There’s an interestin Sector analysis of B2B Publishing in Media Week. As I work in technology, it’s easy to forget we’re in an online bubble, and many other B2B verticals are struggling to move from print to online. To see that on average digital makes up only 23% of B2B publishers’ revenue is surprising as so many of the titles I work with have more then 50% – or even 100% – of their revenues from digital.
Perhaps the reason is that some industries are just too comfortable. There are too many people who have been “working in marketing in this industry for years” who just don’t get it. Not everyone has the same prejudices about media as 60-year-old males! Both publishers and marketers need to recognise that digital is critical, and continuing to do the same thing they’ve always done simply won’t continue working. The article sums it up very well:
As consumer publications gingerly convert to the new world it wouldn’t be unfair to say that up until now the business-to-business (B2B) publishing sector has had a public image problem, tagged as relative heathens struggling with the direction of their own offerings whether to embrace these new delivery platforms to the detriment of still lucrative print revenues.