The real beginning of the end for trade pubs?

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Dave J.

Whammo:

Reed Business Information’s Shocking News (Russ Green @ godfrey.com)

“Friday’s news that Reed Business Information is closing many of its US trade publications and web sites – without warning – is truly shocking to B2B marketing professionals who have relied on these vehicles to reach technical audiences.”

Wholy crap! (Read the news & list from the RBI site.) Looks like they sold about half their pubs, and finally gave up on selling the rest (looks like 23). I know one of those shuttered, and I can say it was not doing well, but wow. A big gap in the trade pub world for sure.

Russ continues in his posting encouraging B2B marketers to develop their own content and audiences. Interesting that we should start calling our customer base ‘audiences’ and not ‘prospects’ any more. Maybe that’s the other part of this paradigm shifting.

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  • jethrojeanbaptiste
    Dave, I agree with this post. Another great way to improve on targeting your "audiences" and marketing is using tools like SalesFuel that integrates with LinkedIn, trigger events and millions of contacts in one portal.
  • In the material handling world, it appears that Modern Materials Handling and a few other titles were sold to their current management, so there is a reprieve. I think we will see more sell offs as the larger publishers shed titles they could not effectively manage. The concept of trade magazines is strong - the execution needs to be better, and ownership that is more attuned to specific markets is a key in increasing the quality of the pubs.
  • Unfortunately, I do not think that thiere is much hope at all for Trade Pubs, I guess we will enjoy them as long as we can.
  • I think you're right, this is really the beginning of the end for trade pubs. I hate to see some stalwarts from our industry, Modern Material Handling and Material Handling Product News on the list of closures.

    When you look across the broad landscape of trade pubs, it's hard to see how many of them could be in better positions than those on the list of closures. It seems it's only a matter of time before we see more and more of these publications closing.

    The answer, as you and Russ have said, is to keep developing our own audiences. The trade pubs as we know them can't last much longer.
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