SIIA Digital Discourse

Newspapers are getting into the membership business now. The Orange County Register approached the Anaheim Angels baseball team “with the idea of better using the empty seats the Angels couldn’t sell.” This comes from an article on the Nieman Journalism Lab site forwarded by Lindsay Konzak of Modern Distribution Management. “The Angels found themselves sitting on almost 600,000 empty seats last year over 81 games,” writes Ken Doctor. “Put another 7,000 butts in those seats each night, even without getting paid for the ticket, and the club is pulling in another 10 bucks or so on Chronic Tacos, garlic fries, and overpriced Corona.” ($10 seems light.)

This goes along with a conversation I just had with Valerie Voci, vice president, marketing, for CQ Roll Call, and a track chair for the upcoming SIPA 2013 Conference. Valerie has been at the forefront of new marketing ideas and technologies for many years now, first at The Washington Post when they began their online venture and later in specialized publishing. I could not write fast enough for all the good things she was saying. Her audience engagement track should be amazing; don’t miss it!

Like others, CQ Roll Call wants to attract audience to their site, and, of course, keep them there. For Voci, that’s when the real selling starts. “Inbound marketing not outbound has to be the future,” she said. “The technology is there. It’s too difficult to keep doing outbound marketing; it doesn’t end. People are out there on apps looking for exactly what we have, and we have to be really smart about capturing them.”

It’s a bit like the Angels; get them into our seats and then we can open them up to everything we do. The tickets are available to the Register’s 124,000 seven-day subscribers, beginning 72 hours before each game. “Forty-eight hours before the game, the Angels, through Ticketmaster, release available seats. Register Connect buyers can nab four tickets, for a service charge of $5.”

Are you doing memberships? “We offer company-wide memberships…and do not sell one-off services, with the exception of event services,” Nancy Brand, director of operations at Chartwell in Atlanta, wrote to me this week. They may not be giving away Braves tickets, but they have summits, webinars, sponsorships, unique data and other great benefits for the utilities that they serve.

“In 2012, membership sales (company-wide, not individual) increased as well as webinar participation,” Brand wrote. “We also hosted our largest conference and tradeshow in October in San Diego last year, the 15th annual event. Furthermore, we had the largest summit ever in November with 100+ registrants, about 65% more than our previous record-holder.”

Whereas Brand says that they still see their best returns through email, Voci is looking for other ways to reach their audience. “People are being bombarded [with email],” she says. “How else can we best reach people, how do I engage them?” One way has been through blogs. They just created six new blogs, and she emphasizes that they are not just a young person’s thing. One of their new blogs is by well-known commentator Mort Kondracke.

“We’re looking to execute at scale,” Eric Spitz, president of Freedom Communications, owner of the Register, told Nieman. He adds that lots of membership perks are good, but few are likely to move the needle of buying and retention. Doctor believes that the ticket program is “that touch of likely brilliance. It is a scale play—and one I’ve been looking for as I’ve heard about the various membership initiatives rolled out over the last two years.”

“…For your $400 a year, we’re going to deliver you far more than $400 in value,” Spitz says. Doctor adds that Spitz “underlin[es] the allure of ‘membership.’ Register Connect also includes a key fob to facilitate greater use.” Why not? Include your own key fob, and your “members” can have CVS, Safeway, Rite Aid and [their favorite publisher] on their key chain. Why can’t that be you? Come to the SIPA 2013 Conference and find out how.

Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline

After attending SIPA’s Marketing Conference in Miami in December, a new member spoke to me about titles. “Last week in many sessions I heard the word ‘editor’ being used. It sounded at first confusing to me as I think of an editor as someone who edits text. But in the SIPA world it seems that an editor is someone who curates content. They may write content, acquire content from others, blog and participate on other social media. Perhaps the term ‘content editor’ may also be accurate for this role. I’ve seen some librarians being referred to as ‘content strategists.’”

Taking a quick look at the SIPA online forum, you find posts from people with varied titles: director, online strategy; VP news and prices; managing editor; editor/vice president; associate editor; publisher; editor and publisher; director of publishing; managing director; SVP, products and content; publisher and chef (a food and health niche); director of operations; CIO; VP/group publisher; and chief content officer. Each company brings their own expectations to their titles.

And that’s not even getting into all the e-media titles. I think what may be behind today’s “title wave” is the new tendency of straddling the fence previously separating editorial and business. In an article on Digiday by Josh Sternberg, Jason Pontin, publisher and editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, tries to defend keeping the wall up, yet he clearly makes the point how much better an editor his business dealings are making him.

Guy Cecala, CEO and publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance, oversees everything happening at IMF, though perhaps not as hands-on as Pontin. “I let the people who run their departments do their jobs,” he told me. The wall does still exist there, but in a more practical way. Reporters report and don’t have to worry about the money end, though you do get the sense that they’re keenly aware of the overall products. It’s the marketers who take the lead in putting together special reports and repackaging much of that unique research, data and reporting that gets done. They will also seek insights from the editorial staff. “Everyone believes they are working for the same team.” Cecala said. “It’s a multfaceted business.”

Last summer, Martin Schneider, editor-in-chief and CEO of Exchange Monitor, said that since moving up from editor, his focus has had to change from day-to-day coverage to long-term strategy. “Every day, I’m asking: Where can we position ourselves to grow? How can we best package the information that we gather?” Will writers and marketers—and even sales people—also have to think this way soon?

Maybe they are already. I recall David Foster, CEO of Business Valuation Resources, telling me that they look more for publishers not editors, meaning writers who can do more with the information they write about—develop new products or contribute to others within the company. There may just not be as much time these days for the editors who just edit text. It’s all about the race to be first. If something’s wrong, you go back and fix it later.

Writes Sternberg: “Being a publisher and understanding the business realities has made [Pontin] a better editor.” Wouldn’t this be true for everyone? I believe my knowing what best sells the SIPA 2013 Conference or an upcoming webinar—as the SIPA online forum focused on yesterday—makes me better at what I do.

It doesn’t mean I have to jump the fence and start praising those who attend or sponsor. But it does mean that knowing the realities of today’s business climate should help me in serving SIPA members. Pontin says that working on the business end has made him more interested in audience measurement. “I’m much more focused on the idea of a curve on my wall of where I want the digital audience to be 6-12 months from now, not just in traffic or page views, but in return visits.”

Sounds like a good place for all of us to be, no matter our title.

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Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 as managing editor. Follow Ronn on Twitter at @SIPAOnline