Maybe online expos are not goofy after all

I've always held online expos in disdain, for many of the same reasons that I've been reluctant to embrace webcasts (until recently). Unlike other forms of digital media, the online expo is a wholly artificial construct meant to replicate an offline experience in an online environment. The radio-commercial-on-TV analogy.

Plus they just seem darn goofy. Have you seen the screen captures? Little animated people walking past digitized potted plants on their way into the east hall. What's up with that?

Yet hats off to our competitor, Reed Business, for aggressively pursuing these so-called virtual conferences. They've launched eight now, and from what I was able to gather at a presentation at the recent Folio Summit held in Chicago, nearly all are profitable, and some extremely so.

An expo may only have half a dozen sponsors, who pay from $3K to $20K depending on the market and the package. Their most successful expo has 20 to 30 exhibitors.

The expos are held as live events once or twice (or even four times) a year with fresh content (webcasts, "booth" exhibits, etc.). The rest of the year, it reverts to an archived, on-demand model.

The beauty of this concept is that users register once to get into the expo. Then any time they click on an exhibitor's booth or watch a webcast associated with a sponsor, the attendee's info is automatically passed onto that exhibitor. It's basically like a free pass or blanket authorization by the user to share their contact info with any vendor they come into contact with at the online expo. According to Reed, users are told this happens when they sign up.

Vendors are very happy with leads, Reed reports. These are primarily promoted vie e-mail marketing (not print!). The vendor, Unisfair, provides turnkey service.

Circulation execs need to think like marketers

This is old news to many, but it bears repeating. Too many circ execs are stuck in the "gotta pass the audit" mode. But they must be savvy about attracting and converting new subs and renewals online. The telephone is too expensive for doing circ. (We learned this the hard way when launching our two digital mags.)

There is no question that our readers are online in droves. Circ execs need to do a much better job finding them there, attracting them to our Web sites, and converting them into subs. That means thinking like a direct marketer--experimenting with price points (for paid subs), giveaway premiums (a must), and usability. Circ execs also need to think about audience development in broader terms. For example, there may be a need to attract a segment of readers that aren't currently served by the print product but that could be profitably served online. A traditional circ exec may feel that's outside of their job responsibilities. But it's not.

These thoughts were stimulated by the excellent co-presentation of Gene Sittenfeld, Circ Director of Blood-Horse Publishing (paid circ) and Barry Green, VP/Circ director for Hearst Business Media (B2B controlled circ) at the recent Folio: Summit in Chicago. Most of the presentation focused on using email campaigns to convert or renew subscribers. My takeaways:

• Use free giveaways to entice visitors to subscribe. PDFs of evergreen content are a natural.
• Vigorously address any complaints. Include a privacy link in each e-mail campaign, and provide an email address specifically for complaints.
• Every email address counts. In her spare time, Hearst's receptionist reason out bounced e-mail addresses.
• Run a planned outbound campaign through a spam checking tool such as Spam Assasin.
• Consider segmenting home emails (yahoo, hotmail, etc.) from business, and send your campaigns to home users on the weekends. One of the presenters tried this and saw a 50% boost in response from those email addresses.
• Test the usability of your entire process. How easy is it to sign up? Renew? Respond to an email offer to subscribe? Tell users how long it's going to take to complete the process and show the steps.
• Don't confuse users with multiple offers.
• The landing page must be well designed. (I bought this excellent step-by-step guide from Marketing Sherpa on this very topic.)
• Mandatory-- put a "please reply by" date.
• Offers should tout percent savings, not the price.