B2B Magazine Ad Pages Going…Going…Going…

Filed under Uncategorized by Allan Schoenberg on 16 July 2009 at 12:30 {2 comments}

BtoB magazine reported this week (B-to-b magazine pages continue to plunge) that print advertising in B2B magazines declined a whopping 32% this past April compared to April 2008. In fact, the strongest (in this case the best negative) industry was government print advertising spending, which decreased 17%. The study is based on research from American Business Media’s Business Information Network.

Ouch!

In the press release ABM President-CEO Gordon T. Hughes II said “Though we are not surprised by these numbers given the current state of the economy, we remain optimistic about the prospect for business media and information services as the economy improves. Digital offerings continue to generate new revenues, and our custom media and data businesses also continue to show strength.”

I would agree, but unless you have been asleep for the past 10 years this is a no brainer. Of course B2B companies are going to spend online, especially when it’s cost effective (or completely free) and if print publications simply vanish.

So here are my five predictions about where B2B companies will spend their money in the coming year. Please add to the list.

1. We’ll see more B2B publications go entirely or mostly online in the next six months. Again, this is obvious, but I think there is going to be a rapid uptake in the amount of publications that choose to do so. B2B companies will have no choice but to make more investments in banner and email advertising. Hopefully we’ll see some good creative come out of this. I don’t think we’ll see B2B companies run to national business publications to spend their money.

2. Some B2B companies will decide (unfortunately so) to invest in and create their own social networking sites. I’ve started to see this and I think it’s a failure. For one, the reason there is success in the social media space today is because these networks exist “outside” of any company platform. There is a trust factor that exists, rightly so, in the success of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn that does not exist within a company’s domain. I think these networks will quietly go away (as will the money spent on them).

3. CRM will become more important, especially as services like Twitter feed into them.

4. Bloggers in the B2B space will continue to increase, with more taking aim at covering B2B companies. I think this will happen for two reasons — B2B employees who have been laid off can express their thoughts in the blogosphere and the reduction of B2B print media. Unfortunately, I think most B2B companies will continue to ignore this space. I hope I’m wrong.

5. As the economy comes back and budgets grow I think we’ll also see a rise in the valuable “face to face” time. Remember those days? After months of travel bans and companies growing their presence on Twitter and Facebook, people will actually want to meet in person. A novel concept, but I think that smaller, highly focused customer events will be the rage in 2010. We’ll just see if anyone live Tweets them by then.

Building a Social Media Marketplace in Financial Services

Filed under Uncategorized by Allan Schoenberg on 10 July 2009 at 13:23 {2 comments}

I remember in my days working at Edelman during the ERP heyday that online B2B marketplaces, particularly for manufacturing, were the buzz and actually changed how many companies did business. Last month, I presented at the Ragan Corporate Communications Social Media conference (we also hosted the conference at the exchange) about what we are doing in the financial services industry (you can view my presentation here via Slideshare and a recap from Barbara Rozgonyi here).

In my opinion we are in the midst of developing a new marketplace at the exchange. In the past several years alone we have seen tremendous and rapid change in our industry. As a marketplace founded in 1848 (version 1.0) our model was unchanged for more than 150 years. Buyers and sellers came to our trading floors to hedge their risk and sell their products. They also used the markets to discover what the market would pay for a price. In 2002 that evolved (version 2.0) when the exchange went public (Nasdaq: CME) and we had new audiences to communicate with (investors, analysts) besides our members. When I came to the exchange in 2004 another shift occurred when for the first time ever electronic trading (version 3.0) surpassed floor trading. This shift in trading create even more opportunities for us as we now had customers in more than 85 countries directly connected to CME Group (as opposed to our trading floor). Today, more than 80 percent of our volume is now electronic. If you want to know more about how the exchange operates you can watch the video here.

So where are we now? I believe social media is profoundly changing financial markets once again (version 4.0). Social media, in particular Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, are having profound effects on the way our customers interact, communicate and research what is happening in the economy. If you want a great example of this just go to StockTwits and follow the conversations. We’ll see where all of this takes us but I think social media will continue to create a number of real business opportunities for traders and the financial markets in the coming years.

I’ll be talking more about this idea and concept at Blogwell and Ragan in the coming weeks. So how is social media changing your views about your industry? I welcome your thoughts, ideas and questions.

PR Week’s Power 2009 List — Where’s the B2B?

Filed under Uncategorized by Allan Schoenberg on 8 July 2009 at 18:12 {2 comments}

The great thing about lists and creating lists is not so much the result of what’s published, but the debate after (I’ve had my share of greatest soccer and hockey players over the course of time). While I’m not about to debate who should or should not be on the 2009 PR Week Power List, I am taking a position on the lack of respect for B2B communications and communicators.

There already has been some questions raised on Twitter in regards to social media and how many of the leaders on this list may not use it. I’m not going there. To keep this in context with the topic of our blog I want to keep this in context with B2B.

Yes, you could argue that firms such as Weber Shandwick and Edelman help B2B clients with important counsel (you can also make the distinction that every agency is a B2B company). And, yes, firms like Microsoft and JPMorgan do have B2B client bases to service. What surprises me is that only two companies primarily in the B2B space are listed (Jon Iwata, VP, marketing and communications, IBM; Gary Sheffer, executive director, comms and public affairs, GE). But in my reading of the list guess how often B2B was referenced? (I’ll give you a hint, it rhymes with hero.)

Why should this matter? Research group eMarketer recently looked at the timeframe of 2008 to 2012 and thinks that B2B spending in the U.S. on social networks alone will increase 500% to $210 million (Via @mashable). And this year, in the midst of a recession, B2B online marketing spending is expected to increase among large and small firms. B2B magazine also surveyed the industry in December and you may have been surprised at the results — 31.1% of B2B marketers said they planed to increase marketing budgets this year (43.5% said budgets would be flat).

Is it just that B2B communications is misunderstood? Is it a lack of respect? Or perhaps a lack of appeal? The money and budgets certainly are there to prove the point that B2B marketing and public relations is serious business. Or maybe I’m just splitting hairs? What do you think?

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