It seems that during the depths of the recession in 2008-2009, the company’s information service was most often an “impulse buy” for credit pros who desperately needed to figure out credit-worthiness in a shifting world. But, as the economy stabilized in 2010, CreditRiskMonitor’s subscription sales slowed….

What to do? The company shifted its marketing messaging and retrained its sales reps to promote a benefit better suited for a stabler-but-still-sucky economy — corporate cost control data. After repositioning, subscription sales began to rise again, and are expected to continue rising.

Great lesson: never assume your site’s unique sales proposition (USP) will remain the same over time. As your market shifts, your USP has to shift as well.

Once a month, the ““What’s Your Diagnosis?” challenge email email is sent with a patient presentation of symptoms but will stop short of a diagnosis, instead asking the audience of medical professionals to post their guess at the “What’s Your Diagnosis?” blog. Five winners are randomly chosen from the comments to receive a free copy of the latest issue of Emergency Medicine Practice.

The next week, a follow-up email includes the correct diagnosis and a list of the randomly chosen winners. Ivy says the “What’s Your Diagnosis?” email series is very popular with the EBMedicine audience. This is the kind of email engagement and marketing that almost any subscription site can try even with a simple trivia question that’s answered in the next email.

For this complete Case Study, join Subscription Site Insider now as a 10-day trial Member for just $1.

This is big news for subscription sites who are intent on protecting their copyright and preventing piracy. It is also a warning to businesses that they need to purchase group subscriptions for their employees. (We will be publishing a group sales toolkit at our sister site Subscription Site Insider later this month.)

SIIA pursued the case on behalf of Providence Publications, publisher of the Cal-OSHA Reporter and a member of the Specialized Information Publishers Association (SIPA).  SIPA members may participate in SIIA’s antipiracy program as a complementary benefit of SIPA.

HMH builders admitted to purchasing a single subscription of the Cal-OSHA Reporter—a newsletter about California occupational health and safety— and, without a license, electronically copying and redistributing the newsletter to hundreds of employees over a period of years. The company claimed, though, that fewer than 10 employees read each edition.

“While we respect the good people at HMH Builders, we are happy that the others have been brought to heel,” said Dale Debber, President of Providence Publications. “Many good people simply don’t understand that the effective theft of premium quality specialized content is the same as stealing from a store or a bank.”

• E-media was the fastest growing revenue stream last year (cited by 68 percent of larger publishers and 52 percent of smaller publishers).  This is where you need to put your money. If don’t already have a subscription site, learn how to run a membership site effectively. Repurpose your content into mobile apps; yes, there is a market for b-to-b apps. Keep an eye out for what’s next in the online space.
• 35 percent of larger publishers plan to launch an online publication compared to 20 percent who expect to launch a new print magazine in 2011. Meanwhile, 27 percent of smaller b-to-b publishers plan to launch online, while just 13 percent are planning a magazine startup. A third of publishers are  launching an online startup this year. These days it is usually cheaper and less risky to launch online. My greatest fear in seeing these numbers is that another company might launch my idea before I do. Get out there and do it now and don’t use money as an excuse. Our recent Case Study on NeedATopic proved that a membership site can be launched in less than a week for less than $1,000.
• Larger publishers said the events part of their business was their second-fastest growing revenue stream. No matter the size of your business, if you’re not doing events, you’re leaving business on the table. Start small if you have to with a half-day or full-day conference near your headquarters. Learn from the experience and grow. Don’t forget virtual events like trade shows and education.
• The majority of both larger and smaller publishers  say they expect a double-digit increase in revenues this year. Business is back. Ask yourself, where can you find double digit increases in your revenue streams?

Founder Harry Schuhmacher grows profits by launching paid sister newsletters which he markets to his current customer and prospect base. For example, he launched a very successful paid newsletter just for the craft beer industry.

Key: He picked the topic by watching which Beer Business Daily headlines about niche topics generated the most interest. (News about the fast-growing craft beer segment is in high demand by the newsletter’s subscribers from the beer distribution industry.)

While he continued to cover large craft breweries in Beer Business Daily, the new publication went much deeper and expanded coverage to thousands of smaller craft breweries, so readers had to buy a second subscription if they were passionate about the topic. So his customer-base is overlapping — but the content is not.

(If you’d like the entire Case Study, including details on how the company turned free email opt-ins into paying subscribers, here’s the link.)

That’s one of the big lessons from this week’s exclusive Subscription Site Insider Case Study on BuildingGreen.com, which offers a suite of subscription products for architects and designers in the sustainable building industry. (You can read the BuildingGreen.com Case Study, and any other in our Case Study Library, by signing up for a 10-day Free Trial before Friday, March 25)

BuildingGreen President Nadav Malin told us that site licenses account for 30% of the company’s subscription revenues, with 40% of the top-10 architecture firms in the United States paying up to $15,000 annually for firm-wide access to the company’s websites.

Most of those site licenses were sold thanks to long-standing relationships with individuals within those firms who rose to positions of prominence as the sustainable-building trend has taken off.

It’s a great example of a classic site-license marketing strategy: Look for an internal “champion” at your prospect companies who can make the case about the value of your products to his or her bosses.

In response to the growing movement toward energy-efficient and sustainable building practices, many architecture firms have added an executive-level position, such as a “Director of Sustainability,” to develop their firm’s expertise in that discipline. These individuals had the most experience in the area — and were also likely to be longtime subscribers to BuildingGreen’s flagship newsletter, Environmental Building News.

Malin says that conversations with those individuals, either through specific outreach to them or by the individual proactively calling BuildingGreen to ask about firm-wide access, led to most of their site-license deals. So if you want to expand your own site-license sales, look for your own “champions” within organizations.

Start by making a list of high-value target accounts for site licenses and check your existing subscriber database for individuals at those companies who are current subscribers.

Also study your industry to see if there’s a particular title or job description that’s likely to make decisions on subscription resources to help the company do its job better. Depending on your product, this could be a director of research, an HR executive, or a high-level marketing or operations specialist.

Then, develop an outreach approach to promote site-license options first to these individuals. You can start with email or telemarketing outreach just to let individual subscribers know what options are available to expand access throughout their companies.

If there’s real interest, you can offer resources that help them make the case internally — such as educational whitepapers, video demos, even a PowerPoint deck that the champion can customize for their own internal presentation about the benefits and value of your site-license option.

Finding an internal champion can make your site-license selling process a lot easier — but in turn you need to make it as easy as possible for that champion to make the case on your behalf.

(Non-members can read the BVR Case Study, or any others in our Case Study Library, by signing up for a Free Trial).

One of the secrets of BVR’s growth strategy: Licensing other people’s content. 

Foster explained that licensed content now accounts for 35% of annual revenues. Although he was initially wary of content licensing, he’s come to see the practice as a low-cost, low-risk way to diversify your product mix and grow an online publishing company.

BVR looks for content providers who can complement their mix of proprietary online databases, ebooks, webinars and other resources related to the business valuation process. For example, they partner with FactSet and BizMiner to resell subscriptions to those companies’ online databases directly from the BVR site.

But they also use their online publishing expertise to find partners who need help bringing new content to market. For example, BVR works with academics to publish new textbooks on business valuation topics.

They then sell those books in their online store, but also pull out chapters that can be combined with other BVR content to create entirely new products — maximizing the revenue from all content to which they hold the rights.

To create good licensing partnerships, Foster recommends being generous with your terms. BVR typically gives the content creator 50% of the subscription fee or product sale price. And both companies receive buyers’ names and contact information for future marketing outreach.

So take a closer look around your own industry – and related niches – for potential content licensing partners. You might find a similar avenue to low-cost, low-risk growth. (Remember, you can check out this week’s Case Study on Business Valuation Resources by signing up for our 10-Day Free Trial.)

To my mind, one of the best lessons that other B2B subscription database & research publishers should take to heart from this Case Study is how cleverly Compete.com’s homepage is designed.

Most B2B database sites have a fairly static, stodgy homepage. They’re more like informational billboards with some text links. You know, this is who we are, this is what we do, here’s a press release, here’s our nav bar. Sometimes the designer will dress it up with a happy-executive stock photograph. Blah.

Compete.com, on the other hand, is really designed for interactivity. The homepage is dedicated to getting you to digging into their database. Then, once you dig in, you’ll hit a paywall tailored to your specific query. This is a proven formula in the B2C database homepage design — consider dating sites, criminal records database sites, etc. But, aside from Hoovers.com, I rarely see it in B2B sites. Why not?

BTW: If you’d like to review our Compete.com Case Study, it’s members-only, but memberships are $57 or less per month, and include access to loads more Case Studies, plus $1,450 worth of instructional materials to help grow your paid content profits, etc., etc. More info on this Case Study and Subscription Site Insider memberships here.

Turns out Dan’s most important subscription marketing tactic is getting on a plane and personally attending as many industry events as possible each year. He goes to nearly a dozen shows a year, showing up even if he’s not one of the
speakers. The point is to meet as many execs in person as possible.

It’s paid off for Dan’s site which now boasts subscriptions from more than 200 companies in the organic food industry, including some highly profitable site licenses.

But, it’s diametrically opposite of what many other online publishers do. Most tend to sit behind their computers and build virtual relationships instead of real-world meetings. Plus, most b2b trade magazines have cut back in travel budgets so harshly that few reporters ever go to real-world events anymore.

According to Dan, that could be hurting their potential subscription business. Just because you’re a virtual publication doesn’t mean you should do everything virtually!

Alex, in particular, did a phenomenal job of demystifying SEO and offering practical tips that people can get started with immediately. If you have a chance to hear her speak—do. She was telling us how even her 11-year-old son is getting a handle on SEO—if he can do it, no doubt we all can. Keep an eye on Subscription Site Insider in August for loads of practical information on how to implement a successful SEO strategy.

You can also take a look at the presentation I gave on the “Marketing Tactics” page at www.subscriptionsiteinsider.com.