Today’s Thought Leader talks about B2B media companies’ expertise in providing clients the market intelligence they need to
help them manage increasingly complex marketing campaign possibilities.
MGS: GIE Media has been extremely successful in serving its customers with integrated programs that result in profitable engagement between advertisers and their target audiences. How do you see marketers’ objectives changing
today?
Jim: Today, more so than ever, marketers are under pressure to provide measurable return on investment. In addition, they have a wide range of options to choose from, not only from media companies, but from outside sources that are growing in influence and ROI, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google etc. GIE Media continues to stay focused on its core business, which is
to provide access to readers through multiple channels with high-quality education to help them grow their business and be successful in the market. That engagement takes place within GIE Media products (magazines, apps, websites) and we extend that experience out to those new mediums on behalf of our clients to assist in managing the impact of media fragmentation. It’s not our clients job to be media experts – they are busy making products and developing services for our markets. It’s our
job to be that expert and make a diverse world of media operate seamlessly to their benefit.
MGS: Tell us about how research helps you to determine your customers’ desires, needs and expectations in order to design winning marketing campaigns.
Jim: We conduct market
research to understand the trends in our industries. Not only consumption of media, but market trends, happenings, and current challenges the industry may be facing. We openly share that research with our clients to assist them early in the planning process and to help guide their strategic objectives. When you provide that intelligence that early in their planning process, you become a partner, not just another vendor trying to sell them something.
MGS: Can you give us an example or two of how MediaGrowth Research helped your sales staff close business?
Jim: We have found that clients can be biased or maintain a belief in certain mediums performance based off their experience with competition or personal usage. Sometimes it isn’t based on anything but a
perception they developed for any number of reasons. We recently worked with a client who had completely given up on print advertising because they believed that it was a dying vehicle and that their customers were not engaged with it. The MediaGrowth Research allowed us to show the client that not only were 96% of executives engaged in print media across the many markets that were researched, but 98% of executives in their 30s were engaged in print media. They were shocked by this data and
began to question their doubt in print media. This research is what pushed them to add a print campaign to their marketing mix for 2018.
