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News Release from: APA (Association of Publishing Agencies) | Subject: Digital Audit Report
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 30 April 2008
Customer publishers develop digital
expertise
Independent research from Contented reveals that digital agencies have misjudged the threat posed by customer publishers and the growing trend for editorialisation of brand in the digital arena.
The Digital Audit Report, commissioned by The Association of Publishing Agencies (APA) entitled APA@, supplements APA Ask, APA's new business service launched last year; APA Advantage, the customer magazine measurement and evaluation tool and APA Insight, its research service to encourage bespoke research initiatives APA@ which included in-depth interviews with digital agencies, brands and customer publishers shows that 10 per cent of customer publishing revenue is now attributed to digital activity including podcasts, RSS feeds, ezines, microsites, hosting and transactional sites
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 27 Apr 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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This represents a growth of 114 per cent since 2005, with an estimated increase of 33 per cent for 2008 versus 2007.
To reflect this increase currently one in seven customer publishing employees has specialist digital skills, which the research predicts will rise to one in six by the end of the year.
Customer publishers now deliver digital editorialised content to over a third of their client base (37 per cent).
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Record year for customer magazines
The customer publishing industry has experienced huge success in the first six months of 2007 with 120 new titles.
The variety of digital services ranges from basic content adaptation and provision; with 93 per cent of customer publishers having provided these services to clients, through to web hosting (34 per cent).
With 72 per cent of customer publishers having designed and built emails, ezines and microsites, this provision is increasingly falling under the customer publishing remit, as is rich media, including podcasts, video and audio (57 per cent).
Less well represented, but growing nonetheless, are eCRM (53 per cent), community and user-generated content activity (43 per cent) and database management (40 per cent).
The less developed areas of eCRM and community are those likely to see the most growth over the next three-quarters of 2008; indicating that the customer publishing industry is keen to move beyond its traditional skill set and continue to embrace the capabilities of Web 2.0, reflecting the confidence and buoyancy of the industry.
The research commissioned by APA also revealed that brand owners agreed that on the proviso their customer publisher could prove its digital capabilities and understanding of interactive media, they would rather trust it with their digital marketing briefs above other marketing services agencies, because customer publishers have a firmer and more strategic understanding of brand communications.
Conversely, when interviewed digital agencies placed very little importance on editorial skills, preferring instead to concentrate on technology and delivery aspects of digital provision and outsource editorial.
This is changing however, as digital agencies begin to realise the opportunities afford through good editorial, with one digital agency recently hiring an in-house editor.
An automotive client interviewed during the survey commented: "When we decided to invest in digital communications we weighed up all the options available to us, including a dedicated digital agency.
"However, for us it made more sense to expand our brief with our customer publisher as not only did they have the technical capabilities, but more importantly, they understand editorialisation of brand, which is crucial in today's media environment where it is essential to communicate with customers across different channels in a consistent manner", said Julia Hutchison, COO, APA.
"We commissioned the research to get a considered, "warts and all" overview of the digital arena and gain an understanding into the digital positioning and expertise of customer publishers in today's landscape.
"Clearly customer publishers have found a niche and are turning their differentiator "editorialisation of brand" to their advantage.
"If forecasts remain on track digital activity and integrated campaigns will increasingly become a focus for brands and customer publishers are extremely well placed to deliver such strategies given the industry's unrivalled understanding of brand communications, but also most importantly, the consumer.
"While printed publications will always remain an essential part of the marketing mix, it is an extremely exciting time for the industry as it evolves its offering to meet client needs".
Keith Grainger, Chief Executive, Redwood, added: "A majority of our clients now employ Redwood to deliver unique digital creative work and every new client expects to talk to us during the pitch process about how our digital content can get their brand closer to their customers.
"The natural development of Web 2.0 is 'Content 2.0' - where we create integrated content strategies to reflect the convergence of media channels and their multiple usage by customers.
"In this way we can ensure that we engage customers by matching the right type of content with the right media channel, for example, our work for Land-Rover extends from printed magazines through to web design, web content and film.
"We are also now creating our first mobile content for clients.
"However, what doesn't change is the importance of always putting the customer first and giving them editorialised content that is relevant, informative and inspiring - in whichever format is best for them".
Robin Barnes, Planning and Development Director at Cedar, said: "Recently we became the first customer publishing agency to deliver a combined transactional and content brief: for BA's High Life Shop online shopping portal.
"We believe that our skill set - the genuine integration of editorial content, digital distribution and transactional capability - represents a new dawn in how publishing agencies will work in the future.
"For highlifeshop.com it's not just about placing editorial content on the website, it's also about the interplay between the print and online, which has resulted in a significant multiplier effect on the sale of products featured in the magazine.
"The magazine and website now perfectly complement each other, an achievement for British Airways which would have been more difficult if two agencies of different disciplines had been involved".
James Freedman, Chief Executive of Zone, said: "Our editorial teams work with clients to deliver integrated content plans across multiple platforms.
"Whether it's a magazine, email, website, podcast, iPhone app, direct mail piece or TV production isn't important - it's about creating compelling content to engage with the audience in the most appropriate format to meet the brief".
This Digital Audit Report used a range of approaches to understand the digital opportunity for customer publishers.
Contented consulted a number of different sources to ensure a holistic perspective including customer publishers, clients and digital specialists.
These encompassed: face-to-face in-depth interviews; telephone interviews; questionnaire; desk research.
In order to further substantiate the findings Contented carried out desk research on the digital marketplace and digital trends.
Contented also sought out a range of evidence including research reports, articles, organisations/trade bodies in the digital sector and trend analysis.
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