SIPA UK Blog

SIPA UK Congress - delegate update

I'm really looking forward to the SIPA UK Congress this year. With a little under 2 weeks to go we have a fantastic programme in place and hundreds of specialist publishers who have confirmed their attendance.

If you haven't yet registered please do so today. It's just one day out of the office & cost effective to attend (especially if you bring a group).

You will not only hear from some of the foremost experts in marketing, publishing and content strategies but also meet and exchange ideas with your peer group in a relaxed and open setting. Companies already confirmed to attend include:

• Abacus E-Media
• Accolade Publishing
• Adestra
• Agora Business Publications
• AI Digital
• Ant Marketing
• Aroq
• BNA International
• BSI Business Intelligence
• Business Monitor International
• Canonbury Publishing
• CDS Global
• Cecile Park Publishing
• Chemical Watch Research & Publishing
• Complinet
• Datamatics Financial Services
• DMG World Media
• E-Consultancy
• Economist Intelligence Unit
• Electric Word
• Elsevier
• Euromoney Institutional Investor
• Global Water intelligence
• Incisive Media
• Informa Healthcare
• Informa Insurance
• Informa Law
• Inside Mortgage Finance Publications
• Institute of Physics Publishing
• Journal of Applied Science & Technology
• Kluwer Law International
• Laurence Kay Solicitors
• Lawrence Ragan Communications
• Outsell Inc
• Melcrum Publishing
• Nature Publishing Group
• News on the Block
• Premier Print Group
• Property Secrets
• Publishing House Research
• PureLabs
• Rapport Learning
• Report Buyer
• Research Research
• Rightscom
• Sunfish
• Verlag fur die Deutsche Wirtschaft
• William Reed Business Media
• Wordtracker
• WorksSitebuilder

Come along to the SIPA event of the year. You can download the full brochure and booking form here http://www.sipaonline.com/Chapters/SIPA08_final.pdf or you can contact Karen Hindle  uksipa@btconnect.com for any further information.

How to screw up massively - Web 2.0 Style

It's not cool, it's not clever, it's simply one of the most ridiculous, pointless defences to have emerged so far.

The Associated Press are undoubtedly, "Old Media Douchebags"

1 simple question

Do you believe that one day all content will be free?

(respond in the comments section below)

Keynote speaker at SIPA Congress interviewed by e-consultancy

In the run up to the SIPA UK Congress check out this interview that one of our keynote speakers, Tim Weller, Group CEO of Incisive Media gave to e-consultancy. In the interview Tim outlines some of the concepts he plans to address at our event on July 9th.

See you there. Places are going fast.

Rory Brown.

(BTW - e-consultancy is a great site that you should check out. They should become members of SIPA - *hint* to Ashley Friedlein & Charlie Salter - I know one of you will pick this up ;)

Has FT.com cracked the subscription code?

By Alex Manchester, Melcrum

In some contrast of topic compared to yesterday's Facebook post, I wanted to share some thoughts on FT.com. Have you seen its new subscription model? It takes elements from free and paid-for models (see image below), and I assume uses some kind of IP technology to offer a tiered, clunk-free subs process. For an irregular reader such as me, it's very nice indeed.

The FT's new subscription model

With print newspapers in decline and the large media companies taking very large axes to jobs and publications, will the FT crack the code with this new model?

Writing in InCirculation this month, Martin Ashford, UK circulation director at the FT, says they're pleased so far:

"Unique users are rising strongly, a quarter of a million users have registered and subs numbers are steady."

From a user's perspective, I wouldn't mind paying for quality info that I need and rely on. If I was in a position to need way more than 30 articles per month from the FT (I say way more because if it was just one or two articles over I'd probably just try using a separate computer to skirt the IP issues), then I'd pay for it quite happily, and this seems to be what the FT is banking on:

"We have a fundamental conviction that others may like to reflect on: if you invest in strong, unique content, which has a real value to your target readers, then you should not be frightened to assign a value to it."

And, finally, Ashford challenges conventional wisdom: "Contrary to the once-popular view, your content doesn't have to be free."

The FT is no small fish in media, so this is a bold statement indeed. On the strength of the product, however, Martin and the FT may have a point. What do you think?

The flip side to a Facebook crackdown

By Alex Manchester, Melcrum

Hi all,

Rob Crumby has invited me to guest blog on the SIPA UK blog, so here goes...

It's easy enough to go about banning Facebook in the workplace because of productivity fears. This typical, generalising policy is in place in many organisations and there are numerous pieces of "research" to help justify your actions. But, is Facebook really a problem? And, looking at it another way, what are the ramifications of banning Facebook?

If the latest survey from Telindus is to be believed (see the Melcrum Internal Comms Hub news story here), some 39% of workers aged between 18-24 would consider quitting their jobs if their employer put a full ban on social networking sites - and 80% of the 1,000 surveyed do access such sites at work.

In a clear statement to employers wondering what to do, almost half of workers believe it would be better to restrict personal internet usage to lunch or out of work hours, rather than ban access completely. Surely this is a better option than banning it outright?

Shel Holtz has another angle on this continuing story, which over on The Melcrum Blog we've covered a lot in the last 18 months. According to the latest analysis from the US Labour Department – and despite rapid growth in Facebook's popularity (did you see it recently matched and surpassed MySpace as the biggest social network? See image below) – productivity in the US has actually increased faster than expected in the first quarter of 2008. That's despite lots of job cuts, a horrible economic climate and lots of uncertainty - and millions of workers having access to Facebook/the Web at work.

According to many consultants and pundits, wasn't Facebook going to cost businesses billions in lost productivity? Yup, that's what quite a few said. (Example 1 and Example 2 for starters.).

So, what's the deal here?

Telling Sky News Online, Telindus managing director, Mark Hutchinson said, "The key to appreciating the younger generation is to understand that they communicate in a totally different way. To have a phone on your desk is alien, they use YouTube and Facebook on a daily basis."

Exactly, and that comment also reminds me of a recent quote at the Enterprise 2.0 Forum from David Backley, CTO at Westpac (one of the four major banks in Australia): "People coming into the workplace are not demanding these tools [social networking, blogs, IM etc], they're actually expecting them to be available."

IT departments are scared of social media. Businesses are scared, (as they were when the individual telephone on a desk was introduced, as Shel Holtz often says). But in the long term, by putting heads in the sand and creating a nice iron curtain around your employees, your company is going to look quite unappealing next to the competitor who is making more of an effort to understand the increasingly varied demands of the 100% networked employee. All you're actually doing is demonstrating a complete lack of understanding about this new "stuff".

Conversation, dialogue, social networking, blogs, personal sites, personal publishing, easy-to-use software... this is how things are going. We're not going to go back to how things were 10, 5 or even 2 years ago.

It's wise to consider the threats and risks, but you should spend an equal amount of time weighing up the opportunities and potential advantages, because you can keep pining for the "good ol' days", or you can wake up and smell the internet coffee.

Facebook's rise and usurping of MySpace as the world's #1 social networking site (image via Tech Crunch)

Tim Weller, Incisive Media Group CEO to keynote SIPA UK Congress

I'm delighted that Tim Weller, Incisive Media's Group CEO and Founder has agreed to give the keynote at this year's SIPA UK Congress.

Tim worked at VNU, Centaur and Reuters before founding Incisive Media in 1994. From humble beginnings Incisive now employs some 2,000 people around the world & is backed by one of the largest global private equity groups - Apax Partners.

At the SIPA Congress Tim will speak about the importance of publishing 'narrow and deep' - becoming deeply embedded in the communities you serve - an area that has always been very close to the heart of the specialist publishing industry.

I have obviously spent a lot of time with Tim since he bought the company I worked for - the Risk Waters Group - in 2003. He is one of the most engaging & passionate speakers in the sector and when planning the schedule I could think of no-one better to deliver our opening keynote.

If you haven't already booked your team in to attend the SIPA Congress please do so today. We have around 40 expert speakers and round table hosts from Europe and the US and expect around 200 attendees. Full programme details and booking forms can be downloaded here.

Companies which have already confirmed their attendance include:

Abacus E-Media * Accolade Publishing * Adestra * Agora Business Publications * AI Digital * Ant Telemarketing * Aroq * BNA International * BSI Business Intelligence * Business Monitor International * Canonbury Publishing * Cecile Park Publishing * CDS Global * Complinet * Datamatics Financial Services * DMG World Media * Economist Intelligence Unit * Electric Word * Elsevier * Euromoney Institutional Investor * Incisive Media * Informa Insurance * Informa Law * Inside Mortgage Finance Publications * Institute of Physics Publishing * Kluwer Law International * Laurence Kay Solicitors * Lawrence Ragan Communications * Melcrum Publishing * Nature Publishing Group * News on the Block * Outsell Inc. * Premier Print Group * PureLabs * Report Buyer * Research Research * Rightscom * Verlag fur die Deutsche Wirtschaft * William Reed Business Media * Wordtracker * Works Site Builder... and more

The congress features both plenary sessions and breakouts for publishers, marketers, editors and online / e-publishing leaders. Delegates can tailor the sessions around particular interest areas.

Bring your whole team & join us for the UK specialist publishing event of the year. I personally guarantee you won't be disappointed. [I'm also on a mission to beat Julian's attendance figure last year...]

See you in July (8-9 in London).

Rory Brown

I think the second shot may have been a mistake

But this morning's bacon sandwich was a stroke of genius.

Last night's SIPA marketing networking group was a success on many fronts. It was still going strong at 11pm when I took an executive decision to leave the kids to it.

We had three excellent speakers on the night - who inspired me to take a close look at our email marketing. Any marketer who does not get stupidly excited about being able to see what your customers are doing, be it through open rates, click throughs or conversion to order, is in the wrong job.

Everyone who came along will get a full copy of the presentations, for everyone else - here are the best email marketing tips from Sean Hayes, Sara Baugh and Paul Crabtree of Incisive Media, Electric Word and Adestra.

What your reports tell you

• So you think you know people because they filled in a form? You don't. Track what people do, what they read, why they buy - not what they say they do
• Buying in 3rd party email lists is a false economy; if you have to use this method - never lease names as response declines faster than the level in Sean's pint

Email marketing as art and science

• Surprise your readers; a news alert that always comes from the brand pulled £35k when it was sent from the editor (with a chatty, informal holiday style)
• Test religiously. Electric Word do and they get 40% open rates. Enough said.
• Do your editors write your news alert subject lines? Think you can do better? Do an editorial vs marketing split subject line test - Electric Word did and guess who won. Yep. Marketing every time.
• A show of hands showed that we all do things we know we shouldn't - to make it clear, in B2B leading with FREE, SALE or any offer led copy will diminish response -whatever your market. Always. Without fail.
• Headlines maketh the email - don't stop at a great subject line. If you want some great examples, sign up for Electric Word's newlines and read.
• There is no such thing as too many testimonials, especially if you use them as a block - they can lift response (orders) by 18%+
• Send your customers short surveys asking for testimonials and use them everywhere!

Rip up the research. Watch your customers and competitors instead

• When should you send your emails? When your customers are naturally responsive - look at your web stats over 3 months and your customers will tell you when they are in information mode
• A classic publishing trick is to have your magazine land on people's desks before your competitor - do you do the same things with your news alerts
• Do you send your news alert the same time every week. And why is that? Check those web trends and find out if 4pm Friday really is when your customers are online and looking to be interrupted

Watch this space for details of the next networking group. We'll be meeting in August for more practical take-aways and I suspect more beers/shots/cocktails.

Everyone who attends gets the full presentations and a complimentary hangover - so don't miss out. Come along and better still volunteer to present the best things you have done this year. Even where we compete, we are all in this together and SIPA is all about raising standard across the industry.

Please email me or Karen Hindle at uksipa@btconnect.com join the group, speak and to suggest topics.

Louise

Virtual friends?

Right. I've had enough of this debate about how it's good to meet people face to face.

I agree.

It is.

But this is interesting & I plan on playing with the technology behind it - Ning.

Folio Media Pro

My name is Rory Brown and I am a geek.

When customers say thank you

"I flew all the way for this!"

With oil at $130 plus a barrel. Increased security checks. And corporate budgets under pressure. Traveling to business conferences just to hear a bunch of speakers read out bullet points from PowerPoint slides, when improved communication and social media mean you could have listened in from the comfort of your office...All this is really raising the bar for conference organizers. Or so says author of Permission Marketing, Seth Godin.

Anyone who's ever read his white paper on 'Death by Powerpoint': Really Bad Powerpoint will have looked back and cringed at their own slide decks crammed packed full of bullet points and dense text that has delegates' minds wandering or plain squinting at the screen.

The days of the traditional format conference are surely numbered. But from roundtables, to Q&A sessions, to interactive group discussions, to plain-old networking in the halls, there's no substitute for the shared learning experience conferences offer, when done well.

So imagine our delight when a delegate at Melcrum's recent Employee Engagement Summit in Sydney, Australia took it upon themselves to buy our very own Amy Lyons the most enormous bouquet of flowers with a card that referenced all the wonderful things Amy had done to make their conference experience second to none. (Customer service smug factor: 10/10).

It would seem that the value of attending conferences is alive and well, after all. And can social media and so-called 'virtual conferences' really replace the real thing? Virtual flowers, anyone?

By Robin Crumby, Managing Director, Melcrum