Anyone wishing for 2008 to return? For most companies, 2008 was a year of strong performance, and many of us are anxious for those marketing patterns and programs to return.
But they won’t. The financial collapse and global recession hasn’t been just a momentary pause in the way we do business – it’s led to a significant change in how companies operate. It’s certainly led to a change in how they go to market. The way we built marketing campaigns for business-to-business companies has changed structurally and permanently. Things will not get “back to normal.”
In response, it’s common for companies to migrate much if not all of their marketing spend to an online-only world. While we agree with the importance of the web and online marketing, we think an online-only approach is a mistake. Companies need a balanced program, and the role of print in branding is still important.
In fact, we’ve been talking with clients about how much of the move toward online, in particular toward “user-generated” content, is actually revealing a need for filtered content that only a good editor can provide. Here’s what we mean.
What is the engineer’s most precious commodity? I think we can all agree that it’s time. In light of that, engineers must turn to sources of information that will tell them what they need to know to do their jobs better, and to do so while consuming as little time as possible.
So while it’s great to rely on search and participate in user-driven forums, I think we all can also agree that much of what we find user forums, blog comments and other social media outlets is, politely, noise that’s not really worth our time. Engineers are coming to the conclusion that what they need is an answer to a question now, and they don’t have time to sort through noise to find it.
So the job of a magazine editor is once again becoming more critical. Magazine editors are trained to sift, evaluate and organize. A good editor can determine what’s critical for a reader to know, and present it in ways that are accessible, clear and convenient. It doesn’t matter whether it’s online, in print, face-to-face, and perhaps even in new user-generated forums that have some editing filter in front of it.
I believe that explains why some magazines have survived, such as Microwave Journal, and some have fallen by the wayside. Magazines in tune with their audience make good use of their readers’ time. It’s not an easy task, but as we all struggle with exploding levels of information overload, it’s a critical task that will become more central to how the engineer learns and finds information.
