Competitively speaking, today’s B2B e-news is an easy mark for any outsider wishing to invade the market. That conclusion seems quickly drawn every year Editorial Solutions, Inc., conducts its annual B2B e-news delivery study. The most common explanation—which may be valid to some extent—is the heavy workload editors have had to shoulder as spiraling quantitative…
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Washington, DC — Editor/advertiser relations remain B2B media’s major hurdle. This dim view was shared by Ethics Roundtable panelists during last week’s American Society of Business Publications Editors National Conference. The agreed-upon top concern was a rising movement requiring editors to increase creative contribution to sponsored content program development. “Pressure will come from print advertisers…
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When identifying objectives for B2B e-news packages, “universality of interest” should be at the top of your list. The goal involved is obvious: deliver as many articles as possible that will impact most or all of your site’s readership. In fact, many editors are well aware of what developments fulfill the universality requirement. Being able to gather…
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While ASBPE’s ethics code includes several guidelines defining editorial staff participation in marketing activity, the section requires amendment covering sponsored content activity. A chapter devoted to ethics in my book—Get Serious About Editorial Management—observes that “in larger companies, this requirement is best fulfilled by a representative of the publisher’s sponsored content department. In smaller firms, publishers…
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Curation at many B2B Web sites falls short of best practices recommended by content marketing authority Curata. If online managers did a better job of following suit, they might fill the quality gap existing due to insufficient original material delivery. This possibility would be immediately suggested to anyone taking time out to study Curata’s guide for content curators, How to…
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There are at least four ways to measure editorial performance. Leading the list is competitive productivity. This was the message I conveyed to attendees at a workshop reviewing management guidelines covered in my new B2B book, Get Serious About Editorial Management. “Constantly review editorial management strengths and weaknesses against competition,” I advised. “And if competition does…
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“What publishers really want from editors”—the focus of ASBPE’s February 28 webinar—clearly is a challenging topic. Equally worth a follow-up session some day is the logical response session: “What do editors want from publishers?” Meanwhile, featured speaker Kilian Schalk, founder of consulting firm PurpleGray, clearly was prepared to present the publishers’ viewpoint. He offered an overwhelming list…
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Lack of enterprise, endless sentences and misdirected introductory paragraphs should appear rarely if not ever in B2B online posts. But such is not the case reflected in early findings from Editorial Solutions Inc.’s 7th annual e-news delivery study. Alerts conveyed via my previous six studies clearly have not registered. Either that . . . or I am…
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Most ethics authorities usually agree that articles containing numbers require careful review prior to publication. Too many editors and writers forego the necessary vetting, warns editorial and design consultant Robin Sherman. “Journalists publish many stories based on bad data,” he says, “which in turn is often based on poor methodology.” Sherman is immediate past ethics…
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When judging publishing industry editorial competitions, my most challenging category often is the Best Headline event. In the past, I restricted my evaluation to headlines accompanying feature articles. This year, I expanded the scope to account for treatments involving cover, contents page, and editorial columns. The result is the following ten-point scoring system. If you…
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