TechTarget converts its almost 100 online newsletters to controlled, qualified circulation.With the accelerated pace of change that characterizes 21st-century business, these days Rip van Winkle would only have to sleep ten--not 20--years to wake to an unrecognizable newsletter and specialized information world. Long touting their publications as advertising-free, independent, and subscriber-based, newsletter publishers now aggressively court advertisers, and many online publishers are even eschewing any subscription revenue in favor of ad revenue. Nowhere is this sea change more apparent than in TechTarget's recent announcement that, beginning October 22, it is converting its portfolio of nearly 100 e-mail information technology newsletters to a controlled, qualified, direct-request circulation model. The operative word here is "qualified" because the company's subscribers have always received the newsletters for free. TechTarget CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. Greg Strakosch told NL/NL: "Unlike most free e-mail See Internet e-mail service. newsletter publishers, we have always asked recipients for full demographics, not just their name and e-mail address See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address . Now, though, subscribers must be 'qualified,' which will trim our subscription base down from two million to about half of that. You have to be an IT professional in the U.S. or Canada." Unqualified subscribers will continue to receive the newsletters but will not be included in the advertiser rate base. TechTarget's reason for the switch to this new circulation model, Strakosch said, is to ensure greater ROI (Return On Investment) The monetary benefits derived from having spent money on developing or revising a system. In the IT world, there are more ways to compute ROI than Carter has liver pills (and for those of you who never heard of that expression, it means a lot). for its advertisers. "TechTarget continues to lead the way for innovation in the tech advertising industry, introducing products that focus on generating ROI for our advertisers, not on maintaining the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. ," he said. "Our switch to a controlled, qualified, direct-request circulation will enable our advertisers to reach their target audience with the most efficient and effective e-mail newsletters in the industry. We're pleased to announce yet another 'first' for the tech media industry." Among the top ten b-to-b advertisers TechTarget's more than 1,000 advertisers include the leading IT companies in the world, among them IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Microsoft, Oracle, Intel Corp., HP, Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. , and EMC (1) (EMC Corporation, Hopkinton, MA, www.emc.com) The leading supplier of storage products for midrange computers and mainframes. Founded in 1979 by Richard J. Egan and Roger Marino, EMC has developed advanced storage and retrieval technologies for the world's largest companies. Corp. In the spring of 2001, B to B magazine ranked TechTarget among its "Top 10" in terms of business-to-business advertising dollars spent. The magazine cited the unique approach that the company takes as a key factor in attracting advertising dollars: "While horizontal portals try to be everything to all information technology people, TechTarget takes the opposite approach. It slices the IT universe into 23 narrow markets and hosts a web site for each with content ranging from Linux platforms to middleware applications to storage technologies," the magazine wrote (NL/ NL 5 / 31 / 01). A specialized search engine See vertical search engine. anchors all of the sites and is key because it recognizes the different jobs in the IT world. Strakosch had earlier told NL/ NL, "We're organized the way IT professionals define themselves ... if I'm an IT professional, I don't look at my job as 'I'm an IT professional.' It's more like, 'I'm a Lotus Domino administrator.' And that person can go to SearchDomino.com." Editorial integrity Even though its winning formula for attracting leading advertisers obviously includes valuable and independent editorial content, we had to ask Strakosch about the traditional newsletter mantra mantra (măn`trə, mŭn–), in Hinduism and Buddhism, mystic words used in ritual and meditation. A mantra is believed to be the sound form of reality, having the power to bring into being the reality it represents. of ad-free, independent reporting. He replied, "As a spin-off from a 100 percent subscription-based company [United Communications Group, in Rockville, Maryland Rockville is the county seat of Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. According to the 2006 census update, the city had a total population of 59,114, making it the second largest city in Maryland. ], our editors are first and foremost journalists. We lose money every year because of what we write--when we write something negative about one of our advertisers." That's what differentiates TechTarget from any number of other publishers of free online newsletters, many of which are no more than advertorials, Strakosch said. He added that when advertisers complain about something negative that's been written, they tell them, "Our readers want us to write what we believe regardless of who our advertisers are. That's why we have the audience you want to reach." 117 Kendrick St., Needham, MA 02494, 781-657-1000, www.techtarget.com |
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