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Gourmet Magazine: Meant for Print?

admin — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:34:19 +0000

The demise of Gourmet magazine took me by surprise. It seemed that Gourmet (along with Modern Bride) was working a beat that was meant for print. Sure the index was handy but readers wended this way through this magazine, finding the content that appealed first to their eyes. Argue that content is king if you will, but the photography and design had all the constitutional power. Think of other magazines (Wooden Boat, Fine Woodworking, Architectural Digest, Garden & Gun) that use print to create experiences and evoke emotion in ways their websites have yet to approach.
Conversation Marketing has an interesting take on some of Gourmet’s self-inflicted wounds from an SEO perspective.
I suspect their achievement in print may have allowed management to think–as I did–that they were meant for print. That yes they would commit some resources to an “online version” but that their energy was better focused on what they knew was their prestige product. But perhaps you don’t focus on online because you think it is going to replace your print. Perhaps you focus on online because that is the only thing that is going to allow you to keep printing.
Certainly their lack of attention to online contributed to end of a rich tradition. For the sake of the printed art of magazine publishing, I hope others mark this shoal on their charts.

The real death knell is their keyword count: According to Compete.com, Gourmet.com gets traffic from 355 organic search terms. Epicurious gets traffic from 8,040.
That has nothing to do with brand, and everything to do with SEO. Gourmet has thousands of pages, and thousands of great incoming links. They could have doubled or tripled their traffic with a concerted, ongoing SEO campaign.
Read more: http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/10/why-gourmet-died-publishers.htm#ixzz0UDonPlQP

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Online communities and associations compete

admin — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:37:07 +0000

Deirdre Reid’s question are experiencing the same benefits of online communities is not quite the right question. Members are participating. Some industries have stronger communities. Some associations have demographics that are more prone to be early adopters. I would suggest a few more specific questions.

How strong are the online communities in my sector?
How do the growth trend of online communities compare to the associations?
Are members of these online communities predominantly members? Potential members?
Are these communities offering a type of communication or information the association doesn’t?
What topics are generating the most responses?

Its not wrong to consider these online communities as a threat or an opportunity.
It is a mistake not to consider them important.

SmartBlog Insights » Blog Archive » Are online communities a threat to associations?

We develop and deepen relationships with peers via online communities. Some question the value of their association membership as they now receive more of these critical benefits freely online than from associations. Are our members experiencing the same?

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Lead Nurturing Webinar

admin — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:07:46 +0000

Good info and data in this general background webinar on the process of lead nurturing.

Modern B2B Marketing: Unleash your House Database – Outlook Web Access Light

Lead Nurturing
The members of your database should be nurtured. Done well, lead nurturing can lead to much more efficient and effective demand generation. At Marketo, when we nurture leads that are not immediately sales ready, they are three times more likely to become a sales lead in a given month than if they are not nurtured. Overall, that means we generate 50% more qualified sales leads each month at 33% lower cost per lead.

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Google Map H1N1 Swine Flu Case by Case

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:00:35 +0000

Mapping a potential pandemic, Google maps includes dates and particulars of confirmed and suspected infections.
The otherwise useful “Get Directions” feature possible uses include irony and reverse directions.

H1N1 Swine Flu – Google Maps
CALIFORNIA Imperial County

Last Updated by niman on Apr 22

Full-screen

01/04/2009 brother aged 13 years had influenza-like symptoms on April 1, 2009 confirmed cases are 100 miles apart
Get directions - Search nearbyStreet view

Send

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PR as Marketing

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:59:21 +0000

Transparency and Listening skills….

UniLever CMO Clift Throws Down the Social-Media Gauntlet – Advertising Age – Digital

Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, “We may be ahead of our competitors, but we’re most definitely behind consumers.” The consumer is not a moron, she’s the person defining your brand.

You can’t hide the corporation behind the brand anymore — or even fully separate the two. Even this editor’s creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.

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Brill’s not Content with Prospects of Ad Model

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 13:58:45 +0000

Stephen Brill has co-founded a journalism co-op in hopes of establishing a syndicated model with monthly and annual subscribers.One of Journalism Online’s key value propositions will be negotiating wholesale licensing and royalty fees with search engines and new aggregators.

Journalism Online

NEW YORK, April 14, 2009 – Citing “the urgent need” for a comprehensive, immediate plan to address the downward spiral in the business of publishing original, quality journalism, experienced journalism and media industry executives Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery today announced the formation of Journalism Online, a company that will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce.

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Insourcing the Lowest Common Practices

admin — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 04:33:57 +0000

Gawker – Chicago Tribune Stakes Future On Paper-Blogging – Tmz

According to a source inside the Tribune Tower, for the last six months the paper has required all of its features reporters—that would be its arts writers, food writers, culture writers, etc.—to come in on Sundays, on a rotating basis, and write an entertainment/gossip column called “Face Time” for Monday’s paper. They are instructed to do this by scanning what TMZ and the US Weekly web site have reported over the weekend, and rehash it for Monday.

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PR as Marketing

admin — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:25:14 +0000

Transparency and Listening skills….

UniLever CMO Clift Throws Down the Social-Media Gauntlet – Advertising Age – Digital

Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them. As Mr. Clift said, “We may be ahead of our competitors, but we’re most definitely behind consumers.” The consumer is not a moron, she’s the person defining your brand.

You can’t hide the corporation behind the brand anymore — or even fully separate the two. Even this editor’s creaking computer only took 0.13 seconds to show that Philip Morris is owned by Altria Group. Welcome to radical transparency, where bad corporate behavior will damage your brands, and vice versa.

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Leaning into the Crisis

admin — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:10:51 +0000

It wasn’t realtor.com, craig’s list, or google that rocked the publishing world’s business model, it was complacency. HB puts together a nice four-point business practice of listening to your customers and letting them lead you to solutions that aren’t going to come from your peers.

Four Ways to Increase the Urgency Needed for Change – Management Essentials – HarvardBusiness.org

Most organizations fail. The vast majority of new restaurants don’t survive two years. Over 90% of the car companies that existed in the early 1900s were gone by the 1940s. At least a few of today’s most successful enterprises appear to be going down the same path.

Examples abound of how success creates size, market power, and an entitlement culture, all of which, in turn, create an inward focus, a lack of understanding of external reality, and a total lack of urgency to correct the problem.

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Problem: Your Advertising Budget is Disintegrated

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:53:31 +0000

Microsoft has wrapped its arms around the problem; namely that both sides of the advertising equation are having a hard time keeping pace with the administration of all the threads in the tapestry.

MediaPost Publications Integration:Holy Grail

“At first it was Word. Then it was PowerPoint, Access and Excel,” Howe says of the powerful but nonintegrated applications developed by Microsoft’s software team. “Now I can do a graph in Excel and copy and paste it in a couple of keystrokes into PowerPoint. Media planners ought to be able to plan an advertising campaign the same way across platforms with a drop-down menu and a few easy keystrokes. All the friction needs to be taken out of the process.”

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