There are things that can help you perform in the face of these realities, like employing time shifting, creating a content governance system, having a razor sharp Continue reading →]]> Many association editorial departments have seen their resources cut: less budget, less team members, at the same time social and rich media demands are increasing the workload.

There are things that can help you perform in the face of these realities, like employing time shifting, creating a content governance system, having a razor sharp

organization-wide content strategy, and putting analytics to work for you.

One editor said to me: “I agree there’s value in tracking analytics, but I am not trained in analytics. I am not experienced in evaluating them and I don’t think I know what to look for.” 

He’s typical of editorial teams in that he is not accustomed to using analytics. He doesn’t even have access to their organization’s analytics. This means he can’t see the stats of people interacting with the content assets his department produces or the urls that they map through their social channels. How is he supposed to innovate and create content that his audience values if he can’t learn from what works best vs. what didn’t draw attention?

Why is it that associations seem to only track “sales/marketing” content? I think it is because there is an expectation of accountability for responses and outcomes from marketing projects. Well, editorial teams are marketing too, they’re content marketing. Except, without the tracking and measuring the marketing part isn’t in the mix.

As a content curator, don’t you want to know which article got the most views, which tweets pulled in the most traffic, which content topics got the most tweets, shares or likes? 

Here are some suggestions of what to look for in your analytics. If you’re new to using analytics or thinking about how to utilize this tool with your content then this can help you identify where to start. The data you collect can demonstrate to your organization why you need access to analytics, or at least some reports to start. 

• How many people come to our site from the links that our content team puts out there (referrals)?
• What is the average time spent on our content?
• What is the average time spent on the site as a whole?
• Which content product was the most read (clicked on) last week, month, year?
• Which content product was the most liked or shared last week, month, year?
• Which content product was the most commented upon last week, month, year?
• What are the most frequent search terms?
• Which search term is bringing people to our team’s content?
• What content is getting clickthroughs from the eblasts?
• How many annual meeting attendees are active readers of our content?
• How many readers of our content also made purchases?
• What other actions were taken by readers of our content (went to the bookstore, downoad an ebook, watch a video)?
• How much time do readers spend on our longer content assets compared to the fast-to-digest assets?
• Which social sites are our visitors coming from? (you tweeted a link, or placed a teaser on Facebook)

The data you collect, and even the users’ comments, will inform your understanding of your audience’s needs and will help you formulate a C-suite level position to protect what’s left of your resources. Use the goals of your organization-wide content strategy to further support your resource needs and to close the loop on your content efforts to ensure that you are delivering results.

The Analytics Platform of the Future

The race is on. More than a few companies are frantically focused on developing the new analytics platforms of the future. Imagine if marketers can track an individual’s engagement with all the channels within one campaign, deeper engagement will be indicative of stronger prospects. Profiling the characteristics of those prospects will help companies connect with more like people, or more accurately for B2B, like groups. It’s not here yet, but it will be soon.

If analytics will be that comprehensive and useful, do you think that editorial teams will be precluded from using such a robust tool to their advantage? No way. 

So, how do you get started?
• Formulate your strategy to employ analytics-gathered data.
• Ensure that you have a well-defined content strategy that is aligned with your organization’s business goals.
• Develop a c-suite-level argument to support a process change for your team to start working with analytics. 
•  Identify your team members’ roles for monitoring analytics and reporting.
• Identify what data you will start monitoring.

Like associations, there are companies who market with their content and as a result have a trove of information that could be useful to your audience. Their expertise is in a niche area and if properly packaged could be a valuable offering. But, associations don’t want to hear from them.Continue reading →]]> Associations regularly censor expert’s voices.

Like associations, there are companies who market with their content and as a result have a trove of information that could be useful to your audience. Their expertise is in a niche area and if properly packaged could be a valuable offering. But, associations don’t want to hear from them.

Associations only want their money. This group of experts has been labeled, it’s their scarlet letter A. Their expertise is untapped, their good ideas are not received. A in this case stands for Advertisers.

In driving retention, associations prove their value again each day by delivering useful information that is targeted to their member segments through many mediums and channels. According to the Content Marketing Institute, the #1 challenge for companies that are actively marketing using content is creating engaging content. Following close behind that is creating enough content. So, why would any group’s ‘voice’ be censored?

In the 90s, attempts to grab more advertising dollars in the form of advertorials fell flat. An idea with promise, but perhaps it was before its time. You might remember those useless ad pages where companies offered information all about themselves with their own ad on the facing page. Only the publisher’s back account benefitted and most advertisers would tell you that those advertorials didn’t deliver more buyers for them. But today, these companies have content at the ready and a request for information could turn up some incredible finds.

These experts, your advertisers, can help you with your content goals. If your audience is corporate counsel and self-employed lawyers, then they probably have some interest in ediscovery. And you probably have companies who are experts in that area as advertisers or sponsors. eDiscovery is a field that is rapidly evolving because of the ever-increasing preference for digital documents and technology making it easier to convert, search, organize, and archive, but it might not be a topic that a lawyer may go searching to read about unless they were in immediate need.  But content topics like these, if properly packaged and delivered to your audience, could offer insight and likely be valuable.

Since the ediscovery field is changing so rapidly, predictions about the future of eDiscovery and how that new landscape is going to reshape how law firms undertake discovery might grab attention even if an attorney wasn’t actively searching for an ediscovery provider. I smell an ebook! In three days it could be up on your site for FREE download! And, yes, you could even sell ads in it, if you are still stuck thinking that this group’s sole purpose is to pay you to offer value to your audience.

But this might be a time when the fast buck doesn’t get you as much as the patient money approach. If there is no barrier to entry beyond quality, you’ll end up with a better ebook and you might find that they start developing content ideas for you. For free. Now you’ve a free content team working for you to solve your #1 and #2 content marketing challenge.

Don’t censor their voices. Monetize them (but not in the old way)!

Like any tool, it matters how you use … Continue reading →]]> If you are an association content curator, perhaps part of an editorial team, behold your power. You hold one of the hottest tools to drive retention: your content!

Like any tool, it matters how you use it.

Content curation is demanding on resources, so how do you keep your content working for you, not you working for it? How do you harness this tool to double down on results without doubling up the demand on your resources?

Content products must be aligned with your organizational short-term goals. Long-term goals are pretty vague in guiding you to identify new content topics, but short term goals spell it out.

Need your annual meetings to attract a higher percentage of your membership base, then identify the best segment to achieve that and create a content series for them that can be repackaged as a meeting session. Throughout the release of the series, be nimble and refine your content based on feedback, comments, or analytics.

 That seems straightforward, but, there are two things standing in the way of many association editorial teams from being a content dynamo with measurable results. Here they are and ideas to address them:

 1. Editorial departments have seen their resources trimmed in cost-savings measures throughout the past years.

 What to do about it:

 • Employ time-shifting: develop efficiencies in order to shift time to a place where you get more value from your efforts.

 • Use creativity as a disruptive tool to change your team or your process. Evolve.

 • Map your content early – at the genesis of the idea, not when the article is completed – to allow time for rich media products and resource allocation.

 • Measure your content. Analytics can prove the ROI of your content as well as your team. (Look for patterns: How many of your organization’s site visitors read your team’s content? How long do they spend on your content vs. the site in general. Are many of your site’s unique visitors coming from links your team has put out there? Is there a pattern that members who read more than three articles a month have a higher retention rate then those who don’t read any?)

 2. Editorial departments remain siloed off from other content curators in their organization and, in too many instances, from accountability of the efficacy of their content.

 What to do about it:

 • Collaborate. All content curation teams must work together to inform and identify content topics and to fully leverage your content. This will reduce redundancies and can also magnify your resources. You might have to start the mindset change by offering to help other department’s teams with your content.

 • Develop a system of content goveranance. If you are going to help other teams with your content, then you need a way to search for topics, tags and content availability efficiently. A sidebar from a few months ago, might increase the clickthroughs of an eblast that alerts the close of the early-bird rate. But you’ll need to access the content map and availability of any content product first — folders of Word files are not content governance.

 • Measure your content. See above. Analytics are your friend. Just like marketing departments justify the ROI of their efforts, editorial content teams need to do the same. If you’re looking to protect your resources from being trimmed, analytics can help prove ROI.

Just about everything in publishing has evolved in response to changes in technology, delivery and consumer habits/expectations. Your team has probably changed too. … Continue reading →]]> Check out the full article over on Blurb, AM&P’s blog.

Just about everything in publishing has evolved in response to changes in technology, delivery and consumer habits/expectations. Your team has probably changed too. But profound change is hard to achieve and even harder to sustain. We are offering 7 tips to effect change for your publication and for your team.

What are your ideas to use creativity to evolve your publication?