What’s one of the most important keys to a good blogger? Well, the fact that they actually write a blog post now and then certainly would help. The reality is that I have been so busy both professionally and personally that my blog has fallen to the bottom of my priority list. I still want a life after all and given a choice between spending time with my wife and family or spending time writing my blog … well, the wife and family will always win out. The problem I have with keeping my blog updated is that I’m just not one to throw a lot of fluff out there. If you’re going to...

Are you able to answer the following questions off the top of your head? Why do you have a Web site? What is the purpose of your e-mail newsletter? These seem like simple enough questions, but for some reason, they’re incredibly hard for many publishers to answer – or, at least, it’s hard to answer them well. And, those companies that have difficulty answering these questions are usually the same ones with lackluster online media businesses. Online media, just like print, must serve a reader need that cannot be fulfilled in the same way by someone else. It’s the golden...

Back on May 2nd, I co-hosted a webinar on effective email newsletters (produced by Publishing Executive and sponsored by Campaigner). It was at a pretty high level, so I didn’t get to jump into a lot of detail, but there is some good info in the webinar that anyone doing email newlsetters should check it out. Key areas that I covered in my part include: Content, style, and frequency considerations for B2B and consumer e-newsletters What to look for when choosing and email service provider What can prevent your email from getting to your reader How image filtering impacts your newsletter and...

Sales teams are always looking for ways to publish media kits, sales sheets, and other marketing collateral. It’s often a challenge getting the documents on your web site and even then, they are usually PDF documents that take a long time to download before someone can read it. There’s also the bandwidth required to host and deliver large PDF documents. I’ve discovered an elegant solution to the problem: Scribd’s iPaper. It’s quick and easy solution that is 100% free. I downloaded the Aviation Week media kit in PDF format (it’s freely available on their web site)...

Many media companies who have successfully embraced online media will tell you that margins online are significantly higher than those in print. One would expect this from an incremental business that leverages an existing brand, existing content and sales teams, as well as corporate infrastructure. Personally, I expect the incremental online business of any media company to generate at least 40% margin. This is one reason why we see such high multiples for media companies who have solid online media businesses. Even if total revenues are rather static, as long as the company has a solid, growing...

So many publishing companies still do it backwards. They create content for their magazine, assemble it once a month, ship it to the printer, then convert it to HTML and dump 20-30 articles on their web site in one fell swoop. At least it’s better than some publishers who amazingly still don’t put their content online, but it’s still not the best way to maximize your print and online opportunities. There’s a reason print magazines are called periodicals. They only come out monthly, weekly, etc. But online has no such constraints. New information can … and is expected to...