My New Year’s Resolutions to You

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were fun and relaxing.

I, along with many of you, have spent the last couple of weeks reviewing the successes as well as the learning points 2011 offered. Also I have spent this time contemplating the areas of my life I am pleased with and will continue, as well as making commitments in areas I am dedicated to strengthening.

Thanks to the commitments I made to myself a couple of years ago I am in pretty good physical shape and am a healthy weight, so I will not bore you with the subtleties of my resolutions in this area. You are also probably not wildly interested in the commitments I made relating to my life with my family, friends and spiritual life.

What’s in it for you? Professional resolutions have always been a big part of my commitments for a given new year, but this year they are center stage under a bright spotlight.

Successful business-to-business communications and business development approaches have changed. Driven by technology, lean teams within most companies and corporate cost cutting, the way your customers make their way through buying cycles has changed. This said, the age old saying….."The more things change, the more they stay the same" certainly applies. Your customers are people and people do not change their views, perceptions and behaviors as quickly as technology changes.

So, I resolve to you to:

• Multiply my dedication to ongoing professional development so that I, along with the full Pharmaceutical Manufacturing team, can bring the latest marketing communications thinking and approaches to you. In fact, Putman Media has invested to send myself and one of my colleagues to American Business Media’s B2B Advanced Leadership Program at Northwestern University next week so stay tuned.
  

• Drive myself and our team to develop new and creative solutions to address your marketing communications and business development challenges.

• Continue to work to understand and meet our audiences’ information and knowledge needs.

• Not letting our commitment to the creation of leading edge editorial waiver.

• Professionally making recommendations to assure that your Pharmaceutical Manufacturing marketing communications programs meet and exceed your expectations.

I am excited about this year and look forward to working with you to achieve your 2012 goals and maybe to helping you to work on one or two of your own resolutions.

I wish you peace, blessings and success in the New Year.

Print Media Blending With Digital Media Via Augmented Reality Approaches

Print and digital media have been working to effectively integrate for some time now. Like any new movement, new direction...it takes time for equilibrium and a new reality to be established. There have been stops and starts to be sure, but it is happening.

Print media as a whole is not going away, just as radio did not go away as TV became an entrenched media source for America and for the world. Radio did not go away, but it changed radically. Families stopped sitting around their radios in their living rooms starting blankly into space conjuring fantastic images of the Lone Ranger and his adventurers. America started sitting around their living rooms staring at images being delivered for them on their television sets. Radio became more music and news centric rather than featuring soap operas and serial adventures. This was a radically media transformation that happened within a fairly short period of time and we are experiencing a similar print/digital media transition.

Augmented reality experiences being promoted via print and other traditional media mechanisms is one example of how the blending of the old and the new is shaping. Despite all of the snappy technology, ultimately media consumers will decide what is value and worth their time and what is not. So as with any epic transitions, only time will tell.

But as smart marketers and media professionals we need to watch, listen and strategically experiment. The one thing that is certain for marketers is that this print/media transition will not conclude, then stay fairly stable for 50 years as the radio/television transition did. The changes will continue to be fast and constant, so buckle in and enjoy the long, fun and constantly changing ride.

Just two recent examples of the print/digital transition - Starbucks and Commonwealth Bank are using traditional and non-digital vehicles to promote high-tech augmented reality apps.

Starbucks to Launch Augmented Reality Campaign

Commonwealth Bank Augmented Reality App Promoted Via Newspaper Ads

Why Do You Need Content for SEO?

This is a pretty amazing infographic that explains why content is not a luxury for effective digital marketing. Click on the graphic below to view a larger version of the graphic.

Location, Location, Location: Delivering Your Messaging Where Your Customers and Prospects Are

It used to be pretty easy. If you wanted to open a general store in the 19th century or first half of the 20th century, you would rent, buy or maybe build a space within the downtown area of your town. Everyone had to come into town to shop and....there you were.

I am sure if we could have a conversation with a 19th century merchant, he would tell us it was not quite that easy to make a living. But, given the highly sophisticated site selection processes large retailers and restaurants use today, our 19th century entrepreneur faced far fewer decisions and variables. He had a market that all came to the same place, he just had to figure out what they wanted to buy, offer great service and fair prices.

Today, consumers can buy similar goods in many different places so retailers and restaurant chains know that while site selection may not be quite everything, it is critically important.

A similar trend has happened in the media industry. It used to be pretty straightforward. Even in B2B media, entire industries were served by three or four magazines and a few trade shows/conferences. This is obviously no longer the case, which makes it challenging to “be where you customers are.” Or, since you can’t be everywhere, to have a meaningful voice in an effective assortment of communications outlets.

Although I cannot wave my magic wand a design a media plan for you, what I can say is if you are solely using print vehicles, or if you are solely using digital vehicles, or if you spend your entire marketing budget on trade shows, you are missing the opportunity to communicate with a very big portion of your customer and prospect base.

In decades past we knew that marketing communications were good for us - sort of like eating broccoli. Today, they are critical as customers and prospects are much further along the buying cycle by the time they talk to you than used to be the case. So if you are not communicating with them, your competitors are.

At Pharmaceutical Manufacturing we have been studying and surveying our audience in a disciplined fashion as our audience’s needs are change and as new technologies emerge and mature. In a recent audience survey completed by 110 pharmaceutical industry members, we learned that 79.44% regularly read pharmaceutical industry websites and e-newsletters and 69.17% regularly read pharmaceutical industry print magazines.

It should not come as a shock to us that 79.44% are consuming information online. What may be surprising to you is that so many (69.17%) regularly read pharmaceutical industry trade magazines.

I hear every day, multiple times per day that “digital is where it is at,” or “print is dead, right?” Digital media is incredibly important. It is extremely challenging, but incredibly important. However, 69.17% of your customers and prospects read industry print publications…doesn’t it make sense to be there with your messaging?

I understand that it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of print media, but I submit to you that it is incredibly difficult to measure the effectiveness of digital as well. Yes, digital media offers us click and other conversion data that can be incredible useful. However, the goal of marketing is to alter human perception, preferences and behavior.

Given our complexity as human beings, it really sells us short as a species to completely measure our attitudes and emotions in terms of clicks and downloads. If we were in highly transactional, low engagement businesses like selling movie tickets online my position would likely be different. But, most of you are selling high investment, high risk, high engagement solutions to a highly regulated industry.

Those marketers who determine ways to measure a fuller range of customer and prospect behavior will have an enormous competitive advantage. More specifically, marketers who communicate effectively with their customers and prospects where they are – in print, online and at trade shows – will have an enormous competitive advantage.


**If you are interested in seeing a pdf report of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s most recent audience survey, please e-mail me at tbecker@putman.net.

What’s Working? High Performing PharmaManufacturing.com Website Campaign

Solid digital thinking and best practices have been utilized by Silverson and their advertising agency for a website campaign currently running on PharmaManufacturing.com. Click thru rates for the campaign have to date been 46% higher than average PharmaManufacturing.com website ad click thru rates.

Why? Reviewing the 4-panel ad below, you will notice:

1. Solution words that address industry pain points – “ uniquely hygienic,” “supremely efficient,” “double-certified.”
2. High-impact solution – “Reduce Mixing Times by up to 90%”
3. Video demonstration call to action that follows effective solution and pain point language within the ad's first three panels
   
4. Eye-catching graphic presentation

In addition to an ad that effectively addresses pain points and offers a meaningful call to action, the ad’s landing page is quite well done. The page is easy to navigate, provides ample information for someone at early stages of interest and the “Ask the Expert” function offers a non-threatening, customer centric opportunity for lead capture & conversion.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Magazine Wins Gold ASBPE Awards

Itasca, Illinois (PRWEB) August 22, 2011

Putman Media's Pharmaceutical Manufacturing has won one gold 2011 National award and two gold Midwest/South regional awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE). These prestigious annual awards recognize the best in B2B magazine editorial, design and Web and digital content development strategy and implementation.

Read Full Press Release

Join Me in Congratulating Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s Editorial Team

Over the years many of you have regularly read, watched and listened to articles, special reports, webcasts, podcasts and columns labored into existence by Agnes Shanley, Editor-in-Chief, Paul Thomas, Sr. Editor and Michele Vaccarello Wagner, Sr. Digital Editor.

Others of you have worked in partnership with them to collaboratively create pieces to support Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s mission of being a key catalyst for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries’ drive to improve manufacturing and operations, enhance the quality of products and minimize risk with a passionate dedication to public health.

Agnes, Paul and Michele are dedicated to delivering content both in print and online that supports the needs of our readers and industry on topics of interest and within the now wide-range of information delivery formats that are a part of today’s media landscape.

They work hard and are constantly striving to do things just a little bit better. It is my utmost honor to work with them in chartering the course of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s present and future.

Please join me in congratulating Agnes, Paul and Michele on winning three Gold AZBEE Awards – honors bestowed by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) to reward journalistic excellence.

National Gold Award
"Best Use of Social Media"

Midwest-South Region Gold Award
"Editorial/Editor’s Letter"

Midwest-South Region Gold Award
"Regular Column, Staff Written"

Congratulations and continued success Agnes, Paul and Michele!

Honored,

Tonia Becker, Publisher
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, PharmaManufacturing.com and PharmaQbD.com

P.S. If you would like to congratulate Agnes, Paul and Michele please comment below.