From the SIPAlert, October 21, 2016 by Ronn Levine
"I utilize all editorial team members, editors and staff writers with on stage moderating and discussion," Matthew Cibellis, director of programming, live & virtual events for Education Week,wrote to me in an email recently. The subject was getting the editorial side involved in your events.
"We have the reporters and editors select their guests. Often we are asking them to bring their sources on stage, and that can be journalistically compromising. So I step in when it's a bad choice to have them make the calls to recruit speakers. I will do that for them and what's best for each event. When it's not a conflict, they will recruit the speakers. But it's a push and pull, depending on the content."
As events become more and more a part of a publisher's revenue-generating offerings, it's important that editorial does play a valuable role—both for their sake and the company's. They are the ones on the frontlines of your topics and the ones who your audience may already follow, or should be following.
Folio: just wrote about The New Yorker Festival, a very successful, annual event the popular magazine brand runs. The festival is entirely programmed by editorial staff. "It's an editorial outgrowth of what we do," The New Yorker publisher Lisa Hughes told Folio:. "You gotta believe that [our] editorial staff has their hand on the pulse of what's cool. Our writers are out there, they know what's coming up and what's interesting."
Interestingly, their big event often feeds the magazine, not the other way around. Only a quarter of the event attendees subscribe to the magazine. That leaves a lot of opportunity for subscription growth. "For many people, it's how they get introduced to the brand," said Hughes. "It's a mix of the avid reader and fan, and someone who comes because they're a big fan of the person that we're interviewing."
Cibellis said that they identify an assistant managing editor (AME) for each event, with that person being well-versed in the subject. He will then work with that AME to develop the event descriptions from a deeper, more reader-focused perspective. "If it doesn't look like a deep dive, readers generally won't pay to attend. This way we mix up the event descriptions, making them both content-rich and reader-engaging, and not too marketing-ish and promotional. This appears to work for us.
"One element that I do drag the editors into is the marketing e-blast editing. The content is simplified, obviously, so it fits [that element's] nature." Cibellis said that e-blasts should go out within the style guide your editors use. "This way your readers have a uniformity of reading experience whether reading an e-blast or reading the event collateral or reading the [publication]."
Just like native advertising is popular now, The New Yorker Festival offers "native panels." Epix, the entertainment network, "sponsored several showings of their upcoming series, all free for guests to attend..." Folio: wrote. "The event also featured a native panel incorporating speakers from other Condé Nast brands—the first of its kind, but probably not the last."
"We're really looking to work as one company, and this was really successful," Hughes said.
At our Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) coming up next month in Fort Lauderdale, we'll have a few sponsored roundtables, but the content is always vetted to make sure it's topical and unbiased. Our sponsors bring a lot of great information to the table.
Cibellis uses his research team to provide webinar moderation, sponsored-dinner discussion moderating, and more. He said they have shown an excellent ability to straddle the editorial/business line.
Not every publisher has a research team or data analysts, of course. But with data becoming so much more integral to success, you're seeing more go in that direction. Cibellis cited a successful sponsored research product they did—interviewing readers—that turned into a well-attended webinar excellently moderated by the marketing manager with the director of research as a guest. Talk about everyone pitching in.
