peter Sprague Chairman & Owner, Premier Media Holdings

3:00 p.m. -4:00 p.m.

A powerful database will be the key to multiplatform success, but actually managing that database and integrating the wide variety of lists developed over the years is a challenge that many companies haven’t overcome. Two leading providers will offer actionable tips—not product pitches— to stop thinking of the database as a problem and start putting it to work for you.  

Mike Burton VP, Platform Sales, Madison Logic       

Brett Keirstead  VP, Sales, Knowledge Marketing

Wallace Ryland CMO, Bedrock Business Media

Sponsored by The Magazine Manager/Mirabel Technologies

4:00 p.m. -5:00 p.m.
     

How Technology and Third-Party Partnerships Drive Content Scale

Original content is still key—but the resources to create that content are limited, whether you’re a small company or an individual brand within a larger company. Digital media tools and the right partnerships can be a great equalizer—if you know how to properly leverage them. Learn how content teams are punching above their weight with smart use of technology and third-party partnerships that have grown audience and market share while improving the bottom line.

Sheila Rice VP, Business Development & Licensing, Northstar Travel Media  

Keynote: Understanding the Corporate Life Cycle—and Predicting the Future Success of Your Organization   

Transformation has been the operative theme of b-to-b for the last decade, but achieving true transformation—particularly without thrash—continues to challenge. Ian MacDougall is a specialist in helping companies figure out where they are in their life cycle—and get back to prime. He has worked with some of the leading companies in our industry, and he will describe why organizations lose their capability to be entrepreneurial and what to do about it so that b-to-b companies can continue to be successful going forward.

9:45 a.m. -10:30 a.m.

The B-to-B Company of the Future: A Fully Integrated Enterprise?

B-to-b is about connecting buyers and sellers. Our communities used to have limited channels to each other—but that’s changing. Listen in as leading media executives, marketers and investors debate the emerging role and value proposition of b-to-b. What will the b-to-b company of the future look like? Will we continue to be organized as editorial enterprises—or are we evolving into something new? How will the morphing roles of media, marketer and agency shape the b-to-b landscape—and what’s our role in the age of marketing automation? This session will offer a preview of the emerging b-to-b model.    

Moderator:

Tony Uphoff
CEO, Business.com   

Speakers:

Russell Glass CEO, Bizo

David Kieselstein
CEO, Penton

Abraham Langer COO, 1105 Media Media

Dan McCarthy Partner, DeSilva + Phillips

Matt Shanahan SVP, Marketing & Analytics, Scout Analytics

Sponsored by Publishers Press

The traditional b-to-b approach? Create a product and find an audience to sell it to. The future b-to-b approach? Apply advanced behavioral modeling to the customer to identify and serve business needs. The advertising arms race demands that media companies offer key customer insight to marketing partners—regardless of whether that audience is in print, digital or face-to-face. Two experts will share how customer modeling works and how to apply it across your portfolio, resulting in better performance with existing products, higher lead scoring and a pipeline to better serve customer needs today and tomorrow.

Speakers:

Heather Holmes
SVP, Audience Development, MIT Technology Review

Scott Vaughan CMO, UBM Tech

11:30 a.m.

Historic Downtown Fernandina Tour (For Spouses/Companions Only)

12:00 p.m. -12:45 p.m.

ABM’s 2013 Managing Profits Report     

Business information, events and media companies are facing major decisions when it comes to driving new business lines and investing in traditional core products, staff and infrastructure. ABM’s 2013 “Managing Profits” report offers a breakdown of revenue while assigning cost and contribution numbers for established and emerging revenue streams in print, digital and events as well as key disciplines such as editorial, sales and audience development.  

Speakers:

Michael Alterio Research and Content Director, ABM

Roy Anderson Partner, WeiserMazars

John Wickersham Partner, Atwood Capital Partners

Sponsored by Atwood Capital Partners and WeiserMazars  

2:00 p.m. -2:45 p.m.  

Building a Business Information Brand in 2013

According to Rafat Ali, founder of media site paidContent and travel industry site Skift, b-to-b is filled with verticals poised for disruption. Through his new startup Skift, Ali is building a business based on technology, partnerships and “hustle.” While the revenue streams sound familiar (advertising, paid content and data), the way Skift is pursuing those revenue streams as a startup may cause established brands to take note. 

Speaker:
       
Rafat Ali Founder, Skift
     

GlobeSt.com's recent relaunch took a new approach to delivering timely information to its readers while providing business partners exciting new ways to engage industry decision-makers. Learn how ALM's Real Estate Media Group is using personalization, custom-content, social media and a streamlined design to increase user engagement metrics and boost revenue streams across their website and email newsletter platforms.

3:00 p.m. -3:45 p.m.

Cross-Platform Pricing: The Strategic Future of B-to-B Media

Pricing isn’t simply about driving revenue—it’s about product positioning and fostering viability. Learn new techniques for how to position multiplatform products with pricing, bundles and periodicity that can drive the desired behaviors of your customers.

Speakers:

Elisabeth DeMarse
Chairman & CEO, The Street

Steve Custer                                                                                                             EVP, Publishing, Farm Journal Media

Jeff Pence
Division President, Farm Journal Media

There was little doubt that the integrated data was ultimately going to be more helpful to your sales teams – leading them to more and diverse sales opportunities. If an advertiser is not using one medium are they using others? Where are they spending?

So much more is expected of sales teams today. They sell integrated packages to advertisers. They have responsibilities and goals that severely limit their time and focus. Our aim is to deliver data to your sales/management teams that enables them to effortlessly follow the (ad) money from one medium to another and often back again.

Marketing services are becoming a dominant driver of the b-to-b world—but the internal challenges to creating a successful marketing services business are often greater than any external competition. This session starts by defining marketing services, then offers three case studies that will drill down into how companies have addressed three of the most common issues: Internal Structure and Support (including corporate culture and compensation); Developing a Marketing Services Playbook; and Prospecting and Selling To a New Kind of Client. The format for each presentation is simple: problem, solution, result.  

Tuesday,  April 30

The New Product Paradigm: Matching Platforms to Purpose

We’ve heard from the big players on future org structure—now the independents weigh in on product. The advantage of b-to-b is that we’re used to serving customers in multiple ways. But the future isn’t as simple as “digital replacing print.” Here, three specialists of different parts of the three-legged stool debate the new purpose of each platform. What’s the role of each, and how do we maximize it? What kind of audience does each serve, and what is the value of that audience? How does each platform feed off the other, and how do we drive our customers across those platforms?  

Robert Dippell VP, Corporate Development, Praetorian Group       

John Failla CEO, Tesoro Business Media        

Harry Stagnito President & CEO, Stagnito Media Group 

New advertisers are streaming into the market all the time – the number is growing each day. However it is still difficult to find and pitch new partners, especially for b-to-b titles. MediaRadar CEO Todd Krizelman will provide an industry update, with a discussion of industry advertising trends and strategies to address the challenges facing publishers. Learn how to uncover your entire market and identify prospects that are actively buying in business titles.

10:30 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.

Touch Screen Economics: From Experimentation to Profits 

According to recent ABM/Outsell research, most b-to-b mobile media efforts are experiments with no real concern for ROI. That needs to change, and fast. If we are entering the “post-PC world,” what does that mean for how our audiences are using these devices and how they want us to serve them? How do the dynamics of advertising and audience revenue change with mobile? This session examines the change mobile is driving as well as the steps for making mobile a real business—including a case study from one of the leaders in our field.

Speakers:     

Mitch Rouda President, e-media, Farm Journal Media        

Prescott Shibles CMO, Advantage Business Media
       

11:45 a.m. -12:30 p.m.

Be the first to hear results of exclusive research from ABM and Adobe on the "Value of B-to-B: Connecting Buyers and Sellers," which sampled end-users and marketers in more than 10 vertical markets on the effectiveness of b-to-b media. Buyers share which platforms and types of content most shape their buying decisions, while marketers describe what they perceive as the most effective channels for reaching their customers—and why.

While face-to-face events provide the best seat in the house, how do you reach the untapped audience and create more value for your meeting content?  Industry thought leader Tony Lorenz, founder of bXb Online, shares key insights on how to optimize your meeting’s value and extend your educational content’s shelf life far beyond your meeting’s walls.

Gain a unique perspective that will help ensure your most valuable content and brand are extended far, wide and deep within your target community.

The Future of Events: Surroundance         

Events remain the backbone of the b-to-b industry, but as square footage continues to outpace revenue, attendance figures and exhibitor dollars alone may not drive the value of events in the future. Custom events and marketing services are joining forces to bring marketers closer to customers (and stave off the flow of exhibitor dollars into marketer-owned events). If you know who’s trying to buy what and who’s trying to sell what, the live event can become the real center of the digital universe for b-to-b. Future success of shows will be tied to how well hosts collect and manage customer data—and take customer contact beyond the physical event.

2:30 p.m. -3:15 p.m.

Speaker:   

Jay Hallberg Co-Founder/VP, Marketing, Spiceworks

3:15 p.m. -4:00 p.m.

If you don’t understand technology, it’s hard to make the right decisions on how to use it. Your future plans will require a star CTO to not just vet and implement technologies but also explain how they work in a commercial sense so that you can make better business decisions. Here, b-to-b CTOs explain what top-level executives need to know about the technologies transforming their businesses. 

4:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m