In the quest to convince advertisers that they offer a large and desirable professional audience, some trade magazine publishers blast their publications to a circulation list that may include some who do not even want the magazine. Others use a “controlled circ” model that requires subscribers to directly request the publication, say annually. Even so, rarely does the audience pay for the privilege. These pre-Internet business models worked fine for a good hundred years or so, but they suffer these days.

A CHALLENGE FOR B2B PUBLISHERS

Advertisers and marketers have learned that with digital products, they can get incredible metrics on how many people are exposed to digital ads, including who they are, where they have browsed, and whether they have clicked. An advertiser can know the precise number of podcast or white paper downloads; the names, companies, and contact info of webinar attendees; and the open and click-through rates of email newsletters. This incredible detail of analytics is attractive to advertisers who want to target their messages.

Many information consumers are moving away from print to online. The monopoly power of print to offer professional information to a select audience is dead.

But magazines still survive, and B2B as well as specialty titles are faring better than general consumer magazines. Professionals are often traditionalists. Photography on paper remains competitive with photography on screens because magazine layouts are not quite as arresting online. A free magazine is still a compelling value for some. So the magazine is not dead.

Consider revenue for B2B magazines:

In terms of total revenue, that’s $27.3 billion in 2008, which fell during the Great Recession and then gradually came back to reach $28.49 billion in 2016. However, those figures are not inflation-adjusted; adjust for that and total B2B revenue in 2016 was $24.8 billion in 2008 dollars. In other words, the B2B media industry has still not recovered from the Great Recession.

And as for print advertising, since 2008, it has fallen 41.6%, or 49.2% after adjusting for inflation. Yes, digital advertising has filled some of that gap, but look at the history of B2B digital ad growth in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2008:

(Source: Me, based on the data above from Connectiv)

The bottom line for the B2B media industry: Print advertising is in decline. Digital advertising is growing at a slower pace. But what if you expand your industry outlook from business media alone to include other business information companies? Add in the yellow pages and directories publishers, the company data firms such as Hoovers and S&P, and other business information dealers. Well, that expands the market from $28.5 billion to $75.6 billion in 2016. Here, take a look:

That does not look so bad at a first glance. Steady growth, not too shabby. But wait! Look at those dates. In 2014, 2015, and 2016, the data show revenue that is flat to down. But for 2017-2020, the data show steady growth. Well, the *forecast* shows steady growth. So, in essence, Outsell is saying, “Okay, sure, revenue for these business info firms has been flat, but things are about to turn a corner, we predict, and it’s sunny skies ahead for sure.”

You are free to believe that forecast, if you like. I’ve played that prediction game myself, and I know the pressures an analyst can face to be a bit optimistic. But from my perch here in the pundit’s chair, well, color me skeptical.

So what are content marketers (i.e., advertisers) looking for these days? Where are they spending money, and what does that mean for legacy-print-heavy B2B media brands? Here’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that if you ask marketers what they want, they say that content is still king:

Publishers, take heart! Your specialty — informed professional articles — is far and away the top choice for the content that marketers value.

But there is bad news too. If you ask marketers where they are actually spending money, they say this:

And there it is in a nutshell: social media and search engine marketing, right at the top. Marketers are putting money into Facebook and Google. And so publishers have to ask themselves, do they want to be in competition with the tech giants for ad dollars? Or are they interested in exploring other revenue streams?

A SOLUTION FOR B2B PUBLISHERS

Now, I’m no rebel. I don’t think publishers should shutter their print operations and go digital only, or stop printing advertisements. The plain fact is that there are still ad dollars on the table for B2B media, and it would be foolish to walk away from that.

That’s what Beth Braverman says at Folio:, in an February 2018 article titled “Print Is Still Big Business in Magazine Media.”

And although I am writing for Subscription Insider, I think it would be foolish for publishers to try to immediately convert their controlled circulation publications to a paid subscription model. Having trained your reader base to enjoy free magazines, I’m not seeing a future in trying to make them pay up now. So sure, keep on printing high-quality paper magazines that are full of the same pro-oriented content … and advertising! But advertising can live comfortably alongside other revenue streams, from events to licensing to, yes, subscription.

Ronn Levine, writing for the SIIA Blog last November, says, “Many Publishers Are Finding New Revenue in Premium Subscribers.” He’s seeing a trend in revenue from sources that complement rather than supplant the flagship magazine. Examples include premium access to editors and industry experts, access to evergreen archives, and access to newsletters and business info.

• Special access and communications are fast becoming some of the most common premiums offered by publishers. These premiums often go hand-in-hand with the fact that more people-yes, okay, young people but I think it’s more pervasive than that-now value the experiential over even dollars in some cases. A theater got me to become a member last year by offering access to two meet-the-cast parties. Indeed, “access” seems to be the key word to many of the strategies.

Jake Batsell of MediaShift is talking about a UK newspaper in this older article, but his point is key for B2B brands today. The power of recurring revenue from subscribers derives from the loyalty of the brand’s supporter base, not from fly-by-night marketer dollars that ebb and flow almost randomly:

• Maintaining a base of engaged, loyal readers – not just fickle, drive-by traffic – is a matter of business survival at a time when the news industry is beginning to rely less on advertising and more on subscribers as a primary source of revenue.

An example of a B2B brand that has already walked this path is Hearst Business Media. Per this Crain’s NY article by Matthew Flamm:

• In an age in which established media companies-Hearst Magazines and Hearst Newspapers included-fight for every advertising dollar while scrambling to stay digitally relevant, Hearst’s B2B publishing division, nearly 100% of which is online, gets almost all its revenue from subscriptions and licensing fees. … “We haven’t even hit our stride,” said Rich Malloch, 60, who has run Hearst Business Media since its inception in 1999. “We’re generating 30% of our revenue from products that didn’t exist three years ago.”

Caysey Welton at Folio: has an interesting perspective: He notes that subscription content is not a new idea, and he wonders what will be different this time. Pessimism aside, though, he sees no alternative but to try it:

• I think paid content is an imperative moving forward if publishers want to maintain the one thing readers expect from them, which is quality. Ad dollars will continue to be stretched, and will shift towards the dominant platforms, so publishers can’t wait around for that money to come back to print, because it won’t. And digital display ads and even native still isn’t doing enough to offset the losses the industry has suffered in print. Thus it’s time to get serious about new and better paid content models, and think about more ways to serve the consumer better.

Insider Take

There’s no denying the data: Yes, B2B advertising revenue has held up better than consumer magazine advertising revenue, and way better than newspaper advertising, but the ship is still sinking, however slowly. A long-range plan for success beyond mere survival has to include alternate revenue streams, and an excellent option for B2B media is a subscription to premium products that monetize a brand’s loyal base.