subhub

Big data may be one of this year’s buzz phrases, but behind the trendy terminology lies a very real issue: few associations are managing their data as effectively as they could, and as a result they’re not getting value from it.

Most associations have built up a mass of data on members and their activities, markets and trends over years, and hold it in a combination of separate databases and unstructured documents like Excel spreadsheets.

At SubHub we recommend a four-step process to help associations get control of this information, understand it and make use of it.

1. Invest in a well-built database which pulls together information from different sources. The clear, single, searchable view of member engagement this provides will help you provide the services members really want, and target them more accurately based on past behaviours.

2. Connect the database to a well-designed front-end presence. Your website should be geared up to gather data, follow best-practice principles of design and usability, and clearly signpost where services can be found.

3. Unlock the information you hold on markets, issues and trends. Make white papers, research, reports and articles readily visible and searchable, unlocking their value and turning your website into a ‘knowledge hub’ for members.

4. Connect your payment system to the platform. This will improve cashflow by enabling you to manage and track payments simply and efficiently online, and get an instant picture of who’s paid for which services and products.

The amount of data flowing through associations won’t get any smaller: the volume of digital information in the world will expand 50-fold between 2010 and 2020 according to IDC’s 2013 Digital Universe Study. Associations that take control of theirs will engage and retain more members, and secure their long-term relevance.

Article published first in the TAF Forum Newsletter

 

Every association knows that having a digital presence is essential, but many are not fully exploiting their website’s potential for helping them provide the services members want and improve efficiency. A website is more than an advert for the association, a cost centre, or a way of creating revenue; it should build long-term relationships.

Linked to a back-end database, and set up to gather data across member activities and services, the website can help provide a clear and comprehensive picture of members’ interests. This will highlight ways to provide added value, and tailor and target services in a more focused way.

Engagement can also be developed by integrating the website with social networks, and holding open, relevant and interactive discussions with members there. The association’s ‘official’ LinkedIn group or Facebook page can be made accessible directly from the website via a link, while Twitter feeds can be incorporated into the homepage.

Connecting with systems like PayPal and Worldpay to automate processes such as renewals increase trust by making transactions secure, as well as saving time and money for the association.

The website can also be used to reinforce trust by putting members in control of the way they interact with the association – for instance, allowing them to update their personal details themselves by logging in directly in to the database.

Making content such as white papers, research, and opinion articles readily available on the website is another powerful engagement tool, positioning the association as an authority on key topics and turning the website into a powerful digital knowledge hub.

With the right open platform, proper planning and integration with a well-designed database, the website can become a fully-functioning digital gateway to services, resources, discussion and networking that builds on the basic relationship between visitor and website and encourages members to engage further and more deeply.

Article published first in the TAF Forum Website

Your content and services may be highly relevant, valuable and stimulating, but without one priceless commodity – trust – the loyalty of your members will be impossible to sustain.

The biggest threat to member confidence currently lies in conducting online transactions – and it’s becoming increasingly challenging for organisations to be transparent and accurate, and to keep abreast of e-commerce regulations.

Here are five ‘rules’ for conducting trustworthy online transactions:

1. Be completely transparent about conditions. Information on cancelling, refunds and returns must be clear and easy to find, and the process simple. Payment solutions like Recurly automate tasks including generating invoices and issuing VAT receipts, making mistakes less likely.

 

2. Put members in control. Ask permission to store their transaction history, check how they want their details to be used, allow them to select the type and frequency of communications they receive, and let them update and change their own information via the website.

 

3. Add value. By linking the website to a delivery system like Yodel you can give members visibility of how their orders are progressing. Trust can also be boosted with a simple ‘review’ functionality that lets people rate their purchase and experience.

 

4. Encourage full and frank discussion. Create opportunities for members to participate in online conversations about your services by creating and owning a presence on social networks. You can link directly to your LinkedIn group or Facebook page from the website, while Twitter feeds can be incorporated into the homepage.

 

5. Integrate all back end systems. Building seamless and efficient transaction processes means integrating the website with payment systems and member databases, to create a ‘member relationship management’ solution.

Member trust is the most valuable commodity: easy to obtain, but very difficult to retain. By following these five rules, associations can turn their website into a secure ‘gateway’ to resources, content and merchandise.

 

Article published first in the TAF Forum Newsletter

SubHub CEO Evan Rudowski reveals why they abandoned the Drupal platform and looked elsewhere for a solution

Magazine publishing may be worth $40 billion in the US, according to First Research – but the industry’s existing business model and changes in media consumption habits over the last few years present an immense challenge that threatens the sector’s very existence.

Newsweek became the latest publisher to close the doors on its print edition back in November, highlighting not only the deficiency of print compared with the efficiency of digital, but also placing a clear signpost that magazine publishers have reached an intersection without a map.

What Newsweek’s owners have no doubt realized is that news reporting – in general a commodity product – can now only be distinguished by the quality of its analysis and the speed of delivery. Newsweek may have had the content, but it was still missing the critical element of timeliness.

Digital competitors can provide analysis nearly as instantaneously as the breaking news itself. A once-a-week publishing schedule — coupled with substantial physical printing and distribution costs — cannot keep up with continuous and low-cost digital distribution.

Early in 2013 Newsweek will launch a digital-only edition, using tablet-based e-readers, and presumably largely emulating the design experience of print. But is this the right model? The decisions they make now will determine whether they grow and prosper, or end up pushing up trees rather than printing on them.

As publishers arrive at an intersection they are all choosing different routes. Some opt for a website with a mix of free and paid-for content (Pearson for example has done this successfully with the Financial Times in the UK). Some take the advertising-supported route, keeping content free for consumers. Others, like Newsweek, close their print issues and launch digital magazines for e-readers.

Digital, however, is not a panacea. The latest ABC figures highlight a decline in digital magazine subscriptions; seemingly these are failing to gain traction even though digital e-readers and tablets proliferate. In fact the e-reader market is booming – with the recent introduction of Apple’s smaller format iPad mini tablet, and publisher Barnes and Noble’s Nook being launched to the UK market, for example.

But ebooks, which some bullish estimates say will account for 50% of the market by 2014, are a different proposition entirely to digital magazines. Indeed, research from world magazine industry body FIPP shows that seven out of 10 people find digital magazines “annoying” and 48 percent said they took too long to download. And while nearly three quarters of respondents claimed that video content enhanced digital magazine reading, 46 percent said that they were “just a gimmick”.

So it would be wrong to look at the success of ebooks as a predictor of the future for digital magazines.

People buy books to read, and magazines to fulfil a need or solve a problem. For some magazines it is obvious. People buy Car and Driver, for example, to help them make a practical, safe or cost-saving decision about their next vehicle. But for most magazines the problem being solved or need being fulfilled is not so clear.

The internet is also eroding publishers’ brand strength, as individual journalists increasingly develop a marketable personal reputation. The noted wine expert Robert Parker, for example, has for 35 years marketed his vintage expertise via his Wine Advocate print and online newsletter. Recently he announced he’d be going digital-only, shutting down his print edition and moving his 50,000 subscribers – each of whom pay $75 per year for total revenues of around $3.75 million dollars annually – exclusively to his website. No publisher necessary: in this case, Robert Parker is the publisher and he gets to keep all the revenues.

Publishers must identify the job their readers buy their magazine to fulfil before they make the decision about which business model will provide them with a way to monetize the value that they bring to readers.

Much like Robert Parker has done for himself, publishers must identify the value they can provide and develop it to the point that it is saleable. Many publishers are already weighing up the value of key columnists, and should find ways to share the opportunity equitably with them so the sum is greater than its parts.

Even a stellar media persona doesn’t guarantee the right result. Just recently Martha Stewart Omnimedia announced the closure of two of its four magazines. Carrying too many different titles for not enough readers or advertisers simply doesn’t add up. It never did — but when the audience shifts to digital, there’s an ever-smaller pie remaining to be carved up for print.

In spite of Newsweek’s veritable reputation there clearly wasn’t enough value in the print product to convince advertisers and readers in sufficient numbers that the publication was a worthy purchase. Its sister digital publication, The Daily Beast, survives — not necessarily because it has cracked the added-value equation but because, being digital-only, its production costs are so much lower and its publication cycle so much faster that the threshold for profitability is far lower. In other words, it can be deemed a success with a much smaller audience than Newsweek could have sustained.

Dropping the print publication was the right move for Newsweek’s parent — it gives The Daily Beast space to find the niche that will successfully attract readers and advertisers. While the demise of Newsweek is sad for those of us who still love print, there’s no question that, in this case, killing the messenger was the right move. However a digital magazine is an online answer to the same problem that Newsweek faced with its print issue, minus the production costs. As publishers move online they should focus on how their viewing audience can be turned into new revenue streams instead of relying solely on advertising to support content.

Published: http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2013/01/02/is-newsweek-dead-in-the-water-with-its-digital-only-title/

In the 1980s, Evan Rudowski ran the news ticker at One Times Square. Today, he is the CEO ofSubHub, a leading provider of digital membership solutions for associations and publications. A native New Yorker, Rudowski now lives in Bath, England, with his wife and two children. He blogs at evanrud.com.

You could say I first tweeted in 1986.

Ronald Reagan was president. The Berlin Wall was still up. The Mets were going to win the World Series.

Somewhere out there was a 10-year-old kid named Jack who was probably imagining alternate payment systems for his neighborhood newspaper route. It would be yet another two decades before Jack Dorsey and his co-founders would eventually create what became Twitter.

Back then I could have told little Jack Dorsey about sending short electronic messages to a large audience. Unlike tweets today, mine did not appear, mere pixels high, on a tiny device that could be slipped into one’s pocket next to the car keys.

My tweets were so big that their glow lit up Times Square. If King Kong were ever to have climbed a tweet, it would have been one of mine. My tweets were five goddamned-feet high and 880 feet long.

That’s because my messages were flashing across the Times Square Zipper in the heart of New York City. With around 350,000 pedestrians entering Times Square each day, and with maybe 10 headlines each night, I had an audience of several million views — to use modern Internet parlance.

After laying dark and disused through most of the previous decade, the Zipper — first lit by The New York Times onTimes Tower at One Times Square in 1928 — was relit in 1986 as a publicity stunt by Newsday, the successful Long Island daily newspaper that was then making a run at New York City. By reviving the Zipper, Newsday planted itself smack in the heart of Manhattan and at the center of New York newspaper history.

The Zipper may have been in Times Square, but those of us writing for it sat in an office building about 40 miles away in Melville, Long Island. Not that we minded — this was not today’s Disney, Olive Garden version of Times Square; this was the gritty old Times Square of adult bookshops and $1.99 porno movie houses, the Times Square where only two years earlier 2,300 crimes were reported — nearly 500 of them serious felonies — on just the one single block of 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Sitting there in our suburban newspaper headquarters, we could only imagine the parade of Times Square denizens who were our distant audience. Felons, taxi drivers, the homeless, the occasional bewildered tourist, hookers, junkies and chronic masturbators — somewhat like a portion of Twitter’s audience today, except back then in the pre-broadband era you had to venture out of your house to get your kicks. An audience of strangers, somewhere out there.

We sat there in the Newsday office in front of a monochrome-green Atex terminal, monitoring the wire services for breaking news and, late in the evening, finding out from the newsroom what the newspaper’s front page would show the next day. All of these were written up as headlines. We’d sprinkle in some promos — what people today might think of as “sponsored tweets” — such as, “NEW YORK NEWSDAY LIGHTS UP NEW YORK” (everything was all caps back then; we hadn’t yet realized it was rude).

Back in 1986, not everyone had a screen full of wire service feeds on their desk. Back then, this was a privilege granted only to trained individuals, in possession of journalism degrees, who had spent time pondering the big moral and ethical questions and thus were qualified to inform and educate others concerning what was going on in the world. If these professional gatekeepers elected to tell you about something, then you knew it was IMPORTANT. And if it was important enough, I would put it on the Zipper.

It must seem unremarkable in modern times to think of someone sitting in front of a monitor scanning news feeds; nowadays, we’re all doing it. Today, if a big enough story breaks, millions of people notice it nearly instantly and begin to tweet it to everyone else who has also simultaneously noticed it. It becomes what’s known as a “trending topic.” Someone gives it a hashtag, and an enormous tweetstream washes over us like a momentary tide before receding back out into the roiling sea of information.

But in the 1930s, long before my time when the Zipper was still new, cab drivers would pull over to let passers-by listen to President Roosevelt on the radio, while they stood and simultaneously read the summary headlines as they scrolled around the Zipper — creating “the first true multimedia event in Times Square,” according to Tama Starr in her book, Signs and Wonders: The Spectacular Marketing of America.

When pocket communication devices were still decades away, this was where New Yorkers got their breaking news.

The method for updating the Zipper was state-of-the art for 1986. Headlines, once written, were typed into an IBM PC programmed to depict a virtual representation of the Zipper, and then transmitted to Times Square over the telephone line using a state-of-the-art, squawking and screeching, 300-baud modem.

Over at One Times Square, in an empty office, an identical computer would receive the headline, update the headline file, and drive the Zipper. At the time the Zipper was made up of thousands of incandescent light bulbs — just as it had been when it first was lit in the 1920s — and maintained by the venerable Times Square sign company, Artkraft Strauss.

Think it’s hard to fit your thoughts into a 140-character tweet? Zipper headlines were spartan by comparison. We had 80 characters per headline — that’s about eight to 10 words, including spaces and punctuation. By comparison, Twitter users are blathering and verbose. Trust me, you can tell any story in 80 characters. Like the one you’re reading: ZIPPER VET TELLS TALES OF PRE-TWEET ERA.

Fast forward to the present day. Newsday long ago was routed and retreated to the suburbs. The original Zipper’s long since been pulled down, broken apart and sent off in pieces to museums. Times Square is plastered wall-to-wall with flashing electronic signs and giant video screens.

And no one’s looking, even in Times Square, because we’re too busy tapping out tweets on the tiny electronic devices we hold in the palms of our hands. I’m not sure it’s any better. But at least you’re not nearly as likely to get mugged walking down 42nd Street while you do it.

Published: http://mashable.com/2012/12/30/twitter-times-square-news-ticker/

Miles Galliford, co-founder of SubHub – the membership website company – on what magazine publishers need to consider to thrive online.

Circulation of digital magazines in the US doubled in the first half of 2012 compared with the same period in 2011, according to ABC figures. Forgive me if I’m not jumping for joy or loudly proclaiming the death of print: digital titles still account for just 1.7% of total magazine circulation.

One by one, the content industries have undergone their own digital revolutions, starting with the music industry and moving on to books and film. In each case, the catalyst was a business from outside the industry throwing a grenade into what was quite frankly a stagnating pond.

Apple shook up the music industry with iTunes and cool listening devices. Netflix propelled the film industry into the digital age with its online streaming service. Amazon set the book publishing world alight with the Kindle and continues to develop solutions that could see book publishers cut out of the market entirely. Magazine publishing has yet to meet its insurgent.

The magazine industry is still worth £4.1 billion in the UK alone, according to the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA). There are opportunities to grow audiences and increase advertising revenue, yet publishers are not positioning themselves to grab their share. They are failing to adapt their business models as people’s media consumption habits change.

Some print sectors are thriving, while others are making a slow transition online. But many publishers, unwilling to give up control of their content, have simply tried to replicate their offline editions online, launching digital versions of existing titles.

Others try to create an attractive and exciting experience for readers with visual ‘bells and whistles’ – resulting in poor delivery. Research by worldwide magazine industry association FIPP shows that 48% of people find digital magazines take too long to download, while 46% believe video content is “just a gimmick”.

Publishers must think more creatively and radically to find an online publishing model that works. Many are already successfully monetising their online publications with paywalls that restrict access to premium content, for instance. But they need to do much more if they are to convert existing readers and advertisers to digital, win new readers, and keep them all coming back for more.

The key is creating rich content that engages and which is ‘sticky’ and develop new revenue streams linked to that content. Success depends on understanding the value readers place on content but publishers are not necessarily attuned to where the real value is. Fundamentally, people buy magazines to fulfil a need or to solve a problem but this isn’t always clear or easy to pinpoint.

The American magazine publisher Christianity Today undertook a survey of its readers to understand exactly what content they valued and why. Many loved a section featuring ‘sermon ideas and illustrations’, which made preparing their weekly address easier. This had a real, measurable value which they were happy to pay for. So the publisher created a dedicated website, PreachingToday.com and put the sermon content behind a paywall. Today the site has revenues of more than $1 million.

Once they have identified where the real value lies for readers, publishers can implement a business model based on this – effectively recognising and monetising the audience’s needs.

Music fans who read a music magazine to discover new bands before their friends, for example, might like being able to buy gig tickets and download songs straight from the page they’re reading. While publishers of a magazine read by hikers looking to choose the best walking gear could start selling outdoor clothing or work on a revenue share basis with a partner who does.

Those publishers who simply push their existing formats onto the web are missing a trick, too. To deepen trust and engagement with readers they should not think in terms of ‘putting the magazine online’ but rather ‘turning it into a multimedia, multi-platform brand’.

Online publishing models must embrace the changing way people consume web-based content, on tablets and smartphones for example. Publishers should also explore how technologies such as Apple’s Newsstand could help them extend reader relationships.

And here’s a reality check for those determined to clutch their content closely to their chests: a successful move to online will require giving up some control over content. A certain amount of premium content can be stowed behind a paywall but this must be balanced with free content that drives broader traffic, for advertising appeal as well as to attract subscribers.

For now, publishers seem happy to make hay while the sun shines. Perhaps they’re waiting for that revolutionary saviour from outside the sector to shake things up. It may never come. If publishers want to thrive, they need to take a long hard look at how to grow audiences and revenues right now.

Published: http://mediatel.co.uk/newsline/2012/10/16/why-have-digital-magazines-failed-when-ebooks-music-and-films-are-thriving/

Publishers need to appreciate that they are in the audience building business, writes Miles Galliford, co-founder, SubHub.

One by one, content industries have been dragged, sometimes kicking and screaming, into the digital age.

It started with the music industry a decade ago when people started copying and sharing music online.

The record labels immediately recognised the threat and turned to their lawyers for the solution.

Steve Jobs on the other hand recognised the opportunity and in the chaos and confusion that ensued, staged one of the world’s greatest reverse takeovers.

Using a pocketable music player and some syncing software, Apple orchestrated a Velvet Revolution taking control of music retailing without a shot being fired.

While most music industry executives don’t have a good word to say about Apple, it provided a parachute to an industry in freefall.

The same ‘outsider thrown into a threatened industry’ situation happened in both the film and book publishing industries too.

Netflix brought the digital age to the film industry, first with its unlimited DVD subscription and latterly with its streaming service that takes films online to a TV utilising existing attached devices such as a PC, X-box or Wii.

Like Apple, Netflix gained such a strong position in film distribution, the film industry had no choice but to work with them on their terms.

Likewise Amazon is revolutionising book publishing primarily through the Kindle e-reader. On the surface this appears to just be a new format for the same books, but as with the iPod it will fundamentally change book publishing forever.

It changes the business model, pricing, distribution, licensing and marketing. It eliminates most of the barriers to entry which for so long, created a moat around the publishers castles.

But what about magazine publishing? Why has no white knight (or Trojan Horse) emerged to help revolutionise this sector?

The industry is worth £4.1 billion in the UK alone according to the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA), but their existing business model is on life support as media consumption habits change.

Magazine publishers have reached a crossroads without a map, and the decisions they make now will determine whether they grow and prosper or end up pushing up trees rather than printing on them.

So far most efforts have focused on trying to move their existing formats and business models onto digital platforms; websites funded by advertising and subscription, digital versions of magazines sold as iPad apps and hybrids of print and digital. Some trials have worked but most have not.

The latest ABC figures highlight a decline in digital magazine subscriptions and many experts believe they are failing to gain traction.

Research from magazine industry body FIPP also shows that 7 out of 10 people find them annoying and 48% said that they took too long to download.

And while nearly three quarters of respondents claimed that video content enhanced digital magazine reading, 46% said that they were “just a gimmick”.

In the summer five of the world’s biggest publishers – Conde Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp and Times Inc – launched Next Issue.

A  $9.99 or $14.99 subscription to Next Issue gets you not just one magazine subscription but unlimited access to the distributor’s entire catalogue, including popular magazines suchWired, Esquire, Fortune, Real Simple, People and much more.

Will it work? The jury is out. Failure will almost certainly sign the death warrant of the digital magazine format and this will force publishers to think far more radically about how they can reinvent their whole business… and this may not be a bad thing.

People buy magazines to fulfil a need or solve a problem. For some magazines it is obvious; for example Which? is bought to help householders make better buying decisions, thereby saving them money, or at least helping them spend their money wisely.

For most magazi

nes the problem being solved or need being fulfilled is not so clear.

The American magazine publisher Christianity Today undertook a survey of its readers to understand exactly what content they valued and why.

This revealed a large number of their readers loved a one-page section listing sermon ideas and illustrations.

It greatly helped them with the tedious and time-consuming task of preparing their weekly address.

This had a real and measurable value which they were happy to pay for. So the publisher created a dedicated website, PreachingToday.com, and put the sermon content behind a paywall. Today the site has revenues of more than $1 million.

Publishers have to identify the job their readers buy their magazine to fulfil. Only then can they implement a business model based on the real perceived value.

If readers buy a gardening magazine to help them choose plants for their garden for example, the publisher could start selling those plants, or work on a revenue share basis with a partner who sells them.

Car magazine readers who want  to find the best car deals could provide the publisher with an opportunity to offer a group buying club to help drive down the cost of cars.

And teenagers reading a music magazine to stay current with the latest bands and songs may be willing to buy gig tickets and music downloads.

On the web, content builds audiences and audiences can be monetised, but publishers must understand where the value lies rather than trying to force their business model onto their readers.

Content is t

he life blood surging through the veins of the world wide web, but because of its abundance it has little perceived value. However, content builds audiences, and audiences have value.

Publishers just need to appreciate they are in the audience building business and work out how to turn a happy trusting audience into new revenue streams.

Published: http://www.brandrepublic.com/opinion/1153869/Think-BR-Why-digital-magazines-turned-page