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‘It Just Kind of Built on Itself’; 8 Ideas for Varying Your Content

by Media
“We wrote a story about a company that was making its employees come in when they were sick until they were proven to have COVID-19. It’s a $1 billion company and we were telling the story about it. We wrote about another company that went into bankruptcy and their truckers were calling into our XM radio show talking about how their cards were being cut off. Those are the things people care about.”
That’s from Craig Fuller, founder and CEO of FreightWaves, a member of our Connectiv division, in an interview with my colleague Matt Kinsman. The bankruptcy story, about the collapse of Celadon, earned FreightWaves a 2020 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best News Coverage. FreightWaves.com also won best website for its revenue category.
It’s great to see that a company like FreightWaves, which had no origins in media, now puts such importance on content. “As we started to go to market, we realized that every successful futures market has an ecosystem of news and data and that didn’t exist with freight logistics,” said Fuller. “FreightWaves was started to evangelize and inform how futures work but we also knew that if it was just about trucking futures, no one would read it. We started writing about things like Tesla, Amazon, hurricanes… and it just kind of built on itself.”
Here are 8 more ways to put good content out there:
1. Increase your emails.
The new Reuters Digital News Report said that the email daily update now accounts for 60% of all news emails and it is generally well-received by both news lovers as well as daily briefers. The reasons that this is such a popular product are: simplicity, finish-ability, curation and serendipity. Globally, close to half (44%) of all respondents say they do read most of their news emails.
2. Video is still killing it, especially if you have international aspirations.
While 67% of those polled by Reuters say they access online news video on a weekly basis, in some countries that number goes as high as 95%. So it’s a good idea to increase your video output. “Across countries, over half (52%) access video news via a third-party platform each week, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, with a third (33%) accessing via news websites and apps.”
3. Podcasts rising.
From the report: “The underlying [podcast] picture remains one of growth. Our data show an overall rise in podcast listening to 31% (+3) across a basket of 20 countries [including] the U.S. (36%). Podcasts can be five minutes or 50 minutes and in a variety of formats, so they’re relatively easy to start—even now—and people are listening more.
4. Use emotion in your copy.
“Emotional connections happen because we’re human, and we’re built for these connections, wired for them, and rely on them to live a rich, meaningful life,” said the famous “Marketoonist” Tom Fishburne. “Despite our significant advances in science and technology, human emotion (mainly our subconscious) will always be core to our DNA.”
5. Start a weekly content feature that brings people back.
Inc. launched a weekly webinar called “Real Talk.” “It’s people who have had success and are willing to give back to entrepreneurs and the small business community and answer questions for an hour,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief. Haymarket’s PRWeek has two that they’ve started during the pandemic: Lockdown Life and Coffee Break.
6. Get your community “together” to talk content.
One of our other divisions, AM&P, is hosting virtual get-togethers on Fridays at lunchtime to either talk about a topic—diversity, alternative revenue, accessibility—or just offer each other support. Joanne Persico, president of SIPA member ONEcount, has been holding “Bold Minds Virtual Mixers” every Wednesday at 5:30 pm.
7. Experiment now.
By seeing what sticks now, you’re adding to your future. “When we come back [to live events], virtual elements will still be a big part going forward,” said Steve Barrett, VP and editorial director for Haymarket Media’s PRWeek. “We’ll still do virtual stuff because we’ve seen the potential of it. In terms of the bigger events, you have to add value in different ways than you would for a physical event… We’re all learning, there’s no playbook.”
8. Mix live and recorded content.
Barrett acknowledges that “pre-shot” content is often a safer way to go for awards and webinars. But he prefers a mix. “I think [people] do like seeing more personality” that comes from live content, he said. “All pre-recrorded can come off as a bit dry. And we’re all learning. I do think virtual events will progress massively over the next 12 months.” Jared Waters of BVR also recommends a mix of live and pre-recorded content, emphasizing that speakers often have a preference that should be respected.
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How MedLearn Media Doubled Website Traffic by Letting Its Audience Shine

by COVID 19Media
The BiPAP-masked patient… shouted through a positive pressure of 18/8 cm, “do you know why ants don’t get sick?”
“No, I don’t. Why?”
And through a positive pressure-enhanced smile, the patient answered, “because they have anty-bodies!” Then she laughed upstream against the onrushing BiPAP airflow.
…My laughing choked off as I watched her oxygen saturation drop from a very low 87%, to a really, really low 84%, to a breathtakingly low 81%.
— Michael A. Salvatore, MD, physician advisor and medical director of the palliative care team at Beebe Healthcare in Delaware, writing on MedLearn Media’s Frontline Friday
When longtime SIPA member MedLearn Media decided to call one of their pandemic features Frontline Friday, it was for good reason. These first-person dispatches from nurses, doctors and hospital personnel are searing to read.
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“Since we serve the healthcare market, we’ve gotten to see firsthand some of the real experiences that our market is facing on a day-in and day-out basis over the past 10 weeks,” Angela Kornegor, executive director of MedLearn Media, wrote me in late May. “The public health emergency has pulled our community and subscriber base together and the news and stories that have been pouring in have been remarkable to say the least. Our overall traffic in these past 10 weeks has doubled and in turn has inspired some significant pivoting in our communications.”

Early on, they took the stance that they would be “a confidant and trusted source of news and information for our subscribers,” Kornegor continued, “as we wanted to provide some normalcy to our audience as they were getting rocked day in and day out by the tragedy and uncertainty healthcare was facing.”
Health care has always been a popular niche for SIPA members. But the COVID-19 crisis has added so many new layers to their audience relationships.

Chuck Buck, publisher of RACmonitor, a division of MedLearn Media, told me last week that they started the increased coverage by boosting their popular podcast, Monitor Mondays—which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary—from 30 to 60 minutes.

“Because of the pandemic, there was so much confusion to deal with and just a tangle of regulations,” Buck said. “So we would have 30 minutes of content with our regular panelists, and then field the questions, which just kept coming on a daily basis. We saw big audience numbers. Wanting to leverage that and create more engagement led us to doctors on frontlines dealing with these issues.”

The initial thought might be that doctors would not want to relive what they were seeing, but Buck said the writing provided a form of relief. “I noticed this when I was a patient recently. They’re so passionate about their work and feel their work isn’t well received always. This gave them an outlet to express their passion of care giving. What they’re experiencing, the stories, are unbelievable.”
“What we did was roll out three new featured weekly segments on topics that we don’t traditionally write about, which are more lifestyle pieces then our traditional news on healthcare rules and regulations,” Kornegor said. The other two segments are Stay at Home Kids and The Saturday Post. “These new segments have driven our traffic up by 40% during the pandemic, and we are developing additional sponsor and advertising opportunities within these new segments and laying the ground work for a new subscription model.”
At the pandemic’s beginning, a letter was sent from the publisher to subscribers, letting them know the coverage that was planned—this elicited positive responses from subscribers all over the U.S.
“We then invited more healthcare professionals to the podcast to share and tell their stories of what they have been experiencing and seeing each week,” Kornegor said. “The response on the new format was astonishing. Our live attendance to our podcasts increased by 50% which not only gave us great insight and feedback into what our customers were looking for and craving, but gave us intel on topics we could produce webcast topics around.”
They also added a COVID category on their news site, where subscribers could find what they needed to know during the pandemic, “as the news that was coming in, was more than what we could output in our weekly newsletter,” Kornegor said.
Buck also admires the Stay at Home Kids features. “I was so surprised how articulate these kids are—they’re stuck at home on lockdown so their point of view was amazing. “The adults kind of let us down,” they said.
“Quarantine may have taken things away from me, but it was also an eye-opener to how grateful I should be, and a reminder that I need to start laying aside time for myself as well,” wrote Delaney Grider, a 14-year-old freshman from Fishers, Ind. “Never take your health or your friends for granted—you never know if it’s going to be months until you can see them again.”
The other new column, the Saturday Post, was so named because of the personal and wide-ranging nature of writing they were getting. “Every home had a Saturday Evening Post,” Buck recalled. “These have been incredible—really great personal essays.”
Erica E. Remer, MD, wrote a column titled, “COVID-19: Do you have ‘thinkihadititis?’” Another article included a firsthand account of contact tracing in Hangzhou, China. When the intersection of the racial protests started, another doctor, Steven Moffic, wrote about Billie Holiday and that haunting song Strange Fruit.
“For me it’s been a fun enterprise,” Buck said. “Gives our audience a different perspective. We did get one of our sponsors to sponsor Frontline Fridays. And we’ve seen a significant increase in podcast listenership on Mondays and Tuesdays.” Most of their revenue comes from webcasts, advertising and sponsorships.
As far as keeping the expanded coverage, Buck said they were going to let the audience determine that—gauging by number of questions they get, columns submitted, etc.
“The nature of the virus has changed significantly since we first started reporting. A lot of us thought it would be here then gone. Every day brings a greater sense of reality until a vaccine can be found. If we can in a moment engage and just share with our audience other points of view…”
He didn’t really have to finish that thought.
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Meet the New Guard: How FreightWaves Is Driving 250% Growth in Both Its Media and Data Businesses

by COVID 19

Editor’s Note: Meet FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller at the upcoming virtual 2020 Business Information & Media Summit, Dec. 2-Dec. 4 for a session on “How FreightWaves Created a One-Two Punch with Marketing Services and Subscription Data.” Register here.  

For much of the media and information industry, 2020 has eclipsed the 2008 recession as the new standard for hard times.

But that’s certainly not the case for all, particularly those B2B information companies in the right markets with the right product mix.

Enter FreightWaves, which serves the $9.6 trillion business of freight logistics—including trucking, shipping, railway, warehousing and even digital on-demand and emerging mobility subjects such as Instacart—with a media business and a SaaS-based subscription data product that’s earned it the nickname “the Bloomberg of Freight.”

In the fast-paced world of logistics, staying ahead of the competition requires not only efficient operations but also a deep understanding of industry trends and data-driven insights. With logistics evolving rapidly, businesses need real-time information and robust strategies to manage supply chains, streamline operations, and respond to market shifts. This is where expert services from HorizonFastFreight come into play, offering tailored solutions that meet the unique needs of businesses, ensuring seamless transportation, warehousing, and distribution.

By leveraging innovative logistics technology, HorizonFastFreight helps clients optimize their operations, reduce costs, and improve delivery times. From trucking and shipping to warehousing and inventory management, their expert team is equipped to handle the complexities of modern logistics. Their commitment to providing customized solutions ensures that businesses can focus on growth while leaving the logistical challenges in capable hands. Whether navigating local or international supply chains, HorizonFastFreight offers the expertise needed to stay efficient and competitive in today’s dynamic market.

Through the first half of 2020, FreightWaves drove 250 percent growth in both its media and data businesses (with media growing even faster than data with similar margins—more on that in a bit), generating about $15 million in gross revenue and on track to do a run rate of more than $20 million by the end of the year.

From Commodities to Futures to Media

Ironically, FreightWaves’ origins had nothing to do with media. After selling his fleet payment processor business to U.S. Bank in 2012, FreightWaves founder and CEO Craig Fuller (who comes from a long line of trucking entrepreneurs) found himself dabbling in day trading commodities and exploring the idea of creating a futures market for the trucking industry.

“But as we started to go to market, we realized that every successful futures market has an ecosystem of news and data and that didn’t exist with freight logistics,” says Fuller. “FreightWaves was started to evangelize and inform how futures work but we also knew that if it was just about trucking futures, no one would read it. We started writing about things like Tesla, Amazon, the impact of hurricanes, Trump’s tweets when he shuts the borders and it just kind of built on itself.”

Launched in 2016, FreightWaves today includes digital media with FreightWaves.com and AmericanShipper.com, FreightWaves TV and FreightWaves Radio, which appears on SirusXM satellite radio, and SONAR, a SaaS-based subscription research and data service.

Selling Data in the COVID Era

FreightWaves sells SONAR to clients ranging from owner/operators of a single truck to airlines to some of the largest big box retailers.

“Logistics is 12 percent of the global GDP and it’s bigger than the financial and insurance industries combined,” says Fuller. “There’s millions of companies in this space and something like FedEx handles just 1 percent of the business. Companies use our data to make real time pricing and capacity decisions.”

The data business generates $7.5 million in annual revenue with a typical subscription at $25,000 per year but that rate can range up into the high six and seven figures for larger customers. “In the COVID era, the old data models have broken down and historic data is of no use,” says Fuller. “We’re looking at new data sets that haven’t been created before.”

While some B2B companies are starting to prioritize data over content (looking at you, Hanley Wood), Fuller sees the two as an essential combination.

“We’re creating all these new indexes and data types, but if you don’t have a way to contextualize those data sets, it can be difficult for customers to understand what that data means,” says Fuller. “We created the media business to do that.”

On the media side, FreightWaves drives one million uniques and about 2.5 million pageviews per month, with $8 million in annual revenue, driven by advertising and marketing services.

“This is a $9.6 trillion industry but the amount spent on advertising is actually fairly small,” says Fuller. “This is an environment focused on relationship-based sales but that’s gone away in a COVID world. Companies in this space typically aren’t going through agencies and they’re now trying to figure out how to get their story out and find new customers. They’re turning to us to develop their story and help their marketing.”

Fuller is quick to point out that the emphasis on content marketing doesn’t prevent FreightWaves from covering stories that matter, even with some of the biggest players in the space.

“We wrote a story about a company that was making its employees come in when they were sick until they were proven to have COVID-19,” he says. “It’s a $1 billion company and we were telling the story about it. We wrote about another company that went into bankruptcy and their truckers were calling into our XM radio show talking about how their cards were being cut off.  Those are the things people care about.”

Editor’s note: The bankruptcy story, about the collapse of Celadon, earned FreightWaves a 2020 Jesse H. Neal Award for Best News Coverage. FreightWaves.com also won best website for its revenue category. 

Fuller says he is bullish on both sides of the business. “Data is the most investable asset but media is easier to sell because the market is massive, and companies are trying to figure it out,” he adds. “The media business has margins that match the data business—70 percent gross and contribution in the 90 percent range—because frankly, there isn’t a ton of competition. We’re competing with a lot of print publishers and traditional B2B outlets that grew up in print world with a print cadence. There’s a thinking that in B2B it’s hard to do news and I don’t agree with that.”

Early Indicators of a Recovery?

Last week, FreightWaves announced that it had secured $37 million in new minority investment, putting its total capital at $75 million. Fuller says the investment will all be focused on growth, including M&A, organic product development and marketing.

While Fuller acknowledges that much of FreightWaves’ success is due to being in the right place at the right time, he says covering the freight industry gives him some insight to be optimistic about the general state of the economy.

“We happen to be far more bullish on the economy because we see the physical economy in real time and we’re seeing record activity in freight,” he adds. “Before something sells, the manufacturer is moving those raw goods and we see those goods in the market weeks before the consumer buys something. The economy is actually better than what most people think.”

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‘Gatekeepers Are Also Gate Openers’; Writing Copy That Invites in All

by Media
One of the advantages of living in the Washington, D.C., area is the opportunity to take part on the frontlines of important events. I used to play tennis with a friend here who would tell me about being present at Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech.
Last night I went down to the Capitol for the viewing of Congressman John Lewis, who was the youngest person to speak on that famous day. I had been fortunate to meet him once in 2006 at an art gallery of all places. He was so gracious in signing an illustrated book titled John Lewis in the Lead: A Story of the Civil Rights Movement, and in addressing the lucky 25 or 30 of us on famous events of his life—and, of course, of the country.
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What struck me more than anything last night was the diversity of the crowd—all masked of course—in all facets: age, race, ethnicity, gender, even clothing. Police were helpful, cold water was handed out and with a western sky backdrop at sunset, it was almost overwhelming.

Looking around, I also thought, “This is our audience, not in the future but now, and we need to make sure that our outreach is always welcoming if not enticing to everyone.” A colleague of mine in another division here, Melanie Padgett Powers—an excellent freelance writer and editor; reach her at MelEdits—conducted a recent interview with Karen Yin (pictured), founder of Conscious Style Guide, the essential guide to conscious language. Winner of the 2017 ACES (the society for editing) Robinson Prize for advancing the craft of professional editing, Yin is also the force behind the Editors of Color Database and the Database of Diverse Databases.
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“It’s one thing to strategically narrow the target audience, but when the goal is to reach more readers or customers, we need to consciously choose words and images that welcome and reflect the diversity of gender, race, age and appearance of our intended audience,” Yin said. “Because as gatekeepers, we can do more than keep errors out. Gatekeepers are also gate openers, and it’s this power to let through more of the things we want to nurture in this world that makes conscious editing and writing an act of compassion.”

She offered an example: “While reviewing a client’s e-commerce listings for playground equipment, I asked why they had ticked the box for ’boys’ but not ‘girls’ in the search parameters. They didn’t realize they had been limiting their audience for years because of an old decision. But that’s what we do when we don’t examine our biases and which boxes we ticked long ago.”
Yin is careful to point out that diversity goes so much beyond what we normally think. “It does seem like ‘diversity’ is used more often to refer to race and ethnicity, which can have the effect of erasing other types of diversity,” she said. “But if we pause to consider the whole spectrum of perspectives omitted throughout history due to discrimination and prejudice, it provides a clearer understanding of our vast diversity and the many unconscious biases and harmful systems that persist.”
I love that metaphor of gatekeepers as gate openers. Nobody does this better than Donna Jefferson at Chesapeake Family. When you go onto that homepage, you see all kinds of diverse images—Cute Kid Cover Contest, How Childcare Centers Are Operating During the Pandemic and showcasing the digital issues of their magazine.
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But the image I like the best is the graphic for one of their most popular contests: “Here are your 2020 Favorite Docs.” Everyone can see themselves somewhere in that image. And you can be sure that adds significantly to the entries that Chesapeake Family receives. (I will be reporting more on Jefferson and some virtual successes she’s had soon.)

In 2015, Yin created that Conscious Style Guide, which is a great reference. In one recent article titled Are All Grandmothers Amazing Cooks?, Karen Eng writes, “The food media has reached a consensus: Everyone loves Grandma’s cooking… I have a Chinese grandmother, and the biggest food memory I have of visiting her as a kid is the paper bag of assorted muffins she would bring home from her job at Dunkin’ Donuts.”
“Following one style guide is enough till it isn’t,” Yin said. “I created Conscious Style Guide precisely because there was a gap in guidance, and I knew from years of studying style recommendations from marginalized communities… that information on preferred wording and framing was out there—people had already done the work. It matters that these guides were put together by members of those communities, as opposed to an outsider drawing biased conclusions.”
I had two Jewish grandmothers who couldn’t cook a lick, though they did cover their couches in squeaky plastic. The point is that we just need to take a second look at our copy—especially for marketing—and make sure we don’t put any of these assumptions or biases in. Not because we’re bad people if we do, but because we want as many people as possible to keep reading and nodding and engaging and buying.

If our audience is even some of the people I saw last night, then it’s a must.

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More Data, Global Access; Embrace Virtual Events for Their Virtues

by Media
“There’s definitely more data that we were able to collect with the virtual event than with an in-person event,” Enit Nichani, vice president of marketing for North America at IGEL, told TechTarget this week. The article said that a reporting feature in vFairs—their digital platform of choice—enabled their marketing team “to see how many times a user visited a particular booth, what sessions they attended and how long they stayed for those sessions.”
“That’s a lot easier than trying to take a physical or even a digital form, and uploading the data into those systems,” said Laura Ramos, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “Half the time, none of that ever happens.”
There’s no doubt that there are some drawbacks to virtual events. After all, we are social creatures. But there’s also a lot to embrace. Here are other ways to take advantage of virtual events.
Go global. There should be no barrier besides time difference why you can’t have a bigger global audience, if that works for your niche. And some organizations have staggered sessions so there’s something for every time zone. Of course, content from virtual events can also be easily put on-demand. “At Microsoft, we publish event recordings to Stream and Yammer for people to watch when it works for them,” said Bob Bejan, a Microsoft corporate VP. “Leverage digital conferencing platforms… that enable live captioning and translation for speaker remarks so audience members can view subtitles in their local language.”
“Your exhibitors are in desperate need for leads,” said Brian Cuthbert, group vice president, Diversified Communication. “So whether it’s virtual tradeshows or webinars with companies like Webex, or ON24, your vendors need leads… Everything is drying up and that lead funnel is critical. It’s about content and education. Can you create certificates, master classes, certification? Using a learning management system that tracks their progress through the experience. We’re thinking of a way to use e-learning as a component. Whether you try to replicate or go with webinars and e-learning, they’ll pay for it. Create it once in these platforms and sell it as many times as you can. It’s something we do a lot. We’ve used vFairs. The single most important thing is realistic expectations about what the sponsor and attendee can expect.”
Audience access to editorial staff. Education Week’s Online Summits provide readers with a unique opportunity to interact directly with reporters, practitioners and experts. Attendees can participate actively in reporter-expert-peer/peer conversations around niches within K-12 educational topic areas. At live events, it may not always be easy to interact with who you want. They could be popular and busy, or there just isn’t time. In a virtual event, you can have a place where, for instance, Education Week journalists and guests staff online “discussion” rooms on a host of topics within a broader niche. This can also give good exposure to your editorial staff.
Offer content—video, gamification—and then bring people together around that. We’re really just starting to learn how to “have a keen understanding of how to engage an audience virtually,” said Jesse Serventi, founding partner, Renovus Capital. “A lot of it is asynchronous. You’re on an island. You’re going through it by yourself. It’s tough to engage. But then it’s also synchronous where you might be watching many hours of content. That’s tough too. The companies doing the best job are bringing in both. They might be starting off with prerecorded asynchronous content, watching video, doing a multiple choice quiz, and then coming together to do a group exercise around that and developing relationships—reaching you through multiple modalities. That’s just a great way to engage the customer or get customers hooked in an even better way than live in-person training. I do believe there’s great opportunity to use all these different tools to create a better experience.”
Get top moderators and speakers. While a good moderator is important in live events, it might be even more important virtually. It’s so easy to turn away at home. The moderator needs to keep the conversation flowing and not get bogged down. And then she gets to choose which questions to ask; the Q&A could be the best part. When it’s live, you don’t have that choice in front of you. There can be some bad questions that get through. Also, most everyone is still home and that includes prospective speakers. So take a shot at some top speakers who may have been unavailable to you in the past, due to either availability or cost.