How Content Marketing Changed From Recent Events

If I had to use one word to describe the situation with content publishers and ad revenue as of late, it would be “tumultuous”. The ad revenue game was already facing some serious headwinds before The Great Upheaval. Google was looking to kill the third-party cookie, brand safety concerns ran rampant, and the sheer amount of technology and middlemen literally left a third of digital ad spend unaccounted for. With that as the backdrop, along came the health crisis, which created a situation where unprecedented traffic numbers were going unmonetized due to keyword blocks and a dramatic slash in marketing budgets across the board. Add to that the civil unrest of the last month, which pushed brands to temporarily go dark out of respect and solidarity. 

To say that the environment is less than ideal would be the understatement of the century. With all that being said, when looking at the big picture, there is, surprisingly, a recovery happening. Let’s dive in. The Show Must Go On after all. Some real talk: Somewhere over the last month or two a choice has been made to reopen at all costs. Globally, there seems to be a consensus building that the world can no longer afford to keep the economy shuttered. It’s not my place to argue for or against this trend. This is just what’s happening. Health impact aside, this “show must go on” mentality is most definitely starting to be felt when it comes to ad revenue. People are trying to return to some semblance of normalcy and stability. That return includes getting out of the house, eating at restaurants, shopping outside more, and so on. In our particular case, this means that marketing decisions are no longer made minute-by-minute. 

There is a collective push to return to business-as-usual for businesses, even if the usual is currently unusual. This means that companies have come back to planning. Brands are figuring out how to adjust their strategy for the new normal, and are starting to spend again. This also means that publishers optimizing for ad revenue have also started planning, evaluating, and restarting their spend. 

A Semblance of Normalcy Once the advertising landscape cratered in March, we saw that a lot of the norms we were used to weren’t happening anymore. For example, in normal times, we could generally expect CPCs to be low at the beginning of the month, and then slowly go up toward the end of the month. In parallel to CPCs going up gradually, the on-site revenue (RPM) would also go up. This didn’t happen in March, April, or May. Here are May’s stats for reference: However, this seems to be changing in June, and things are starting to look much better. Here’s what’s been happening in June so far: All indications are that CPC and RPM are finally starting to behave predictably again. And even better news - RPMs are ramping up quicker than CPCs, thereby increasing profitability. A lot of content marketing lessons have been learned during this pandemic.

User habits are returning to normal again as well. For example, mobile browsing is back on the rise, after slumping in March and April. Looking Ahead We’re hearing positive signals across the board from content publishers and advertisers in the age of Covid-19. They’re expecting July to hold steady and ad revenue to increase over August and September. The consensus is that brands have been holding on to budget from Q2 and plan on spending it in Q3 and Q4. Other trends of note: Video CPMs seem to be relatively high-yield over the last month or so. 

Health-related content is doing incredibly well, which isn’t surprising. The publishers who are generating the most consistent profit currently are those with direct-sold inventory. Beefing up sales teams to create these deals seems to be paying off for them. So is ad revenue making a comeback? 

Probably, and publishers should examine what they can do to make the most of it. That being said, there is really only one way to crisis-proof publishers, and that is diversification. Relying on one source of revenue is just not tenable. If you haven’t yet looked at new revenue channels, this stability is the perfect opportunity to do so. So let’s get to work. What’s going on in your neck of the woods? I would love to hear about how you’re approaching ad revenue and overall diversification. It’s also worth noting that being back to normal patterns means that July CPCs will be starting low, with a huge opportunity to scale, so it’s a good time to invest in paid traffic. If you want to learn a bit more about what Marketing Masterminds can do to help you improve your paid distribution strategy, make sure to visit our Contact Us page.

This week, I’ve been reading about how publishers are responding to (and monetizing) the uptick in time spent on mobile devices and social platforms. Kiplinger, for example, recently revamped its website with a new mobile-first design in response to a shift in reader habits. Condé Nast, on the other hand, announced seven new podcasts, including “The Pitchfork Review,” “Get Wired,” and “In Vogue,” all of which will be part of the new Condé Nast Podcast Network. 

It’s no secret that the events of this year have caused an overall surge in social media marketing usage, and the latest projections show that we can expect this trend to continue through the end of this year and into 2025. Translation: now is a particularly good time for publishers to leverage paid social to drive affiliate dollars and ad revenue.

As publishers continue to adapt by pivoting from in-person events to virtual ones or developing new ways to reduce their reliance on cookies, they’ve also been doubling down on a channel with a tried-and-true history of driving engagement: email. 

TIME, for example, recently launched Camp TFK, a new weekday newsletter designed to help parents who are working from home this summer. Curated by TIME for Kids editors, the new program offers free, kid-friendly activities that require minimal adult supervision. Newsletter-first publishers are also expanding their email efforts — the popular Morning Brew newsletter recently debuted its latest product geared toward marketing professionals, aptly dubbed Marketing Brew. 

And speaking of newsletter-first publishers, Digiday recently reported that some of the format’s major players are having success growing the lifetime value of their subscriber bases through referral programs. According to Adam Ryan, President of The Hustle, not only is the lifetime value of a referral program participant multiple times higher than the company’s typical subscriber, but the open rate for referred subscribers is double that of the average subscriber as well.

Content marketing is changing during Covid-19, and you need to keep adapting!

How Private Equity Business Development Has Changed

Recent events created a wave of evolution in many industries, and private equity was not immune. Many of the pandemic changes for private equity business development were hinted at or even in transition before the pandemic began. 

Why Has The Private Equity Business Development Role Grown? 

Deloitte Insights estimates that private equity assets under management will grow to $2.5 trillion by end of 2025, spurred in part by growth drivers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. For many reasons, this environment has created a demand for private equity business development roles to help structure and maintain processes. 

Increased Capital 

Lower interest rates during the pandemic caused investors to flock to PE, driving up the total private equity capital available. Recently we saw record-breaking private equity capital, and the trend hasn't slowed. With so much capital flooding in, firms can take advantage of many opportunities, but they may need assistance with the details. 

Increasing Competition 

All that capital brings with it a lot of competition. More money funds more PE firms, and existing firms can be more active in the markets. Record deal volumes were seen even before lockdowns, and the competition continues to grow. PE business development is necessary if companies want to succeed in such an environment. 

Need For Leverage 

Growing investment teams and portfolios create more to manage and may overburden senior management. Dedicated business development teams or professionals relieve this strain and help ensure firms can scale. 

How Has Private Equity Helped During The Pandemic? 

Private equity provided some foundational support during the COVID-19 pandemic, bolstering companies and investments during cash crises or business struggles. For example, Jeffrey Bartel of Miami, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Hamptons Group, notes that his company looked for opportunities to invest in areas, such as real estate, that would bounce back, but might need a cash influx during the pandemic. 

Private equity investments helped support and grow businesses during the pandemic in several ways. 

• Managing or supporting supply chain and logistics 

• Building digital capabilities that let businesses thrive in remote work or service environments 

• Maintaining business continuity, including access to data as people moved away from central office environments. 

• Securing financing to cover business expenses during lackluster revenue months at the height of the pandemic 

Market Stress Imposed By The Pandemic 

How has the pandemic affected the market? One of the biggest impacts relates to corporate credit losses. Fully leveraged organizations across a wide variety of industries don't have as much wiggle room coming out of the pandemic, and continued economic struggles could lead to insolvencies, bankruptcies, and defaults. 

BIS, which owns 63 central banks, took a deep dive into credit loss data related to the pandemic. According to its findings, this is a definite stressor, but it may not be as much of a stressor as during the Great Recession. 

Another impact imposed by the pandemic relates to challenging evaluations. In unprecedented times, it is not always possible to use precedent data and methods for evaluating the value and future of a business or endeavor. Instead, business development professionals must draw from their own knowledge, existing data, and predictions about pandemic impacts to make decisions about investments.

Reduced liquidity of bonds and prime money market funds are also a factor. Investors poured money into such markets as a way to hold ready cash and then pulled vast amounts out during the pandemic to cover expenses or shore up cash needs. The waves made by investors were so prominent in these markets that the SEC is responding to the crisis with new rules and regulations. 

Old Strategies Are On The Way Out 

On top of financial challenges, businesses phase out the following strategies that simply no longer work. 

Conferences And Tradeshows 

Before COVID-19 made professionals and investors rethink the value of large physical gatherings, and these tactics were ebbing. The sheer resource drain a large conference or tradeshow causes for sponsoring organizations and participants made them prohibitive in many industries as economic belts tightened. With the integration of CRMs and digital communications, these touchpoints become less critical. 

High-Volume / Low-Value City Visits 

Choosing a city and cramming the calendar with face-to-face meetups and handshakes is definitely out of vogue. Certainly, bankers and buyers may be more likely to say yes to a meeting "since you're already in town", but the sum value of the meeting is the same as that which can be achieved in a virtual web call — and at less cost and risk for both parties. 

Book Collection 

Instead of concentrating solely on filling the top of the funnel with potentials of any quality, business development professionals are moving to a more holistic approach. Quality leads and nurtures are more important than thousands of opportunities the business can’t act on. 

Top Private Equity Business Development Strategies Used Today 

With old strategies waning, what business development strategies for private equity are coming up? Here are a few strategies business development professionals should be eyeing. 

Digital Marketing For Lead Development 

For years, B2C businesses have leveraged the power of digital marketing to connect with consumers. It's time for private equity firms to do the same. Investors and others turn to the internet to find opportunities, and digital marketing ensures they can connect with and evaluate PE firms in the following ways. 

Thesis Development 

A plan to add value to acquired businesses remains one of the most important private equity business development tools. 

Technology And Data Mining 

Choosing a suitable investment and creating a viable plan for adding value has always been challenging. In the muddied economic waters following the global crisis, it requires even more information. Mining data and using technology to analyze it is a must for PE firms and investors alike. 

Specialization 

One way to reduce the burden of gathering data and making knowledge-backed choices is to specialize, which can be applied to various opportunities within the same field.

B2B Content Marketing Outlook For The New Economy

A fellow marketing associate was asking about my predictions for B2B content marketing in the modern digital age. I have no idea what to predict specifically for marketing content going forward - and neither does anyone else, if we’re honest. So little about the world is predictable right now beyond the B2B business basics. 

But I can tell you what’s happening now and how I’m interpreting the data I have right now. The recent survey we gave out was asking what your challenges are going into the new economy. The top challenge of B2B content marketers? Screen fatigue. 

No one wants more podcasts, more videos, more livestreams, more time on their devices. Literally no one needs more of this content as the fallout continues and hopefully fades away. And that will continue to be the way we communicate with others the majority of the time into Q3 and Q4 of last year. I actually find it somewhat ironic that people responded that screen fatigue was a problem and then immediately had “getting audiences to pay attention to all our new content” as the next challenge. So all the marketers who pivoted last year to making podcasts, videos, livestreams, webinars, email newsletters, and more blog posts are facing substantially diminished audience interest. 

We as B2B content marketers adapted to the new reality and in doing so, flooded the world with content at the same time everyone else flooded the world. Given a choice between my livestream and The Mandalorian, where will you invest your time? The only reason you watch at all is because you can’t binge watch your favorite shows at work and still call it work. Heck, given a choice between my livestream and The Mandalorian, I might watch The Mandalorian. 

So what do our audiences want? Faster content. I was talking to a friend this week who said they listen to my podcast at 1.5x speed; I already talk fast and then said 2x was too fast. They wanted the information - just faster. Why do people love services like Vine, Tiktok, and Instagram Reels? You know your commitment to any one piece of content will be under 10 seconds. How do we make content faster? For anything audio or video, provide transcripts. Folks can read up to 400 words per minute; we speak at roughly 150 words per minute. The audience can consume our content 2.67 times faster with a transcript. 

The cliche “a meeting that could have been an email” applies even more today for B2B marketers, to every format. Do you need a livestream? Do you need a podcast? Do you need a YouTube channel? Or could you convey the same information in an email newsletter? Some things, like screencast tutorials, absolutely require video. Other things, like a talking head? That content can just be an email or a blog post. 

Knock out the fat with your content marketing strategy and schedule this year. We all know and despise those cooking recipes online where you have to scroll through 44 pages about the author’s life history, how their grandmother was a homesteader, the can of possum stew they ate as a kid that gave them their inspiration, and so on before we actually get to what we came for - the recipe. People have written Chrome browser extensions explicitly to trim out all the filler text and just get to the recipe. 

When people write software to bypass your content, it’s too long. Ask yourself this question relative to your content marketing campaigns going into the new normal. When attention is scarce and at a premium, how can you make your B2B content as fast as possible? You must be consistent, innovative, and add value at all times while scaling content with repurposing, rewriting, and updating!

A Content Subscription Campaign Tale - Publisher Pivots During Coronavirus

Content Creators During Coronavirus

I think I’ve lost count by now of how many times I’ve written about subscription campaigns here. The Great Upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic, protests, riots, and political unrest has driven publishers to test new revenue streams in order to diversify, and we’ve seen a lot of our customers begin to test subscription strategies. 

There has also been a significant change for publishers who have been running subscription campaigns for a long time. Their traffic has increased and subscription costs have gone down significantly. That being said, successful publishers haven’t been using a “set it and forget it” method. A lot of work is put into optimizing campaigns for maximum ROI. 

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Shannon Rose from the Boston Globe about how they built out their subscription campaigns, and was particularly fascinated with the amount of A/B testing they do to keep their offering healthy, and what we can learn from that about subscription strategies as a whole. That’s what I want to talk about this week, so let’s dive into this publisher's pivoting and content campaigns. 

Testing, Testing, 1-2-3 

At the end of the day, running a subscription campaign has the same exact framework as you’d see for any other performance marketing campaign. You need to examine the full funnel from the user’s first interaction, down through the purchase, and optimize all along that funnel. The main difference with subscription campaigns is that they involve a recurring purchase by the user. This means you need to think beyond the initial action. There are two things that happen as a result of that: 

1. Your CPA goal doesn’t need to be geared toward the initial action, but rather, it can be optimized toward a user’s average lifetime value. 

2. Your campaign doesn’t stop with the first action, working on retention is critical to maintain success. 

Like any performance campaign, you need all engines humming to maximize ROI. The best way to do this is through rigorous A/B testing and data analysis. The thing is, you can’t A/B test everything all the time. Going back to the Globe, they went about it in a very methodical way, testing specific elements separately to come to the ideal configuration. 

Test Type 1: Offering 

Pricing out your product is always a huge challenge. For the Globe, they were looking for a model that would strike the perfect balance between bringing in new users and making sure they stay. 

Price too high initially - and your conversion rate may go down. 

Price too low initially - and people may not renew if the price point is significantly higher. 

At the Globe, their tests revealed that a deep discount in the initial offer was the most worthwhile. They came to this conclusion after rigorous A/B testing, along with a big data analysis push. In short - this was not a call from the gut. The data is what made the decision. 

That wasn’t the only place the data spoke louder than words. The Boston Globe works with a paywall. Like any other publisher, they had to decide how many articles they would show a user before the paywall was activated. This is often a tough decision. Even more challenging is that it doesn’t live in a bubble. The subscription price and article limit go hand in hand, and influence one another. In the case of the Globe, they found that a low price point accompanied with a low article limit yielded the best results. 

Test Type 2: Channels And Campaigns 

Of course, now that you know what your offering looks like, you need to decide where you’re going to tell people about it. Most publishers use a mix of organic channels, their owned channels - like on site optimization and newsletter promotions, and paid channels ranging from display to paid search. 

The Boston Globe tested out a wide range of paid channels, using mostly direct response messaging - i.e. a very straightforward pitch to subscribe. They were able to get all of those channels to perform, but decided on a content-first approach for paid social. This allowed the Globe to put their brand front and center - using their world-class journalism to bring in relevant audiences. This expanded approach allowed them to expand their reach, and had the added benefit of bringing in younger demographics compared to other channels. 

Of course, moving ahead with content campaigns brought in another level of testing - looking at the types of content that drove the highest subscription rates. They picked from the Globe’s top performing organic content to test new articles consistently. For the Globe, as of now, they find local reporting works best, but that doesn’t mean, they’re going to stop testing other types. After all, people are people, and people change, so if local news resonates today, sports could challenge that if, say, the Patriots win another Super Bowl. 

Test Type 3: Retention 

As I mentioned above, for every good subscription campaign, there should be an equal retention campaign. There are numerous ways to approach these campaigns, and the Globe, with an agency's help, continues to run tests to see what has the biggest impact. The process the Globe uses is basically to pick a hypothesis based on their own data, and create campaigns to test this. For example, they ran a test to see if retention rates increased if they targeted specific users during their first 60 days. Compared to their internal numbers, that yielded good results. But as with everything else I’ve outlined, this doesn’t mean that testing is done. 

I think the lesson here, when looking at the big picture, is that a consistent, data-driven testing cadence is the best way to go to continue to get great results. Like everything else in life, growth and evolution is key to thriving. 

Content Creators Publishing Pivots

Life looks a lot different this year. Across countless facets of both work and home life, many changes that were already underway are now taking place at “warp speed.” There is, perhaps, no better example of this phenomenon than the astronomical rise in e-commerce sales. As this trend continues — and does so with absolutely no signs of slowing down — more and more publishers are investing in e-commerce-related revenue opportunities. 

These weren’t the only topics that were top-of-mind for me this week, though. Here are a few highlights from what I’ve been reading. 

- Condé Nast’s GQ launched The GQ Shop along with its own line of products after having notable success with its affiliate business. Revenue from its affiliate sales hub, GQ Recommends, is up 105% year to date over 2019. 

- Email newsletters are also a great channel for driving affiliate dollars according to email expert, BuzzFeed alum, and friend, Dan Oshinsky. 

- Podcasts continue to have a moment this year, too, with a recent Nielsen survey showing that 23% of remote workers listen every day to "spoken word" audio content. 

- How does The Boston Globe find high-value subscribers? With a helping hand from paid content distribution on Facebook. 

Content Campaign Conclusion

What these and other top publishers teach us is that you always need to make adjustments and think outside the box in a challenging economy. Keep up with your content marketing and subscription campaigns!

Pros And Cons Of AI In Pharmaceuticals

The pharmaceutical industry, also known as Big Pharma, and the overall medical world have been growing in leaps and bounds over the last few decades. Pharmtech and medtech advances have helped to reduce certain medical conditions, treat new ailments, and provide medical care for hundreds of millions of people that otherwise wouldn't have gotten it. Such medical advances in treatments and technologies have been been a business boon worth trillions of dollars in the last couple of decades. 

But there have been some major industry problems as well. These include rapidly rising health insurance costs, higher costs of treatment, exploding drug prices, increased opioid addiction, worrisome medical errors, and the rises in several concerning medical conditions. All of this is especially prescient in the age of the Coronavirus pandemic and other potential followup viruses after Covid-19 starts subsiding.

Luckily, artificial intelligence (AI) technology has had a growing impact on the pharma industry to help combat some of these issues. Artificial intelligence uses computer intelligence and machine learning to help combat problems in an automated, quicker, and more efficient way than humans or regular machines. This new AI tech can save time, money, pain, suffering, and the lives of countless people.

4 Top Uses For AI In The Pharma And Medical Industries

1. Prescription Drug Research

One of the most successful applications of artificial intelligence technology is in the development of new drugs and medications. AI tech can analyze massive amounts of research and data to determine what new potential solutions could work or the effectiveness of existing medical solutions.

2. Improved Patient Care

The ability to analyze patient medical history and updated data in real time can help to predict treatment outcomes and make immediate updates with new data. All of this ensures that potential treatments are created and customized quickly and with the most updated patient and industry information.

3. Breast Cancer Diagnosis

One example of AI being used in the medical and pharmaceutical industry is in breast cancer identification and treatment. Breast cancer cases have increased significantly over the last couple of decades. Luckily, AI has recently been shown to be even more effective than trained radiologists at diagnosing mammograms taken as being positive or negative for breast cancer. According to a recent BBC study, AI technology was superior at spotting breast cancer in patients and also had a 1.2% lower number of false positive diagnoses. This is very promising data indeed and a trend that will likely continue over time.



4. Prescription Drug Quality Assurance

Another example of utilizing artificial intelligence technology is in prescription drug quality assurance (QA). AI tech can help to spot prescription medication, label, and bottle defects before they are sent out to pharmacies, patients, or retailers. This process can save time, money, and lives by preventing mislabeling, medication errors, and other potential financial or health disasters.

Pros & Cons Of Artificial Intelligence In Big Pharma

Artificial intelligence technology is here to stay and there are plenty of positives and some negatives coming from that fact. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of using AI and machine learning tech in Big Pharma and in other medical fields.

Pros Of AI In The Pharma Industry

- Save money
- Better patient care
- Improved speed and efficiency
- Improved compliance
- Improved quality control. Visit this website to learn more 
- Versatile technology with a wide range of applications
- Reduced risks of contamination
- Cost savings through less employees
- AI will continue to get better and more efficient over time

Cons Of AI In The Pharma Industry

- AI technology can be expensive to begin
- AI tech could have a steep learning curve for employees
- Ongoing in-house or outsourced tech support may be required
- AI is still relatively new and isn't completely error-free
- Sometimes human judgments could or should to be made

Artificial Intelligence Will Continue To Impact Big Pharma In A Positive Way

While there are pros and cons of utilizing AI technology in the pharmaceutical industry, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks. Big pharma, supplement industry, and the medical field will continue to invest in and innovate when it comes to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Hopefully artificial intelligence in pharmacology can help to minimize or prevent pandemics in the future as well.