It has been a challenging year, to say the least. But that just could make our annual What’s IN and What’s OUT in Niche Publishing List even more necessary. As always, we’ll leave (most of) the politics, world news, entertainment and sports stuff to others and stick to our own topics.

Two years ago, Fast Company posted an article titled How to Redesign Your Days to Give You Back a Few Extra Hours Every Week. The author listed five categories where we can make changes:

Quit Something;
Limit Something;
Pause Something;
Delegate Something; and
Add Something.

Contemplating these five areas during a pandemic and cultural reckoning may yield some new answers. Let’s take a closer look.

For Quit Something, they wrote “Quit a recurring meeting. Quit a committee. Quit Facebook. Quit Candy Crush.” I’d say it’s a good time to quit a poor policy: going with the same old speakers. Some audience favs are okay but take some extra time to research and find new and diverse speakers for your next webinar, podcast or virtual event. Almost everyone is available these days. With those new speakers might just come a new audience. Growth consultant Robyn Duda, who moderated a great events panel for us at BIMS, led a charge to Change the Stage earlier this year. “Whether the content is digital or physical, I am challenging us all to set the bar higher, to make our stages and screens inclusive of new, different voices.”

For Limit Something, how about limiting a lack of collaboration? “Journalism has become more collaborative, but our culture, for the most part, has not,” writes Bo Hee Kim, director of newsroom strategy for The New York Times, in NiemanLab’s Predictions for 2021. “Leaders will need to believe that newsroom culture has a bigger impact on the journalism than they understood in previous years—that a strong team dynamic is as important as their sharp and shiny stars. Managers are key to this transition and will need to reset with a new definition of success, followed by support and training to change.”

For Pause Something, they wrote: “[Go] on a walk in the middle of the day. [Give] yourself permission to run an errand during your lunch break. Stopping for a moment to assert your ability to do the non-urgent reduces the sense that everything has to happen at a frenetic pace, and that there’s no time to slow down.” Wow, this has just multiplied in its relevancy! Many of us are starting our work day earlier and ending later, amplifying the need to take breaks. There is one problem, however. In his book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Dan Pink wrote: “Research shows us that social breaks are better than solo breaks—taking a break with somebody else is more restorative than doing it on your own.” That may not be easy right now. Try reaching out to a neighbor for a socially distant walk or call a friend while you walk.

Delegate Something has become a bit tougher in these times, for two reasons, I think. One, we’re interacting even less, of course, with co-workers so delegating something takes more intentional outreach. And two, maybe “delegate” isn’t a great word anymore because we only think of giving tasks to someone less senior, rather than sharing tasks and perhaps giving one or two to someone who is more suited to them, regardless of your command chain. Writes Fast Company: “As you plan your day, ask yourself: Is this something that I really need to do myself, or could someone else do this instead?” If this makes you reach out to a colleague, then that’s a good thing. A 10-minute phone call can supersede 30 minutes of emails sometimes.

For Add Something, their advice made me chuckle a bit. “Add an exercise class, book a trip, plan a get-together with friends.” Can’t do, can’t do, can’t do. Okay, well, actually, I do have a virtual yoga class at 5:45 pm today. At our last staff meeting, our CEO got such a good reaction to his request for favorite holiday cookies that he’s now asking for recipes to compile into a guide. That is one very enticing and tasteful addition that can be replicated in many ways.

In his keynote at BIMS 2020 two weeks ago, National Journal president Kevin Turpin spoke about the transformation that his company underwent 10 years ago, from publisher to information services organization. “There were a number of strategic things we did to get here today,” he said. Foremost in that was asking the right questions.

“We had a really deep dedication to getting to know our audience as best we could,” Turpin said. “Knowing what their top challenges are, how those challenges are changing? ‘What are the new things that are getting into your budget that wasn’t there five years ago? How are you managing the office differently?’

“We spent a year with our customers, asking them a set of questions over and over. The most important one was, ‘What keeps you effective?’”

Previously, Turpin had spoken more broadly about transformation. “When businesses are trying to recreate themselves and change, they spend too much time inside, in strategy meetings, batting around ideas that they think will work. We don’t spend enough time going around. How are [our customers’] jobs changing? What are they thinking about? What are they investing in this year? This will give you solutions.”

Of course, “going around” means something different these days—phone, Zoom, social media, Slack. But the idea of asking important questions of your customers remains paramount. Sales consultant Ryan Dohrn just wrote about this in an article on Editor & Publisher, saying “What keeps you up at night?” just isn’t good enough anymore.

“Your questions simply have to be better. One of your main questions that makes me nuts and that I hear in my ad sales training is this: ‘Tell me more about your business.’ C’mon, you’re better than that… And then, ‘What’s your budget?’ You can do better than that.

“Those are three questions we do need to ask, but maybe ask them in a more vibrant kind of way so that we don’t sound like every other media salesperson that’s calling on that customer,” Dohrn wrote.

I recall another sales consultant who liked to visit the offices of her clients and observe what sat on top of customers’ desks—that would tell what projects were most important. That also can’t happen now, of course, though we can see what books might be on someone’s shelves or what hangs on their walls.

“Here are four [questions] that I really like to ask,” Dohrn continued.

1. “When you agreed to meet with me, what business challenge or problem were you hoping that I could help you solve?”

2. “If I could give you a magic wand that you wave, what business challenge could I help you solve?”

3. “When you think about competing here in our community or others in your competitive set, do you want to be seen as having some sort of a presence out there? Do you want to be competitive? Or do you want to be dominant?” (He said that the three options will lead him towards a budget that’s more actual.)

4. “If everything went perfectly with your marketing campaign with me, what would the perfect end result be for you?” or “If I’m going to keep you for a lifetime as a customer, what do I need to do?”

Number four is interesting because we just had an events panel speak at BIMS, and much of their advice was knowing what results you want to see from your event before scripting it.

In a 2020 Association Benchmarking Report, only 38% of respondents said they are conducting communication-specific surveys at least once every 12–24 months to stay on top of members’ needs. And only half believe they have a good understanding of their reader, member and advertiser needs.

“What’s the first question [customers] ask you every time you check in?” Turpin asked. “Those top three feed into ideation. Let’s take the challenges of what we learned in spending time with top clients. This is where our transformation is going to go.”

It’s always a proud feeling when I can write about innovation in our own SIIA backyard. Over the last few years, I’ve had the privilege of proofreading the very excellent Year in Review, an annual synopsis of member activities from another division here, FISD. Normally, the publication highlights members with photos from FISD events around the globe. That’s not possible this year, of course.

“Though the pandemic impacted our ability to gather together in person, your friends and colleagues, and we at FISD too, would love to see what you’ve been up to this year and include your photos in the Year in Review. Please send us your selfies…” To get their members in the mood, FISD included selfies of staff in the email (which you see above). Not only does this convey a fun holiday feeling to their community, but it makes staff feel good as well. Just seems like a win-win all the way around. I will be sure to include some snippets when the publication is complete.

Last week I wrote about the importance of this type of innovation and gave some examples. A 2020 survey from Marketing General found that “a culture of innovation is the critical driver” for creating member/subscriber value. ”Try something new or you’ll plateau and decline,” one respondent said. Those who have seen member/subscriber gains “are significantly more likely to have a process in place for innovation and new ideas.”

Since then, I’ve come across more examples and wanted to share them:

Extend and extol your events. Informa Markets pivoted—did you know “pivot” is the marketing word of the year?—their October 6-9 Festival of Licensing into an innovative virtual event. The restructured event featured Trivial Pursuit, an MTV-styled workout and Spongebob Squarepants-themed yoga. Also notice the time frame. They transformed the three-day trade show into a three-week experience over a three-month period. Wrote Matt Swenson on the TSNN site: “After-hour activities and built-in breaks like the Spongebob and board game activations were added to alleviate the strain of attending a trade show on a computer. ‘We wanted to quell virtual attendee burnout,’ said Anna Knight, vice president of Informa’s Global Licensing Group. ‘We hope that these styles of events will be as inclusive as possible and enable participation for those unable to attend in 2021 and also those who perhaps have not thought about attending previously.’”

Use pricing research to grow revenue. In an article on Digital Content Next last month, Ashley Deibert, CMO of Piano, spoke to Veebha Mehta, CMO at Crain Communications, about how they use pricing research to make sure they are not leaving significant revenue on the table. “Using a combination of price research and live price testing, Crain ran a promotional program to drive up their subscriptions. Significantly, they discovered that many of their trusted products were priced far below what consumers were willing to pay. This data empowered Crain to adjust prices in order to meet revenue targets, as well as experiment with trial offers to attract and retain new subscribers.” Mehta said that it was also valuable to “decouple its print and digital pricing. Price testing for Crain’s Chicago Business… showed that the demand for digital was higher than for print.”

Get creative with Zoom. I mentioned this Friday but didn’t show the picture. The Editorial Freelancers Association held a virtual chapter meeting in October. “We are getting the hang of this new format and took advantage of Zoom’s features to maximize our time together.” Nothing special there, but the accompanying photo of participants is not the Brady Bunch boxes that we always see, but The Hollywood Squares! Can a Match Game or Family Feud configuration be next?

Conduct weekly live interviews on Facebook. Chesapeake Family continues to do hard-hitting interviews on their Facebook channel every Friday at 2 pm. On Friday, “Shantelle Bisson discussed tips for getting through the holidays with your kids, without losing your cool—a special challenge this year while we are living in close quarters due to COVID.” “I really like to do those virtual interviews as long as we can give 2-3 days notice,” publisher Donna Jefferson said, adding it’s a good platform to talk about timely topics. Previous interviews focused on Virtual School From Home Tips and Navy Football Takes on Racism with an assistant coach and running back. This Friday’s talk is titled Pay It Forward, quite appropriate for this time of year and 2020 when so many people are having a tough time.

Videos about innovation. On the National Association of Broadcasters website, under a section titled Innovation Stories Videos, a two-minute video shows how Beasley Media Group is reaching young audiences with a novel strategy for a radio broadcasting organization—investing in competitive video gaming. The clip features Lori Burgess, COO for Beasley’s esports division. “Younger consumers around the world…are heavily invested in video gaming,” she said. “And we really saw an opportunity to get very, very immersed in this space and start to attract and develop these relationships with younger consumers when they’re forming their decisions about what matters most to them.”

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A 6th grade teacher here in northern Virginia made positive headlines last week for teaching virtually from a treehouse. Nellie Williams said “a lot of math was involved” to remodel the space this summer with her husband, but she enjoys the serenity and uniqueness of the unconventional classroom—and how it connects with students.“They are really excited to have a teacher that is teaching from a treehouse,” she said.

That got me thinking again about innovation. A 2020 survey from Marketing General found that “a culture of innovation is the critical driver” for creating member/subscriber value. ”Try something new or you’ll plateau and decline,” one respondent said. Those who have seen member/subscriber gains “are significantly more likely to have a process in place for innovation and new ideas.”

Innovation is hard. It involves taking chances, which during a pandemic is not easy. I’m not sure what the publisher equivalent of a treehouse is; maybe it could lead to new ideas about where speakers present from. Here are a few more ideas I’ve come across.

Virtual shuttle ride. When the Institute of Food Technologists transitioned its Annual Meeting and Food Expo to SHIFT20 Virtual Event and Expo, organizers didn’t want to lose all of the networking opportunities that participants had become used to, reports Associations Now. Since shuttle rides often lead to spontaneous conversations and connections (I’ve actually had a dew of those myself on the way to hotels or an evening reception), IFT hosted a 15-minute virtual shuttle ride before every evening event. Each night, two IFT members moderated a live shuttle-bus-themed discussion with a guest to chat about the ideas emerging at SHIFT20.

Trivia nights.Atlas Obscura invites members to a Trivia Night, or as they call it, Convocation of the Atlas Obscura Guild of Trivial Knowledge and Fascinating Ephemera. “During this trivia experience, you can team up with other subscribing members of Atlas Obscura’s membership community by either setting up a team with them independently OR by being grouped with other players on the day of the experience. It’s a terrific chance to engage with other members of the Atlas Obscura community!” Additionally, discussions often touch on fascinating topics, such as the best hidden travel spots or Top Offshore Sportsbooks, making it a rich and varied experience for all attendees.

Custom product development. “All it took was a blanket to point Futurism in a new direction,” writes Digiday’s Max Willens, who moderated Friday’s BIMS 2020 Q&A with National Journal’s Kevin Turpin. “Last year, the science-focused publisher produced the Gravity Blanket, a weighted blanket designed to help with insomnia, anxiety and other conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. After selling 65,000 of them (with some help from a feature on Good Morning America), the publisher created Futurism Products, an eight-person team to develop more products.” That led to Crypto Candle, which reveals a coin when it melts that can be redeemed for bitcoin.

Personalized guides and messages. Your writers are becoming more familiar to your audience day-by-remote-day. To do what Cameo does with celebrities and charge for those writers wishing happy birthday is a bit much. But the idea of making those connections has merit. At Schibsted, a large media site in Norway and Sweden, new subscribers can choose one of their favorite editors or journalists as a guide through the onboarding period. These personalized onboarding emails have a higher unique opening rate: 63% versus 38% for the standard onboarding process. The retention rate after the first renewal is also five percentage points higher.

Swag boxes. This trend will probably get even more popular in early 2021. In late June, the American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science and the Association of Genetic Technologists sent swag boxes to attendees—JAM Packs—that included a kazoo. Guess what the concerts were called? The Daily Kazoom. Bustle Digital Group sent out yoga mats for its virtual yoga retreat, complimentary for the first 150 attendees to RSVP. BIO Digital (Biotechnology Innovation Organization) took place in June with more than 7,000 participants from 64 countries. To foster community, they changed the meeting’s tagline from “Beyond” to “Nothing Stops Innovation.” Then, in advance of the conference, BIO mailed all speakers a custom mug with the new tagline. “It was an added expense, but worth it because it gave speakers brand recognition onscreen that reflected togetherness,” said Erin Lee, VP of marketing operations and customer experience. You’d think sponsorship could also be possible for that.