How to Find the Right Balance Between Value for your Readers and Value for your Business Through Publishing

Are you struggling to find the sweet spot where both, audience and business needs are met? The danger is that if you can’t get the balance between your readers’ interest and your business objectives right, neither will benefit.

The WebEx co-chaired by Wiley, ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) and the Copyright Clearance Center about “Developing Ethical Commercial Revenues in a Changing Publishing Landscape” reminded us of some of the key elements to consider during the development of a content strategy.

Publishers are embracing innovation opportunities

The publishing industry is going through an important period of change. A lot of publications that carry advertising have seen revenues decline over the last 5 years, mainly due to the move from print to digital and the increasing need to demonstrate a return on investment (ROI).

This revenue loss has led to innovation in the publishing business model and has forced publishers to diversify their revenue streams by taking a more customer centric approach. New products have been developed aligning both, readers’ and the Pharmaceutical business’ needs. These new products also take into consideration the rapidly evolving digital landscape that allows better measurement of ROI, and the shift in customer behaviour with more engaging and bespoke content available across different platforms.

Providing value to the physician

Content is king As explained by Joe Adams in a previous post, “content is king”, you need to create value to the end user of the content if you want higher engagement. Access to relevant, credible and high-quality content remains a key priority for physicians.

Some readers can be a little sceptical about content developed by the Pharmaceutical industry such as product advertisements and other strongly commercially-led content. Consequently, you can consider alternative options that are more educational rather than commercial. In the development of these, you could have some influence on the broad topic and points of interest, but the content will be developed independently.

Make the read easily accessible and engaging.

Living in today’s modern society, physicians are exposed to information overload. They are people like us, consuming content from a variety of sources, on the go, at any time of the day and preferably for free. While today’s readers still value the “traditional” journal articles for their high-quality content, we are seeing an evolving change in behaviour towards more digital, engaging, bite-sized types of content.

The publishing industry is following this trend and is now offering content solutions in line with this evolving need. The same content from a printed journal article can now be adapted and distributed across different platforms (e.g. microsites, webcasts, e-learning modules etc) and presented in different formats (i.e. video, interactive graphics etc). Some bespoke solutions are also available.

Allow the reader to contribute and feed back.

Through some of the new content solutions, readers have the opportunity to interact, share, provide feedback or input on content. This feedback is highly valuable and can be used to develop more engaging content that aligns with the physician’s needs.

Find value for your business

Digital solutions offer better measurement of ROI

We know that as Marketers you are being challenged. Your marketing spends are being scrutinized and you need to demonstrate ROI on the initiatives you put into place.

Today’s digital solutions offered by publishers allow better tracking of:

Number of reads/views/downloads

Level of engagement towards a piece of content (i.e. likes, shares, comments) which provides the opportunity to provide the reader with some other content that might also be valuable.

Build more strategic, long term and focused content plans

Having trusted, high-quality content is essential, however the depth of your content needs to be tailored to your different audience groups (from expert to exploratory). The format of deployment can also impact the number of reads/views and the reader’s level of engagement.

Your content strategy will be determined by where you are in relation to your audience.

In order to be successful across these 4 stages, it is important to keep your customers’ needs in mind. A good starting point is to measure and learn from past campaigns. Based on learnings and insights, develop a plan that will add value to your customers and will make them want to continuously learn about and participate in your product story. Based on the audience’s feedback/level of engagement with the content, you will also have the opportunity to:

Adapt an existing piece of content to fit a new platform (e.g. from a supplement to an e-learning module) or audience type

Refresh your content piece

Create a totally new piece of content which you know is of interest

Why working with a trusted editor and publisher adds value to the equation

The editor’s ultimate goal is to increase the readership and impact factor of the journal. He has to make the content within the journal as well as any associated content attractive to his readers by maintaining or even constantly increasing the quality. Consequently, only the best papers after a very thorough peer-review process are selected, and the same quality standards are applied to all content associated with the journal, which provides credibility to the readers. It’s important to note that reviewers have a neutral mind-set and will mainly question whether the content is new, correct, clear, with justified conclusions, convincing messages etc.

A reputable publisher will help you navigate through this process and engage with journals and societies, and will ensure the ethical aspects of any published content are respected (e.g. copyright, conflict of interest etc), thus allowing you to get your message to the world.

In summary, it is key to listen to our audience’s needs and adapt your content strategy accordingly. The publishing industry has the reach to help you communicate a strong and credible product story to the right audience. While healthcare physicians still rely on the standard journal articles to be kept up to date, it is important to evolve with the newer generation and also consider new solutions.

Interested to discuss the options with a Wiley consultant? Send us an email at one of the addresses below and a consultant will be in contact soon.

Asia: corporatesalesasia@wiley.com
Europe: corporatesaleseurope@wiley.com
USA: corporatesalesusa@wiley.com