Going
all in
Publishers bet big on digital,
events and paid content, as
print continues to languish
BY SEAN CALLAHAN
Many b-to-b media companies are also
setting aside funds to experiment with
paid content and research as a means to
extract revenue from end-users.
WTWH Media, which is based in
Manhattan Beach, Calif., and publishes
Design World, is typical of many compa-
nies in the current environment. Moving
well beyond print, it operates with an un-
derstanding that a traditional business
media company is no longer an automatic
first choice for b-to-b marketers.
“I believe that a marketer’s dollars are
invested in social media, online develop-
ment, SEO, Google Ad Words first—and
then they explore b-to-b media outlets,”
said Scott McCafferty, WTWH managing
director.
McCafferty and Associate Publisher
Mike Emich continue to evolve WTWH
with this belief in mind, focusing on deliv-
ering such marketing services as lead-gen-
Last year hit most business media companies in the same way— hard, with an industrywide print ad page decline of almost 30% topping a long list of pain points. ¶ This year, as publish- ers revise budgets for the second half and begin to look ahead to 2011, they are experiencing the recovery in similar ways. At
most companies, print is still in decline, although the freefall has ended.
Digital and event revenues are up, sharply in some cases, and it’s in these
growth areas that most companies are investing this year and next.
eration programs. “We see continued
growth in custom Web development com-
bined with integrated media programs that
deliver ROI goals,” McCafferty said. “On-
line continues to be our market driver.”
WTWH has hired five people in recent
months with an eye on investing in cus-
tom Web development, infrastructure,
online editorial and video. At the same
time, McCafferty said, the company is still
investing in print. “Our print titles have
experienced significant gains due to main-
taining high quality standards in paper
and circulation, with 100% qualified first
year,” he said.
CFO Publishing, which publishes CFO
magazine, has an outlook that resembles
that of many other business media companies. The company was created to acquire
a majority stake in the CFO brand from the
Economist Group earlier this year.
Competition is coming “from all
sides,” said CFO Publishing President-CEO Frank Quigley. Nonetheless, he’s
guardedly optimistic. “We’ll finish up a
few percentage points in 2010, compared
to the previous year’s revenue. That’s an
all-in estimate and will take a lot of focus
to get there,” he said.
CFO Publishing’s print revenue is
down only 1% so far this year, while digital has seen a double-digit increase and
events, a single-digit gain, Quigley said.
“We are seeing the Big 4 accounting firms
begin to come back after a long absence
from outbound marketing,” he said.
Looking ahead to next year, Quigley
said he plans to invest in many areas, in-
cluding paid content. “Our ‘Audit Fee Re-
port’ was introduced in April, selling for
$1,200,” he said. “We’ll do well by year-
end. We’re estimating a six-figure gross.
That was a beta and set the stage for
rolling out more data reports and bench-
marks for corporate finance.”
CFO Publishing also intends to ex-
pand its conferences. “We think that nar-
rower-topic, daylong or half-day venues
might be attractive,” Quigley said. “For
the CFOs, the consideration isn’t how
much the conference registration costs
them but how much time they must give
up to attend.”
Quigley said the company will also in-
vest in a content management system, im-
proving its reader database and, possibly,
acquisitions. “This will be an active area for
