e.Republic has faithfully served its audience of government technology buyers for nearly 30 years. The award-winning public sector publisher’s brands include Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management. The company also produces events and sells research.
In an interview, CEO Dennis McKenna, who founded the company in 1983, shared his thoughts on the state of the media industry, including what he calls the “communitizing” of B2B publishing.
eMV: In what direction do you see the industry moving?
McKenna: The entire nature of B2B media is changing. In the past, it was largely built around a model of “informing” markets or readers. Magazines and events were largely built around disseminating information, and “social networks” were a secondary consideration. But the Web has made information a commodity. News distribution and analysis is not, in itself, a competitive advantage any longer.
The future of the business is more about “communitizing” markets. I’m not talking about social media, but using all elements of a media platform—both high tech and high touch—to effectively engage with audiences to help them solve their business and professional challenges.
eMV: Can you give an example?
McKenna: e.Republic has launched several very narrowly focused “gated communities” of government IT professionals. These communities address specific business challenges faced by their members. Our role is to facilitate this community of professionals through a number of different services, including conducting specific research on topics of concern to them, providing expert analysis and hosting both online and in-person forums or leadership networks. By building these communities in a way that dynamically engages both readers and advertisers, we’ve been able to effectively monetize these efforts.
Yes, publishing information remains important, but the future of business media centers on being much more engaged with our audience and delivering greater practical value to them. Media comes from the Latin word for “middle”. I like to say that the new model is about “media in the middle,” meaning that the role of media brands should focus on building and sustaining professional communities. Successful media companies have always done this to some degree; however, it is central to our mission going forward.
eMV: Has the paradigm shifted permanently?
McKenna: No question. A media company can’t just assume that it is delivering value to its audience. All the discussion over what or if readers will pay for content is evidence of this. What is the real value my media company brings to the market? It’s a tough question to ask. A media firm needs to have a clear-eyed view of what value it’s delivering to both readers and advertisers. Once you start down the road in answering this question, you’re looking at entirely new business models.
eMV: What have you learned from the recession?
McKenna: Two major events are taking place simultaneously. One is the economic recession, but just as disruptive is the continued unraveling of the traditional B2B media model that’s heavily reliant on advertising of any kind, including Web. So when I look at the recession, I include both factors.
What I’ve learned is that you must innovate through times like this. Develop new business models—build new products and services fast that truly meet customer needs and figure out the best way to monetize them.
We have learned this by having serious, in-depth conversations with our customers and our advertisers. Conversations like: “OK, you don’t want to buy ad pages, but what do you want? Let’s take a blank sheet of paper and talk about how we can bring honest-to-god value to your company in these challenging times.”
Through this recession we’ve gotten closer to many of our customers and understand their business challenges and pain points better than we ever have before.
eMV: What aspect of media has more potential than you expected?
McKenna: Our development of primary research, market intelligence and analysis services. We’ve invested a great deal in this over the last several years and it’s reshaped our business in many important ways. Certainly it’s been a new revenue source, but it also makes us more relevant—what I like to call job critical—to both our readers and advertisers.
Also, combining new technology like online social media with old school stuff like face-to-face meetings—combining these in innovative ways—we’ve been able to amplify the value of buyer and seller networks inherent in our market.
eMV: Are you insourcing or outsourcing any aspect of e.Republic?
McKenna: I am very big on software as a service or “cloud computing.” Over the last 18 months or so, we have migrated as much as we can to cloud services, including content management and client and identity management. We are using great products like Clickablity and Eloqua. I think we were the first firm to run our entire subscriber database off of Salesforce. This has given us a much more detailed look at our subscribers, event attendees, etc., and their interests and relationships with our entire company.
eMV: Why did you make that decision, and was it a recent change?
McKenna: Our technology platform is a competitive advantage for us today and even more so going forward. I need market-leading technology without indefinitely expanding IT staff. Tools like those I mentioned let me do this so I can invest my resources in the things we do best: developing content, expanding our research capacity, and building and managing communities.
eMV: Any recent, major shift in the structure, policy or strategy of e.Republic?
McKenna: In the past, our company was very product-focused when it came to selling. This was very successful for us when we were selling discrete products like ad pages or event sponsorships. Today, we’re more customer-focused. We are working much closer with advertisers and sponsors to build custom programs tailored to their needs, independent of our specific brands or product offerings. It’s a more involved and complicated process, but it’s strengthened the ties with our customers and led to the development of exciting new products.
On the editorial side of the business, we’ve recently created a new position of chief content officer to better integrate, produce and coordinate all content (research, editorial, events, etc.) across all our outlets including print, Web, video, leadership networks and conferences.
eMV: What are your favorite metrics?
McKenna: New subscribers, new “opt-ins” for our offerings like newsletters, online communities, publications, etc. These are new members to our network—our family. It’s their participation and engagement with us that drives our expansion.
eMV: What are your current challenges?
McKenna: Moving fast enough. We’ve got the ideas, talent and products. Can we successfully execute our plans quickly enough?
eMV: What are your recent successes?
McKenna: Our Emergency Management platform grew nicely in both ad pages and total revenue in 2009. We also launched a successful new website and series of professional events around the brand in 2009. We expect to continue with very strong growth in Emergency Management in the year ahead.
We are very proud of the recent acquisition of Governing, which became part of e.Republic at the end of 2009. Governing is a great brand that complements and extends our reach in the state and local government market. We see significant expansion opportunities by bringing the successful elements of e.Republic’s platform to Governing.
We are optimistic about 2010.
eMV: Who do you admire in the industry?
McKenna: Not to sound self-serving, but I admire the team here at e.Republic. I’ve got a tremendously innovative, adaptive group that is driving our company forward with new ideas—a willingness to change and move quickly. It’s been central to our success.
I also admire Bloomberg LP and The Economist Group. These are two media firms with deep roots in market intelligence and research and, as a result, they have a clear sense of what it means to deliver value to their audience.
eMV: Who in the industry are the up-and-comers?
McKenna: There are many new media companies that are doing great things. I think the Texas Tribune out of Austin is doing great stuff. (see eMV's profile on Texas Tribune's new business model here)
eMV: What are they doing differently to make you think so?
McKenna: They are focused on doing one thing really well: covering politics, civics and government in Texas. They do it well, and do it creatively. Their readers know this is the place to go if you want the scoop on politics in Texas.
There are great business opportunities in niche markets when covered well with high quality and high creativity, not as an afterthought.
