I’m told that next week the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industries, will announce that it has settled copyright infringement claims it pursued against Harbison-Mahony-Higgins Builders, Inc. (HMH Builders) for purchasing one single subscription to a publication but distributing it to hundreds of employees.
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.)
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.”
B-to-B publishing is alive and well, and publishing CEOs see the best opportunities in online publishing and events, according to a new survey of B-to-B CEOs from Folio Magazine. B-to-B publishers of all sizes can learn a few key lessons from the survey results, including why now is the time to launch a membership or subscription site:
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?
This week’s exclusive Case Study at our sister site Subscription Site Indier goes behind-the-scenes at Beer Business Daily, a paid email newsletter that’s bought by a whopping 70% execs in its niche market. Here’s our #1 lesson learned:
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.)
If you’re selling site licenses for your online subscriptions, your best marketing person probably isn’t on your team – it’s someone within the organizations you’re targeting.
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.
In this week’s Subscription Site Insider Case Study we interviewed David Foster, CEO of Business Valuation Resources, for a in-depth look at how the comapny has tripled revenues by diversifying its product mix and target audieces.
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.
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