Through two years of reader research, The Atlantic determined that people who are familiar with their brand appreciate the content range that it offers. So in marketing emails to prospective subscribers, they emphasize that range. “The reader needs help me stay intentional in how we’re using our readers’ time,” said associate editor Isabel Fattal. How are using your reader needs to get more engagement? Publishers weigh in.
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Welcome to the second installment of our new feature: Right on Q. Today we talk to Lilia LaGesse, digital strategist, designer and creative director with a long list of association and organization experience.
AMPLIFY: What trends do you see for this year? Is sustainability becoming an issue, virtual reality? How are you looking at 2022?
Lilia: There are two main trends that I foresee in the new year, particularly as it pertains to digital design and strategy. One is the continued growth of video content. Short-form videos are still the most common marketing tool that you’re seeing, but there’s really been a growth in long-form content. Laura Porto Stockwell, a renowned strategist for global brands whom I greatly admire, recently highlighted how platforms such as TikTok, which is the fastest growing social media network ever with a mind-blowing 1 billion monthly active users, extended their video length to three minutes. So video—whether it be live action or motion graphics—will definitely start to replace static assets to become more of a brand cornerstone. You hear a lot about how our attention spans may be getting shorter, but the reality is that we just have so much more content being thrown at us. The focus for associations and publishing in 2022 should be to make sure that this new video content is relevant to and engaging for their viewers.
But before any members decide to throw up a long, unedited video monologue, please make sure that you have a production plan in place and take the time to strategically think through the content creation because it will need to be repurposed across multiple platforms—whether within a publication or onto your social media feeds. All video content should incorporate your brand—that’s where design comes in—so I encourage associations to really think about how they’d like to tell their brand story in this medium in the new year.
AMPLIFY: And the second trend?
Lilia: It’s a little bit further out, but I’m very excited about the metaverse. Although still very much in its infancy and admittedly a bit clunky, you see how many tech companies—whether it’s Facebook, now known as Meta, or Microsoft, which just acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion—and game makers are investing in this. So much of our association revenue is focused on these big annual conferences, and we had to switch to virtual or hybrid options during the pandemic. It’s great that we’re getting to meet in person now, but in the years ahead, I anticipate that we will find new ways to re-envision this key aspect of member engagement. The metaverse will most likely be a part of that.
For association publishing, the importance of creating an interactive and engaging experience that is tailored to your readers’ needs will continue to be great. Thinking through how that reading experience translates to the metaverse is exciting. A lot comes back to immersive storytelling and making sure that you have the systems and processes in place to support this growth in content creation.
AMPLIFY: I need to read up more on that, especially hearing you now.
LILIA: It’s been fascinating to see companies such as Nike and some luxury brands get involved. So thinking through how you might build your virtual presence matters, and if we look at the video gaming space and how people engaged in that realm even before but especially during the pandemic, they’re really ahead of the curve. I’m curious to see how all this might translate to association engagement with our members. It could certainly expand our reach.
AMPLIFY: Given all this “meta-ology,” we know that associations still rely on print, so how does that enter into the equation?
Lilia: Oh, it’s definitely still there. I’m a firm believer that print is not dead, and I think that screen fatigue is real. What has changed is how we utilize print as a tool in our overall marketing and outreach efforts as associations. Print is now just one of many extensions of your association brand. You touched on sustainability earlier, and there is an expectation, particularly among younger demographics, that brands and organizations will integrate, if not lead the way on, sustainability efforts. There are so many great, high-quality recycled paper options out there right now. Having been a designer for many years, I’ve seen how much these papers have improved. Using eco-friendly packaging for items such as conference- or member-welcome packages is one way to engage with your members. And direct-mail postcards and brochures—printed on recycled paper—remain very useful tools to reach members. Perhaps we’re not printing the huge reports or magazines of years past, but we can certainly still create direct-mail pieces that highlight key data points or compelling quotes from these publications and then direct readers to access the full version online.
AMPLIFY: It’s also important for associations to let members know that they are acting on these efforts.
Lilia: Yes, one can note that these pieces are printed on recycled content, but sustainability should also be integrated into your value proposition. You need to let members know that you care about the planet. Print is an important way to give us a break from screens (just make sure that you have your members’ preferred mailing addresses in this age of hybrid work!). When you receive something tactile that looks beautiful and has compelling content, it can have a huge impact.
AMPLIFY: What is your wish list when you when you start working with a client—the most important factors to ensure a successful outcome?
Lilia: First and foremost, I am actively listening and trying to understand what the problem or pain point is that I’m being brought on to address. There should also be a willingness to thoughtfully question and reconsider how things have been done in the past. You want to get everyone on the same page, manage expectations, and provide an opportunity to generate new ideas. Sometimes people disagree about the problem we’re trying to solve, so it’s really important to make sure that everyone is in alignment. My final wish list item would be collaboration. One idea that’s driven my creative decisions is the concept of designing with rather than designing for people. An aspect that I’ve loved about my career, particularly as it shifted from design to more strategic and creative leadership roles, is the opportunity to work with individuals from a variety of backgrounds. I appreciate the diversity of ideas and learning something new along the way.
AMPLIFY: Okay, last question. We’re living in such a different world from two years ago. How has that impacted the way you think?
Lilia: I do miss seeing people more regularly and having those networking opportunities, but I’m excited by the changes I’ve seen over the past two years. We’re living through a transformative moment, not just for our country, but for the globe—between the pandemic and the political, environmental and societal changes. Burnout is real—self-care is so important—but I truly believe that this period has helped many people rethink how they do things not just professionally, but personally. I really appreciate how the tech journalist Kara Swisher framed this moment as the Great Reassessment (as opposed to the Great Resignation). Inherent to this concept of reassessment is a greater willingness to try new ways of doing things. So as a strategist and creative director, what’s not to love about helping others re-envision how they might approach their communication projects?
Lilia can be reached at lilia.lagesse@gmail.com. She also wants to remind our readers of the upcoming event: Speed Networking: Meet your Freelancing Match (Virtual Event), Feb. 9 at 4 pm. You can register here.
Watching Harvard Business Review’s Christine vs Work episode on How to Find a Mentor, I see why Liu is so popular. She’s smart, has fun and says what others just think—“Am I too old to have a mentor?” They must have “way more things on their plate.” Publishers are branching out with video, using it not only to build audience but to inform other products.
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WASHINGTON, DC. — Paul Lekas, Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy of SIIA, issued the following statement regarding The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (S.2992) introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA):
“SIIA and our members support balanced and targeted legislative and regulatory measures designed to maintain and foster a healthy digital ecosystem. S.2992 contains fundamental flaws that render the bill neither balanced nor targeted.
“If enacted, S.2992 will have far reaching consequences for the U.S. economy. It rewrites some of the most basic assumptions of antitrust law, and will have direct effects on all American consumers and virtually all American businesses. It would force consumers to pay more for free or low-cost services they rely on every day and set inconvenient barriers to access these services. It would restrict the ability of small and medium-sized businesses to access tools essential to reaching customers and managing operations. This will increase the costs of doing business and result in higher prices for consumers. Moreover, if enacted, S.2992 will have consequences for longer term U.S. national security and the global competitiveness of U.S. companies.
“We are particularly troubled that the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled markup of the bill without holding even a single hearing. This is too important a matter to rush and requires a thoughtful approach that creates policy designed to further consumer protection, U.S. innovation, and healthy competition.
“Rather than devoting time to this bill, Congress should develop and pass balanced, comprehensive federal privacy law. The idea of a federal privacy law has bipartisan support and, properly crafted, provides a better path to reach the goals of S.2992 by providing essential consumer protections and fostering a stronger innovation environment in the United States.
“SIIA stands ready to work with Congress, the administration and other stakeholders to advance consumer privacy and promote innovation in digital technology.”
ABOUT SIIA:
SIIA, the principal U.S. trade association for the software and digital content industries, with over 450 members, is the largest association of software and content publishers in the country. We represent financial information providers, educational technology companies, publishers, start-up firms, and some of the largest and most recognizable corporations in the world.
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Not even a full month into the new year, it’s safe to say that M&A is back in B2B media. Recent weeks have seen a surge of deals including Endeavor Business Media, the industry’s most aggressive strategic buyer prior to the pandemic, acquiring ISE Magazine and ISE Expo; Crain Communications snapping up The Journal of Precision Medicine and its Precision Medicine Leaders Summit; and Informa buying the Premier Show Group (and don’t forget Thomas capping off 2021 with its whopping $300 million sale to Xometry).
Among the biggest deals of the year so far is the $120 million sale of 10-year-old MJBiz, a media and events company serving the cannabis and delta 8 THC industry, to pure play events giant Emerald Expositions. M&A advisors Grimes, McGovern & Associates represented MJBiz in its sale and we caught up with CEO John McGovern to get his thoughts on this recent surge in M&A, what buyers are looking for and whether events are still an attractive buy as the pandemic continues to drag on.
AMPLIFY: We’re now entering the third year of a pandemic. In the first year, the market embraced virtual events, with mixed results. In the second year, we saw the return of smaller scale live and hybrid events. What’s the current appetite for events as an acquisition? What are potential buyers looking for with events and how has this changed from pre-pandemic?
John McGovern: Just two years before, when I acquired the M&A firm, probably 70 percent of our efforts were focused on pure events businesses. After all the cancellations due to the pandemic, I was encouraged in the summer of 2020 when we got offers for pure-play events businesses that had a zero P&L for 2020—no events were going to be held and there were no meaningful media or other revenue streams in those particular businesses.
That told me something—these businesses do have value and do still appeal to buyers regardless of whether or not they have the same number of events in the last 12 months as they had in the previous 12 months. In 4Q 2020, transactions came back and we ended up doing the normal number of transactions with media and events businesses.
The current appetite is very good. In the 18 months leading into the pandemic, you had, I’m going to say, between five and 10 new or returning private equity owners come into what is a relatively small industry in B2B events and related properties. There’s capital there, those funds have been raised for these purposes and M&A is a big part of their strategy to grow those businesses and return value back to their investors and management teams.
It remains a healthy market. Most of these transactions happen right after their main event has occurred because the seller wants to keep the profits, so what transfers on closing day is the data. The value is in the data that these businesses have about their audience and their exhibitors and sponsors and the more that they see themselves as data businesses, the better off they will be.
AMPLIFY: Interesting, this marketplace has seen a shift in media companies really becoming events companies with media. Are they now starting to become data companies where the events are just another channel to generate that data?
McGovern: It’s a combination. Going into the post-Covid world, where you have a chance that something like this could happen again, the Holy Grail is a well-integrated media, events and data business. We know there’s data two ways–either a data subscription product with recurring revenue which has higher valuations, maybe even higher than events, which everybody wants to have but those are a bit tougher to start or find.
The other way is your back-end data, your first party data, your internal database and how strong that is. People like [Questex CEO] Paul Miller been talking about this for 15 years. If you’ve got a business where you can tell a potential customer, ‘here’s a set of people, here’s the websites they looked at, here’s the articles they opened, here’s the booth they stopped during an event and here’s the sessions they attended,’ that really has not changed, in terms of being a priority for media and events businesses. If anything, Covid has made it more important to have strong data and to bring in media. We have buyers who are pure-play event companies that previously never wanted to look at a business that had a media component because it’s a lower margin business that requires different types of people and different kinds of systems to sell media than it does to sell booths and registrations.
It was tough to get them to look at a business that had media but now that has changed and it’s viewed as wise to have that 12-month-a-year engagement with the audience in between all the events.
AMPLIFY: So what does someone bringing their company to market this year need to be aware of about dealmaking in this current pandemic environment?
McGovern: For the independently-owned crowd, the ABCs of dealmaking are clean financials, a good, accurate view on the part of the sellers and firms like us on what their profitability is, what’s the owner involvement and what the owners take out of the business—that all plays into the value.
And then depending on the size of the business, can you have a data subscription product for your market that is need-to-have, not nice-to-have, an events business, both virtual and live, and a media business that’s well integrated on the back-end with a unified database. And on the media side they need to be selling campaigns and have that business be lead-based or campaign based, as opposed to space-based.
AMPLIFY: Grimes, McGovern & Associates represented MJBiz in its $120 million sale to Emerald. What were the key selling points?
McGovern: Well, let’s put it this way, some of the many things that a buyer wants to see in a business like that are,
I think you can probably make the assumption that the MJBiz folks has some of these attributes and Emerald was smart enough to see them.
AMPLIFY: You said people are looking for a market that’s in its infancy. That’s cannabis obviously but are there other markets to keep an eye on for the near future?
McGovern: If you back into it from what’s most capitalized on Wall Street, even though we don’t have a lot of public companies in our world – just a handful of public company buyers – the most capitalized are technology, healthcare and then probably energy. Those are usually the leading markets and it’s about finding new niches in those areas.
On the energy side, it’s definitely the renewable, the sustainability side which even veers into smart cities touching on government and public works type of stuff. With the infrastructure bill, you expect that to be a good area. Then within healthcare, pharma and then technology, there’s just lots and lots of new categories and categories that aren’t new, but just strong and growing.
There are too many niches to mention and there are new ones being born all the time. The event and media industry, we could say, is pretty good at creating new businesses around new topics quickly and early. It’s important in our market that that entrepreneurial energy exists and they succeed in launching.
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