B2B magazine Publication

Is advertising in an industry trade publication or magazine, a waste of marketing dollars? Should B2B marketing strategy totally abandon print media in the future? The answer is a Big Fat No! Industry and niche market print trade publication marketing can be a huge opportunity to capture new prospects by utilizing the internet and harnessing the power of social media marketing.

The opportunity and challenge is changing how you "the advertiser" utilize trade magazine advertising to drive traffic and capture leads, not just promote yourself or create brand recognition.

Lets face it. The days of using a trade magazine to show off your company or new product to your market or industry is over, but the vehicle to attract new contacts, prospects and customers is not dead.

Look, we all know that newspapers, magazines and trade publications are getting thinner and thinner as advertisers turn away from them to invest their dwindling marketing dollars into other advertising mediums during these tough economic competitive times that many companies face. Where some see this as the end of print media and time to join the masses and jump ship, I see the glass more than half full and it as a great opportunity to stand out and create new untapped ideas to generate velocity for my marketing efforts.

To me a thinner trade magazine means that there is a better chance of my ad being found and noticed by my target customer and if I leverage this opportunity effectively it can open up new opportunities to create prospects for my sales team to capitalize on.

I am not talking about a target industry or a target market. I am talking about a target prospect that your marketing is going to be directed at, in an effort to capture them. You have to narrow your focus and target your efforts, to be effective. Being all things to all people will not work.

As part of my research I grabbed and flipped through any trade publications, market specific magazines and specialty niche magazine I could get my hands on. What jumped out at me was most major ads promoted a company, a brand or a specific product, but few went after the target prospect directly. You need to identify "who is my target prospect"? It is only then that a targeted PrintEnet Marketing Campaign will be successfu

This seems so simple, but it is a classic mistake by so many advertisers. People advertise in publications that they read, is relevant to their business and that their competition advertise in, which is not necessarily the ones that their target prospects and customers read.

Now that you have identified you target, just do the research. A quick call to any good advertising sales executive will give you all the demographics you are going to need to identify which trade publications are going to give you the best chance to reach out to and capture your target.

Just as useless as suggesting that a target call a number for more information, is to give them your corporate website to learn more. More than 90% of static corporate or product specific website homepages are no more than a glorified yellow pages ad. That is like going fishing by tying bait to your line, forgetting to ad a hook and hoping they will just jump into your boat. Your sales team is going to starve!

You are not sending them to the homepage of your corporate website, white paper or marketing literature of the information you have enticed them with. You are sending them to a custom "squeeze page" developed to compliment your print ad that will:

Have s similar look and theme to your print ad to maintain theme continuity
Be half the size of a normal page (length), keeping key information above the fold.
Use video and images to enhance the page.
Highlight the value that your products, services and company bring to your target.
Include a registration form to capture your targets contact information to send them the important knowledge offered in your print ad.

Usually add an additional gift, chance to win something or additional enticement to motivate them to register.

Keep it concise, keep it targeted and offer limited options. One way in and no way out.

Your squeeze page analytics will easily enable you to quantify the success of your print media ad. Taking the guess work out when evaluating the effectiveness of a specific ad or campaign.

You can also test different squeeze pages to see which ones work best. Tracking results and testing different pages is a key element of internet marketing and should never to overlook.