Specialist Media Show * Exhibition * Workshops * Conference * Intelligence * Networking * 24 May 2012 ThinkTank Birmingham

Colin Morrison had a positive message for specialist publishers in his opening presentation at the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April.

While digital is causing mayhem in the media world, those niche publications that are prepared to adapt to change and use technology to engage more deeply with their community, have a real advantage over mass media.  

In the Specialist Media Insight research earlier this year, we asked 130 publishers what they saw as their biggest opportunities and challenges.  This provides a unique insight into how specialist media owners see the world right now.  

Whilst they can glimpse the potential of digital platforms, online interaction, repackaging content and enhanced ad propositions, there is still a fear of new competitors, making the wrong technology choices, and traditional revenues evaporating before digital grows to replace them.  Plus a real skills gap especially in sales and technology. 

Digital platforms are transforming how publishers can distribute their content, and they are opening up previously inaccessible international markets even for small publishers. Now you may have a replica of your magazine on Apple Newsstand, but that is just scratching the surface. 

The speakers in the mobile platforms panel at the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April will stretch your thinking and show the opportunities even for smaller publishers to reach new audiences.  They'll also share some practical ideas you can implement straight away.

Here's a sneak preview of the content of the session, based on a meeting with the speakers this week.

Some customers pay on time, some pay late, and some don’t pay at all. Credit control is a constant battle, particularly in the publishing and events industry where inflexible deadlines mean poor cash flow can very quickly put operations at risk.

Here, Chris Gibbons of outsourced credit control firm Query Management explains what you need in your credit control tool kit, and how to use them to make sure you get paid on time. 

Could your niche b2b or b2c publication find a new market in India?  A recent report from East West Relations shows that the Indian Media market is packed with potential for publishers, across print and mobile, with the b2b sector growing fast.

The Indian market could be an important one for your company’s growth. East West Relations has put together the most in-depth, comprehensive report on media sectors including TV, Internet, print, digital media TV and radio among others.

Here’s 11 reasons for looking at Indian media:

One of the fastest growing revenue sources for publishers is paid online content. But as a new publishing and marketing discipline, it is hard to know how well you are doing and what is best practice.

US based Subscription Site Insider has researched over 130 subs site execs and compiled a benchmark report on the results.  Here are some of their findings and info on how you can get a copy of the full report.

Traditional display advertising is in decline, and standard digital ad rates are falling, so what are the alternatives for specialist publishers searching for new commercial revenues?   And as marketers and agencies have more media options available and are under increased pressure to prove ROI, how must media owners change how they pitch and deliver ad solutions?

Our advertising panel at the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April 2013, will address these questions, with a focus on the practical issues facing niche consumer and b2b publishers. We got them together recently, and discussed the topics they will be covering in their session: here’s a quick preview.

All specialist publishing businesses are built on a specialist community, and it's increasingly by bringing that community together that publishers can develop new revenues beyond content sales and advertising.  Business to business publishers have long seen live events as an important part of their business, and are busy expanding this, testing new formats both for live events and online.   And consumer specialist publishers are finding that building an online community leads to opportunities to sell new products and services to a committed audience.

Our panel on building communities and events to grow new revenues at the Specialist Media Conference on 24 April brings together some very innovative publishers.  Here's a preview of the topics we will be discussing, based on a recent meeting with the participants. 

As news stand sales fall and advertising yields struggle, subscription revenues have never been so important for publishers.  Yet subscription marketing has never been more complex, with print, web and mobile products to juggle and a bewildering array of marketing techniques available.  For specialist publishers with niche markets and small budgets and teams, it's difficult to work out how to price, where and how to promote and how to manage the data...

This week I held a meeting with the speakers in our subscriptions panel at the Specialist Media Conference.  While they certainly don't have all the answers, they do have some interesting experiences to share across a wide range of consumer and b2b titles.

How are other publishers tackling digital media?  There’s some fascinating insights already from the 2013 Specialist Media Insights research.  The survey is still live, but here are key findings from the 140 publishers who have completed so far.  You can still take part and receive a free copy of the results:

Take part in online survey now

What’s the secret to making progress with digital editions?  Behind all the swagger and PR, who’s quietly selling browser and mobile magazines to customers – and what can other publishers learn from this knowledge?

With the second round of Digital Edition data reported by ABC, we now have a much better idea of what is actually happening across a level playing field.  134 titles published digital edition figures, compared to 61 back in August 12.  There is a slight bias to larger publishers who have made a strategic decision to publish all their titles, but the ABC Consumer Magazines report is still the best source around.  

The mobile channel has produced a culture of information on-demand. We can now view our emails as and when they come through on our smart phones. The question is though has this necessarily made us more responsive as an audience? In truth it seems the opposite. We view an email as it arrives on our smart phone, think about it for a second and then move onto the next one.   

But what about the publishing sector in particular? What should publishers do to increase email engagement and responsiveness?

Reena Mistry, Marketing Director of Adestra, shares the results of recent research and offers some practical tips:

With business publishers expecting over half their revenues to be outside print by 2014 ,and consumer publishers expecting about 40%  - according to the Specialist Media Insights research -  we are already in the era of multi channel publishing.    Media owners now need to juggle print, web, mobile, social, live & online events and increasingly e-commerce.   

This challenge was the main theme at Publishing & Media Expo this year, and there were some interesting case studies of how publishers are now starting to work out how to get the different channels to work together well.  Carolyn Morgan picked out five stories of media owners who are successfully combining channels to build a community and sell more services to them: