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Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Decline of Print
This week the venerable UK print title - or maybe "institution" - Exchange & Mart threw in the towel on its print version, and is to become a totally online business. Rather sadly for a magazine that was once a byword for classified used car advertising it apparently now can only claim to be the 10th best motor buying website in the UK.
What's this got to do with exhibitions? Well, as regards E&M, very little. But as a litmus paper (ahem) for print in general, if such a well established response-orientated publication can't keep a print run going, things must be getting really really bad for print in general.
And even whilst print media rarely ever made the same margins as conferences and exhibitions, it did deliver one thing which live media needs more than anything else to deliver an audience - fresh, live databases neatly segmented by areas of interest and regularly cleaned by the print media's circulation departments.
So, without print media, where do these databases come from? Most "news" websites have tried at some point or another to require reader registrations - but most have failed and given up, opting instead just to track traffic and charge for anonymous click-thru advertising models.
Mass e-mail campaigns may be cheaper to deliver than direct mail, but if the "good" sources of data start to dry up exhibition marketing managers may start having to open up their spam-filters to track down those enticing "100 million e-mail addresses for $49.99!!" offers. With worse quality data comes increased wastage - and then the cost equation starts to look a little more ropey.
Right now the rapid demise of print may well be comforting to those running events businesses - as for once the grass is greener on our own side of the fence. But how long until the loss of the print media's function as a "free" list building engine that drives the event industry starts to be felt?
The real questions then are how will event marketing plans replace those "easy" data sources and "no-brainer" 9m2 contra booths with online advertising that needs to be paid for in hard currency, and how can event companies generate brand engagement for their events in the raft of different online communities their audiences participate in?
The answer to the first question is simply through spending more money. The answer to the second may well be to employ some new staff with "editorical" skills. After all, there are probably a few out there on the market right now...
What's this got to do with exhibitions? Well, as regards E&M, very little. But as a litmus paper (ahem) for print in general, if such a well established response-orientated publication can't keep a print run going, things must be getting really really bad for print in general.
And even whilst print media rarely ever made the same margins as conferences and exhibitions, it did deliver one thing which live media needs more than anything else to deliver an audience - fresh, live databases neatly segmented by areas of interest and regularly cleaned by the print media's circulation departments.
So, without print media, where do these databases come from? Most "news" websites have tried at some point or another to require reader registrations - but most have failed and given up, opting instead just to track traffic and charge for anonymous click-thru advertising models.
Mass e-mail campaigns may be cheaper to deliver than direct mail, but if the "good" sources of data start to dry up exhibition marketing managers may start having to open up their spam-filters to track down those enticing "100 million e-mail addresses for $49.99!!" offers. With worse quality data comes increased wastage - and then the cost equation starts to look a little more ropey.
Right now the rapid demise of print may well be comforting to those running events businesses - as for once the grass is greener on our own side of the fence. But how long until the loss of the print media's function as a "free" list building engine that drives the event industry starts to be felt?
The real questions then are how will event marketing plans replace those "easy" data sources and "no-brainer" 9m2 contra booths with online advertising that needs to be paid for in hard currency, and how can event companies generate brand engagement for their events in the raft of different online communities their audiences participate in?
The answer to the first question is simply through spending more money. The answer to the second may well be to employ some new staff with "editorical" skills. After all, there are probably a few out there on the market right now...
Labels: decline of print, exhibitions industry
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