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Niche Publishers Respond to the New Needs of Their Audience

by Media
In the webinar I watched and wrote about Thursday from MCI USA, one of their first suggestions was to have conversations with your customers. “The natural inclination at this time might be to withdraw [knowing how busy and focused people are], but the opposite should be true. It’s the time for strategic conversations and important questions. ‘How are you?’ should be the lead question. It’s a great time to be human and lead with empathy and understanding. ‘What do you need the most help with?’ ‘What are your pain points?'”
I poked around a little to see how some SIPA publishers are initiating these conversations and designing specific content.
Put your commitment to conversation up front. When I went in to Ragan Communications’ website this morning, I was met with a pop-up:
Talk to Us
The Ragan editorial team wants to help you with your COVID-19 crisis challenges.
– Tell us how we can best cover this crisis for you.
– Share with us how you are communicating during these challenges.”

Send a survey. The editorial team at Access Intelligence’s PRNEWS is requesting feedback about the type of content most desired by communications professionals. “In order to better understand what you need to perform your job well, we rely on your feedback, which in turn helps us develop our platform to meet your needs. So, let us know what type of content you look for on a daily basis…we’re listening

Create content to cover COVID-19 within your niche.
Example 1 – Columbia Books & Information Services’ Thompson Grants has created a specific new resource. To better assist the grants community, they’ve launched a free roundup at their Grants Compliance Expert website. The roundup provides a “list of links to memoranda and guidance issued by federal agencies—as well as the Office of Management and Budget—that are specifically relevant to grant applicants and recipients dealing with COVID-19’s impacts on grant programs,” writes Jerry Ashworth,editor for Thompson Grants.

Example 2 – SIPA member The Company Dime covers business travel management so their lead story is an important one: Coronavirus Exposes Weaknesses in Business Traveler Tracking. I’ve read many articles on stranded business travelers. The next article focuses on a support group for laid off travel industry professionals.
Example 3 – California tax experts Spidell Publishing has two sessions this week for “COVID-19 and Filing Extensions: What Tax Pros Need to Know.” They also have a full page of resources titled Coronavirus tax information and Spidell’s live webinars and seminars.” In the middle of that page they write: “Spidell seminars: The safety of our customers and our employees is our top priority.”
“Over-communicate”—in-house as well. In an interview with Digiday, Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith spoke about the importance of in-house communications as well. “We have been working from home for just over a week but our approach has been to ramp up communication as much as possible, almost over-communication. We ended up increasing the number of one-on-one meetings and group meetings in the first week. In some ways, you can have a more focused and less distracted conversation virtually.”
Evolve our work. Smith added that a lot of that communication has been “around the importance of responding to this change, how can we be entrepreneurial, how can we do things differently and adapt and evolve our work, our workflows, our product, our relations, or business relationships in ways that are better suited to these times?”
“Above all, maintain empathy for your users—and their changing needs and challenges, and focus on the data, not fear or anxiety, to make the right decisions for your business,” writes Ashley Mo on the Marketing Land site. “Staying strategic in this time means making quick adjustments as news cycles and performance reports dictate, so make sure you’re monitoring the macro landscape and your company’s internal and competitive reports aggressively to set your course with confidence.”
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Actionable Marketing and Sales Steps From a Crisis Webinar

by Media
I just listened to an excellent webinar from a company called MCI USA titled “COVID-19: Communicate Empathically, Plan Strategically,” with Brittany Shoul (pictured right) speaking from a sales and partnerships viewpoint, and Rachel Dillion (far left) on member services.
It was fairly basic but in a good way—meaning that they clearly laid out positive strategies for working with your audiences at this special time. Here are some key takeaways.
Focus on the gap methodology. The plans that we all put in place two weeks ago aren’t the plans today. And who knows what the future will bring. Focus on the middle. Our key stakeholders are experiencing a level of uncertainty that we’re all experiencing. There’s a place now between the current state (unarguably not great) and the future state. Make the most of the time now.
Have conversations with your customers. Shoul and Dillon said that the natural inclination at this time might be to withdraw, but the opposite should be true. It’s the time for strategic conversations and important questions. Pick up the phone. (It’s interesting that those of us who are working from home for the first time are getting the same advice—talk to people on the phone.) “How are you?” should be the lead question. It’s a great time to be human and lead with empathy and understanding. “What do you need the most help with?” “What are your pain points?”
Empower your staff to have these same conversations and then share. Anecdotal information from the conversations/emails your staff is having with your audience should be shared. Everyone should be empowered to ask these questions. A short personal email is fine if you don’t want to call and then listening for what comes next from them (after “how are you”).
Learn from your audience. Sales teams are dealing with cancelled events. Look for ways to help them communicate that message. And how do we do that? Email or pick up the phone. Everyone is experiencing the same uncertainties and fears. We need to learn more about what our audience needs.
Get back to your core products. We’re using that information to inform our current state but also to plan what we’re doing in the future. We want to get back to the products we create and deliver for our members and subscribers. We must ensure that members are engaged everywhere they can be. Do you know the lifecycles of your products, conferences, publications and e-learning platforms? What do you have now that you can tune or adjust to solve your audience’s current challenges?
Look at something new. Virtual events may be new to you. But you’re in information gathering mode to get a stronger sense of what is needed. Take those case-to-case cancellations and pivot to something new.
Tailor information that is out there to your industry. What can we do now to positively impact the people we serve? The CDC is pushing out a ton of information right now. How can you take that information and tailor to your industry?
Create content bundles for people in your niche working from home. People may have more time now so create courses that you haven’t been able to get to in the past. Social media might be something that people could get better at now and use. Chipotle is hosting Zoom open-line lunch sessions. Any organization can do that. Also special event streaming is becoming huge—live musicians. If you had an event planned with a high-level keynote in your niche, look at a live-streaming opportunity.
Explore your archives. It’s a great time to dig into your files. What do you have that can be recycled and refreshed—maybe a white paper that approached crisis communications. People are also craving community now. How can you create that online dialogue? Also podcasts are experiencing incredible upticks now. Anchor, which is owned by Spotify, just launched a feature making it easy to record with friends.
Find new opportunities. Buyers and sellers still want to be brought together. Sponsors were looking forward to the face-to-face opportunities at your events, Now they’re looking for new opportunities. How can you use your website and the advertising opportunities there to introduce new concepts perhaps, maybe video? The needs of your members are changing. Can you meet them?
Make something free. Good will goes a long way right now. Organizations are starting to open products for free and gather information that way. The silver lining of this crisis is that you’re lengthening your planning cycle for the next event. That makes this a great time to plan and design something different. What does your audience want and need? Take advantage of this big time gap to recreate what you’re doing. Sometimes when we do something every year we have a tendency to just recycle what we do. This gives us a chance to reintroduce new ideas.
Make tough decisions. The pain of the moment can create a time to change things that have been hard to change in the past. You have products that are declining. Usually we ignore that. Now is the time that critical decisions can be made, We don’t know what the new normal will be. It could be very different. If that’s the case you have to reallocate new resources. That means shifting resources away from events. Retraining those talents (people) to manage digital products as well. It’s all about being flexible now, and it kind of forces your hand to be critical as well. It’s time to make those hard decisions and maybe cut those low-performing products.
Do a risk assessment on your product bucket. Use that to inform future products. A reallocation of resources is something real that has to happen.
Talk to your audience (repeated). Customers and members will remember these interactions. Get comfortable listening.
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Virtual Event Platforms Are Out There, Listening and Ready to Fill in

by Media
I peeked into Education Week’s Online Summit last week and was very impressed. Halfway through they already had almost 1,000 live attendees and 550 comments! It took place on a platform called Brazen, that’s usually associated more with virtual career fairs. But it works very well for their summits which are centered around text-based chats with editorial staff—and experts in the K-12 world—and entering various “reporter” or “sponsor” rooms.
“Brazen has been with us since the beginning of our online summits,” Matthew Cibellis, director of programming for live and virtual events for Education Week, wrote to me today. “That’s because we were already using them for our online job fairs. The price tag back then was too high, and we didn’t have sufficient job fair sponsorship to merit keeping them. But my production director asked me to meet with them to discuss how versatile it could be for more content-driven meet-ups. Brazen only convinced me when I started vamping about what I’d like to create. They were nodding their heads and offering to come back to the table with solutions.
“With that negotiation settled, we learned what didn’t work in real time and what features we had to disable for the platform to work better. As the interactive experience is nearly completely text-based—we do show videos and livestreams which we embed in the event navigation—it didn’t seem that it would provide educators the cross-chatter interactivity that Brazen ensured me of. However, they were right. Professionals began cross-communicating within discussions, hearing something meaningful from another attendee and then replying to the attendee in real time.”
With Online Summit producer, Emma Prilliaman, Cibellis hopes to bring in new features soon—ones that he’s told Brazen they are seeking—and Brazen has already updated the platform in part with feedback provided last year.
Of course, it’s no mystery why virtual event platforms are top of mind now. In the webinar we held last Thursday—you can listen to it or download the transcript here—the three panelists mentioned some of the most popular platforms.
“We’ve used vFairs,” said Brian Cuthbert of Diversified Communications. “The single-most important thing [for a virtual event] is realistic expectations about what the sponsor and attendee can expect. You are not reimagining the show. How many leads can I expect? How will the learning be? Are you implementing video? Are there trainers or is there an audio webinar?”
Rich Luna of Meeting Professionals International named Facebook Live, YouTube Live. Discord StreamKit, Vimeo and IBM Live Streaming. “There are a number of really good platforms out there.” Alicia Evanko-Lewis of Northstar Travel Group has been pulling together an appointment event for sellers and buyers that they will use Zoom for. Other platforms that she named include Brandlive, eZ-XPO, Bravura Technologies and 6connect.
In an article on virtual platforms last week, Jennifer Cannon of Marketing Land wrote about the rush to these platforms taking place now. Mark Bornstein, VP of marketing at digital experience platform ON24, verified the uptick in business.
“In some cases, we see companies moving seminars and turning them into interactive multimedia webinars, which is great,” said Bornstein. “In some cases, there are larger trade shows and conferences, which we’re moving to more Netflix-style content or engagement hubs.” Bornstein highlighted two events that were repurposed from live events to digital-only, and both proved very successful.
Cannon then listed these tips for virtual-event seekers:
Start with the platforms you already have. Cibellis didn’t even know what Brazen was capable of doing until he met with them. In fact, they might not even have known what they were capable of until he told them what he needed—great lesson.
Leverage the communication tools you have. Skype, Slack, even Google Hangouts Meet gives you the option to live-stream and record meetings.
Think video. “What matters most is translating your scheduled live event content into a digital presentation,” Cannon writes. “And while live event platforms offer so much in terms of registration, Q&A, networking, virtual booths and more, if the main goal is to engage your audience and customers with your scheduled content, tools are within reach… Wistia’s Soapbox tool is another interesting option for recording presentation-style videos. Whatever you use to capture video, you can use a number of platforms to build collections akin to an event agenda (Ahem, YouTube).”
Experience matters (to a point). Yes, that was Stephen Colbert uploading videos from his bathtub last week. NPR’s “Live From Here” variety show is now a collection of home-based performances on Instagram tied together by a #livefromhome hashtag. “Content and authority is king, but experience is certainly changed right now. Don’t overthink it.”
Remember the landscape. There is no shortage of tools out there and, in the current atmosphere, they are ramping up each day.
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SIPA March Member News

by COVID 19Media
SIPA Members Excel in Their Close Coverage of COVID-19
BioWorld is closely following the race to find a treatment. Today’s article is titled Clinical Testing and The New Virtual Reality in Time of COVID-19. “It took less than a week from the publication of Science 37’s whitepaper on March 12 encouraging virtual clinical trials to the FDA’s decision to endorse the idea, tailored to address the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lee Landenberger writes. Yesterday’s story was Moving in Record Time, Industry, Government, Investors Focus on One Mission: Beat COVID-19.
InsideARM keeps all the COVID-19 articles affecting their niche—debt collection—in one place on their site. Today’s article focuses on a bill introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) to expand consumer protections for consumers and small businesses during a major disaster or emergency. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) support the bill.
Jefferson Communications’ Chesapeake Family, which covers family events and interests in and around Annapolis, Md., includes a special section on Family Life During the Coronavirus, and articles on Virtual Playdates for Kids, Maryland Expands Response to COVID-19 With Healthcare Open Enrollment, and Virtual Museum and Farm Tours to Enjoy at Home.
Of course, Kiplinger has timely articles such as: What to Do If You Lose Your Health Insurance During the Coronavirus Crisis; A CPA’s Guide to the New Later Tax-Filing Deadline; and Raise Your Hand If You’re Waiting for a Coronavirus Stimulus Check; plus a sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Daily E-mail Alerts on the Coronavirus’ Economic Impact.
Magna Publications has a Coronavirus FAQ that includes a conference at the end of May that is still on, advice for campus leaders, how Magna products can help faculty with online classes, and a course on developing an online course.
Business Management Daily has an article on Telework and Protecting Intellectual Property. “This week, millions of new teleworkers will fire up their laptops and log into their employer’s intranet, trying to do work while under orders to stay home. This is the new normal for what’s anticipated to be weeks – if not months. As you scramble to adjust and keep working, don’t forget about protecting your intellectual property. The fact is, having employees suddenly work from home can mean real vulnerability for your trade secrets and other invaluable information. Here’s how to address those concerns.”
Paperclip Communications has a webinar scheduled March 31 titled Supporting Your Marginalized & Vulnerable Students During COVID-19. “Frontline staff who work with students of color; LGBTQIA+ students; students with disabilities; first generation students; lower income students; and those with housing and food insecurity are working hard to help meet unique needs during this unprecedented crisis.”
In the food industry, Agri-Pulse helps farmers and manufacturers navigate the government and stay up to date on virus-related changes at USDA. (Thanks to Andy Kowl of ePublishing for sending that in. Agri-Pulse is also an ePublishing client.)

 

 

 

Hargreaves Joins Industry Dive as COO
Also at Industry Dive, Suzanne Struglinski has joined as public relations manager. She most recently worked as a media relations manager at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and director of membership engagement at the National Press Club.
“With a strong track record of year-over-year growth and a clear vision for our future, we knew it was time to add these unique skill sets to bring us to the next level,” said Sean Griffey, co-founder and CEO of Industry Dive. “As we add more publications to cover rapidly changing industries, Meg and Suzanne’s ideas and energy are a welcome addition to the team.”

 

Hargreaves.jpg

Meg Hargreaves has joined Industry Dive as chief operating officer. A 30-year veteran of the publishing and media space, Hargreaves has worked for some of the largest B2B information companies in the industry. She founded Rush River Media, a consultancy serving the information industry, after nearly 10 years at CQ Roll Call, where she was part of the team that managed the sale and transition from The Economist Group to FiscalNote. She is the current chair of SIIA’s board of directors and a past president of SIPA.

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‘Move as Fast as You Can’; Event Experts Advise on Postponements, Outreach and Platforms

by COVID 19Media
Whether you cancel or postpone an event should be “based on the information you have today. You have to look to your customers,” said Alicia Evanko-Lewis, executive vice president, Travel Group Global Events, Northstar Travel Group, during a webinar Thursday on Coronavirus and Your Events: How to Make Decisions that Protect Your Business and the Safety of Your Staff. (Members can watch the webinar or download a written transcript here.)
“For us our final decision to postpone our May event was customer feedback. You want to plan these things now. Because come the fall, everyone is moving their events. You want to get out ahead. Any event in May or June, it’s a tough call… You have to consider who your audience is, how big your event is and if you want to keep it in the same calendar year. The sooner you get there the better.”
Even in the couple days since that webinar, May events seem more fleeting. Evanko-Lewis offered an example of an event that they wanted to move from May to September. “Four days ago they had three options for us. We didn’t put it on an official hold; we have a great relationship with the hotel, and the sales manager said, ‘Here are your three options.’ We said great, we’ll have two days to think about it. Two days later she emailed us and said two of the three dates are gone, and she had no control because someone went into the centralized booking system.
“I would just encourage you to move as fast as you can and listen to your customers. Because when you get bombarded with feedback, it will help you make that decision.
Brian Cuthbert, group vice president, Diversified Communications U.S., agreed. “…think of this like a hot real estate market, if you don’t act quickly, you can lose it. Disney is a good example. We have an event going on there, 1000-plus people, it was mid-May—we had to move it to July. And it was not easy [getting a date in July]. August will also become a busy month for events when it’s not usually. If you are thinking about it, move and move quickly… The space may not be identical or you may need to make concessions. You have to think what can I accept and not accept, because there’s a lot of give and take right now. You can’t believe how incredibly busy things are now and space is getting eaten up from July through the end of the year.”
Crisis Communications
The panelists agreed on the importance for consistent messaging across all channels, with both Cuthbert and Evanko-Lewis saying that they have developed templates for all the communications they send out.
“Try to communicate what’s going as best you can while trying to keep it compact,” Cuthbert said. “We had that hosted buyer event this week that we postponed. On Monday we were supposed to announce the award recipients, but we decided to hold off. We were getting all the inquiries on social, and said that we’d get back to you shortly. Then today we sent out a single message announcing the postponement and laying out the situation. We’ve had events that we didn’t know when we’d reschedule. But we still wanted to get the message out. What’s happening is that if you wait too long on the postponement, you’re getting all the cancellation requests.
“We have created templates on postponement announcements, delay announcements. We have communications on all our websites on whether the event is happening or postponed. We have templates for all the emails going out that are being used uniformly. [It’s about] protecting our people so they don’t have to guess what to say. We even have templates for internal communications announcing postponements.”
Evanko-Lewis added that she has one person on her team who is responsible for writing everything. “In reality there’s about 10 [templates], and we wanted to remain consistent with our messaging, and if anyone had a question, we were all on group messaging… We want good will in the marketplace. We want to be there for our attendees, for our customers. We want to be able to create value when it’s not a great place in the marketplace. Hopefully [this good will] will put us in an even better place for next year.”
Rich Luna, director of publishing and editor in chief for Meeting Professionals International, gave their nine Crisis Communications Best Practices. These include Communicate Across Multiple Platforms, Be Clear and Consistent. Share Updates Early, Regularly, and Have Compassion. (See all nine here.) “What we’re hearing is always be proactive rather than reactive. And make sure you have a lawyer working with you.”
Northstar actually created a task force that meets weekly to discuss all the permutations taking place. Evanko emphasized that if you do cancel events, you want to continue to engage your communities. “If you are cancelling an event as we are today, try to give something else to them if they roll over [their registration]. Things that don’t cost us anything—whether that’s giving them a presence on our website or creating a new blog or newsletter, create new opportunities to give our sponsors a presence in 2020.
Virtual Event Platforms
What are the virtual event platforms that publishers are using? Education Week used Brazen—usually associated more with virtual job fairs—for their big Online Summit last week.
“We’ve used vFairs,” said Cuthbert. “The single most important thing [for a virtual event] is realistic expectations about what the sponsor and attendee can expect. You are not reimagining the show. How many leads can I expect? How will the learning be? Are you implementing video? Are there trainers or is there an audio webinar?”
Luna named Facebook Live, YouTube Live. Discord StreamKit, Vimeo and IBM Live Streaming. “There are a number of really good platforms out there.”
“We’ve been pulling together, in the past five days, a virtual event for the same time that the live event was scheduled,” Evanko-Lewis said. “We’re just doing an appointment event so we’re using Zoom.  We’re exploring other options for the content piece.
“The #1 priority is bringing those buyers and sellers together because we’re already getting requests, ‘Hey, can you get me the list? I’ll set those appointments up myself.’ Zoom will handle the appointments. We will have content available.”
The platforms that she named include Brandlive, eZ-XPO, Bravura Technologies and 6connect communications.
Members can listen to the webinar or download a written transcript here. Also see a companion article on the Northstar Meetings Group site here.