5 lessons on business media from Jeff Klein, 1105 Media
“B2B media brings buyers and sellers together”
Consumer media may be a hyper-competitive race for eyeballs, but media for enterprises still serve a strong market of people generally willing to pay — a qualified audience of subscribers who want quality information, have a budget, and are involved in buying decisions.
That’s why Jeff Klein, executive chairman of 1105 Media Inc. in Los Angeles and former CEO of California Community Newspapers, believes there are strong opportunities for enterprise media in providing information, building communities and generating leads for companies that serve other businesses. “In the end, you’re providing strong data relative to your business. It’s not about gossip or your personal life,” he says. “One of the hallmarks of B2B media is community. B2B media brings buyers and sellers together.”
1105 Media publishes several enterprise-focused brands including TDWI (Transforming Data With Intelligence), Campus Security & Life Safety, AWSInsider.net and Defense Systems. Klein visited Northwestern University’s San Francisco campus to discuss the landscape and opportunities of enterprise media with master’s students in the Medill School’s Media Innovation & Entrepreneurship Specialization.
Here are five takeaways:
1. The mix of revenue has changed, and events are increasingly important.
Owing largely to internet-driven competition, newspapers have declined at a much faster rate than B2B media. The internet has put a dent in the important classified section, eliminated newspapers’ geographic monopolies, intensified the competition in breaking news, and inspired a public belief that information should be “free.” Upstream, the internet has impacted advertisers who are less interested in print ads. And the separation of “church and state” of the editorial and business sides of media companies have kept editors from participating in business decisions.
That “church and state” separation is far less pronounced in B2B media, which Klein says has helped the industry create innovative models for its readers.
B2B media, just like consumer media, is also diversifying from its original format. While trade magazines were once B2B’s bread and butter, B2B now lives across multiple platforms and formats, including print and digital content, online and in-person events, webinars, social media, white papers and insight reports, data analytics, training, apps and even lead generation.
Across all media, the importance of digital has risen as print’s relevance declines. To make up for it, enterprise media companies also rely heavily on events, including trade shows (where booth sales drive revenue) and conferences (where attendee ticketing drives revenue).
The off-line experience is critical especially for business attendees, as live events have become important for in-person networking, job mobility, information sharing and professional development training. Virtual events in these areas have been less successful, Klein says.
2. The B2B ecosystem is increasingly complex, but connecting buyers and sellers is still the key to success.
In B2B, there’s less emphasis on mere brand advertising and more on sales, whether it’s laptops for the Pentagon or campus security systems. The media outlet, as the intermediary, has the great advantage of giving leads to advertisers on readers who are ready to buy. For example, the media company can host a free webinar, then deliver the contact info to sponsors as advertiser leads.
3. Building communities is critical.
Building communities is what B2B is all about, Klein says. Interacting with readers is becoming a bigger part of media businesses.
The publisher and editor play a significant role in building that community, more than in the B2C setting. This model works best when information is critical to a certain community and not easily accessible outside of the publisher. Readers expect editors to be industry experts, so editors often moderate in-person and online conferences/forums.
The accessibility to editors, who are seen as experts and facilitate a close conversation with hard-to-access industry leaders, adds to that desirability. Treating readers like community members, listening to them, letting them participate, and interacting with them will break down silos, create a clearly identified group identity, and strengthen engagement and retention.
4. Predictive analytics could be a game changer.
Given all the rich data that enterprise media companies gather on their valuable subscribers, an emerging business model helps advertisers predict readers’ willingness to buy, lowering risk by separating content from dollars.
Last year, 1105 Media launched Prophyts, which uses predictive analytics to connect buyers and sellers. The product tracks thousands of B2B content sites that represent 3 million companies and 600 billion page views. A machine learning module sifts through these billions of site visits to identify not only readers, but the companies they work for, as they actively research technology solutions/products. Then a patent-pending algorithm predicts which of those companies are in the market to purchase a solution in a particular product category.
It is a combination of predictive marketing and predictive monitoring. The system identifies when buyers are researching product options to raise their own awareness, and uses an algorithm to determine when customers are ready to buy. The company has can detect patterns — when reading goes up, then drops, and comes back when the reader is ready to buy. The system then alerts advertisers when potential customers should be contacted, and can tell the business when the customer is shopping for other alternatives.
But if this system does change the game, what is the role for editorial? Could it not simply deliver the names to advertisers and make money that way? Klein says the role of media in this scenario remains the same — to deliver insights, tips and editorial content to nurture the customer.
5. The future of B2B has many options.
B2B media is positioned to succeed in many areas: data analytics and predictive modeling, ecommerce, expansion of video products, more personalization and interactivity, in-person events, and research, consulting and certifications.
But in the end, good B2B media is still based on the fundamentals of accurate, important, balanced and compelling reporting. It must break through the noise with content that is relevant and easy to read, with useful visuals, to help busy subscribers do business. More than ever, the packaging of content is ever more critical, with outlets engaging readers with multimedia. While timeliness of breaking news is generally less important, B2B content providers must often focus on practical “how to” information or pivot from answering “what happened” to “why it is important.”
The characteristics of B2B media will remain:
- Serves a targeted audience within an industry (often, narrowly defined)
- Builds a virtual community within a business niche
- Provides reliable news/information/data relevant to a job or business
- Helps you do your job and make buying decisions
- Qualifies its audience for buying authority, budgets or influence
- Audits (BPA) authenticate demos and “wantedness”
- Brings “real” buyers and sellers together to find the right products/services
- More focused on “sales leads” than brand advertising (“lead gen”)
Despite all the changes in B2B media, Klein says the two-fold mission remains consistent: to enable professionals to succeed by providing them with specialized, reliable, timely, relevant information, and to be the best and the most trusted source in the industry at connecting our audience to the media, each other, and its partners.
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