Archive for March, 2010

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Mar 24, 2010

Embracing new media can save the old

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: Business, Technical Magazines

The latest State of the Media report, published by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, paints a gloomy picture of the US news media.  Any cheer the online outlets gain by seeing their audiences rise will be outweighed by the fact that, in common with every traditional medium, their advertising revenues fell during 2009.

One interesting statistic from the report is that, from an ongoing analysis of more than one million blogs and social media sites, 80% of the links are to ‘legacy media’ – that is, the traditional news sources.  This means that the shrinking kernel of reporting by regular journalists is fuelling the expanding new media space.  Few stories of note currently begin life within blogs or SM.  It is no surprise that consumers are resistant to paying for news online – there are so many free sources that it has no perceived value.  Of course, this masks the fact that, as the news-generating kernel shrinks further, the diversity of news will decline as well leaving greater volume but ever more dilution of unique content.

Which brings us to the trade and technical media. This has (with a few notable exceptions) been founded on the controlled circulation model, which delivers content free of charge to subscribers who meet the relevant criteria – primarily that they are of interest to advertisers.  As we have said before, technology companies need to support their specialist media in order to maintain a credible, neutral editorial platform for their own news. The good news is that the engineering press can actually benefit from the changes that are happening as long as they embrace new media techniques.

An example of this is EDN Europe, which moved to a fully digital distribution model at the end of 2009.  The digital magazine increasingly features video content – from the editor and contributing companies – and advertisers are being more creative.  Links are displayed in ‘raw’ format so readers can see the type of content they lead to (for example, a datasheet or white paper rather than a company’s home page).  The result is that readers are responding and the publisher is able to provide proof of success immediately.  Consequently, advertisers are returning or supporting the publication for the first time.  At last, magazines can demonstrate their worth directly.  Companies need technical magazines and magazines need technical advertising to survive.  Let’s hope more follows.

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Mar 22, 2010

Is inbound or permission marketing the future for technology PR?

Author: lewistonkinson | Filed under: Inbound Marcom, Technical Magazines, Technical PR

Recently we’ve seen changes in the local press with a publisher starting to charge for web access, and many rumours about other multi-national publishers doing the same, even the Financial Times makes you register to read content now. A small survey of users of Linkedin is having their say about the changing face of the controlled circulation press in electronics with currently over 50% saying that lead tracking systems will help controlled circulation titles increase revenues, supporting the editor of Control Magazine in stating that the B2B publishing model no longer works! Interestingly though nobody thinks magazines should start charging.

Controlled circulation publications may have seen advertising revenues fall,  but without doubt they have some of the best news feeds and blogs for the electronics industry, reaching a large existing community that is already engaged with their media brand and some also do a great job of getting content for companies online, it is just a shame many strip out the links, robbing the editorial contributors the link equity they are looking for.

The cc press still has a big role to play –  whether you support them in page advertising or simple keyword sponsorship, part of your budget needs to go their way, otherwise in the long run it will become more difficult to get impartial info out to your target markets. Of course using a technology pr service is a great way to maximise your opportunity of engaging with the press, but equally using good keyword strategies, social media tactics and blogging regularly along with great PR can get you the best of all worlds. So save some of the money you are spending on pay per click advertising, invest in supporting the magazines and allocate some of your budget to inbound marketing along with some good solid technical pr and technical advertising.

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Mar 17, 2010

Any ideas?

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: Business

In 1890, Ichisuke Fujioka established Japan’s first manufacturer of incandescent light bulbs. The company, which later became part of Toshiba, went on producing light bulbs, peaking at an annual rate of 78 million in the 1970s and shipping over 4 billion bulbs in total.  Until today, when it stopped.

The reason, of course, is that, along with the rest of the industry, Toshiba is concentrating on more efficient lighting technologies, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs).  LEDs offer something good for almost everyone: they use less energy so are cheaper to run and result in less carbon being poured into the atmosphere; they enable more flexible and innovative lighting applications; they are more complex than other light sources and require sophisticated control circuitry that technology companies are happy to sell; and, because the specification and integration of LED lighting systems demands electronics skills that are uncommon in traditional lighting equipment vendors, electronic component distributors are able to offer a new range of lighting services.

Although this appears to be an ideal situation there is one group that will suffer from the passing of the incandescent bulb – cartoon animators, who are scratching their heads wondering what Mickey Mouse will do now if he has an idea.

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Mar 15, 2010

Happy Birthday.com

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: Business, SEO

Twenty five years ago today the first dotcom registration was issued.  It probably wasn’t too hard for a company to stand out on the Internet in 1985 – only six had domains by the end of that year.  However, their addressable audience was so small that both groups could probably have met to discuss business over dinner in a reasonable sized restaurant.

The situation has changed somewhat since then. This interactive map charts the spread of global Internet usage during the decade after 1998. And do you know how many blog posts have been published today alone? (If you haven’t already clicked the link, it’s a lot).

So the restaurant is no longer an option.  If companies want to engage with their potential audiences, they must be active – not just present – online.  And to maximise those audiences they should certainly look closely at their search engine optimisation.  Or be prepared to be submerged by the daily wave of new content.

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Mar 11, 2010

From apple to Apple

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: SEO, Technical PR

Since the dawn of PR, when fruit sellers managed to position the humble apple as an object of desire in the Bible, companies have been using (unconnected) high profile vehicles to gain media exposure for themselves. The practice is alive and well and nicely illustrated by the news coverage garnered by a technology firm that recently contrasted the performance of the iPhone’s display with that of its rival, Google’s Nexus One.

Organisations engaged in business-to-business activity can learn a lot from this. The established lessons are that:  a hook to a topical item can make your product or service newsworthy; technology does not have to be glamorous to be interesting; and a good technology PR adviser can repay his/her fee many times over in results.

What’s new is the effect of Web 2.0.  If correctly handled, the pervasiveness of social media can magnify coverage, deliver traffic directly to your web site and improve your search engine optimisation and rankings, simultaneously.  And who isn’t interested in that?

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Mar 10, 2010

PresseEcho.de, als kostenloser online Presseverteiler

Author: lewistonkinson | Filed under: SEO, Technical Magazines, Technical PR

PresseEcho.de als kostenloser online Presseverteiler unterstützt  Unternehmen, egal ob groß oder klein in der unverzichtbaren Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit (Public Relations) einfach, effektiv und kostengünstig.

Besonders Unternehmen des Mittelstandes können von solch geziehlten Maßnahmen einen großen Nutzen ziehen um potentielle Kunden auf entsprechende Angebote oder neue Produkte aufmerksam zu machen und somit gleichzeitig die Positionierung am Markt zu steigern. Jedoch reichen ein kostenloser Presseverteiler wie dieser und eine Pressemitteilung nicht aus. Eine integrierte Marketingkommunikationsstrategie ist erforderlich, welche regelmäßige Internetaktivitäten wie zum Beispiel  fachbezogenes Bloggen, stätiges Output an Pressemitteilungen oder  Suchmaschinenoptimierung (Search Engine Optimisation) beinhalten können. Schon ein kleines Budget pro Monat kann große Auswirkungen auf die Besucherzahlen  auf der eigenen Unternehmenswebseite haben und bei der Gewinnung von potentiellen Kunden helfen.

Melden Sie sich einfach hier für EINE STUNDE KOSTENLOSE BERATUNG (unverbindlich) über die Dinge, die Sie tun können um Ihre Marketingaktivitäten zu steigern

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Mar 10, 2010

Advertising tipping point

Author: lewistonkinson | Filed under: Technical Magazines

At the risk of teaching people to suck eggs a survey has been published that says we have reached the tipping point where companies are now spending more online than in print. Come on then B2B technical press what can we spend our technical advertising budgets on rather than page ads and banners?

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Mar 8, 2010

Who owns the Twittersphere?

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: Business

While on legal matters, there has been an interesting development in the world of Social Media. Facebook has secured a patent related to ‘streaming feeds’, the means by which many social media sites disseminate content. Should Facebook decide to challenge other users of streaming feeds we can prepare ourselves for an interesting time in the Twittersphere in more ways than one.

Of course, in reality patents tend to be used by competitors as bargaining chips rather than roadblocks. So, as the social media giants jostle for position and attempt to fend off the mass of newcomers, we are probably witnessing the beginning of yet another shift in the balance of the Internet.

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Mar 5, 2010

And it’s not even April 1st yet

Author: andrewtown | Filed under: Business

It’s been a funny old week with some of the best known names in the technology sector acting (seemingly) against type. Microsoft is actively prompting users to switch to a web browser other than its own Internet Explorer. While Intel is rounding up billions of dollars in support of the little guys in the industry. However, in both cases observers have been quick to examine the motives and methods of the prime movers. Following on from this it is comforting to see a company acting openly and directly as we have come to expect – Apple is suing Taiwanese mobile handset manufacturer HTC (the maker of Google’s Nexus One phone) for patent infringement. At least we know where we stand….

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Mar 4, 2010

Embedded World is largest ever

Author: lewistonkinson | Filed under: Exhibitions

Embedded World Nuremberg has this week consolidated its position as the premier event in the embedded electronics sector. With 730 exhibitors the show was already the largest on record and, based on the experience of the Pinnacle Marketing team this week, the visitor numbers are also impressive. Booths were thronged and the many journalists we met (half of whom were from outside Germany) reported having to struggle through the packed aisles. Highlights of the week included a number of innovative ARM based microcontrollers and a robot goalkeeper who combined image processing and motor control to outsmart many aspiring penalty takers.

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