Our Experience at The Publishing Show

Xtremepush attended and sponsored the Publishing Show 2022 at the mammoth London ExCel. The Publishing Show is the UK’s biggest and most prestigious B2B and B2C publishing expo. It draws publishers, newspapers, content providers and suppliers from across the world.

The event saw over 2000 publishers and media brands, tech partners and suppliers attend over two days. 

The agenda was jam-packed with some of the biggest names in the business presenting on topics ranging from audience and community, the future of media and the newsroom to revenue and advertising. 

In addition to exhibiting at the event, Xtremepush were delighted to be invited to host a panel. Business Development Manager, Will Hansen chaired a session titled ‘Data and Engagement in the Age of Disruption’. 

We caught up with him to find out more about how the panel went and some of the other ideas coming out of the event: 

Firstly, how was the event and what were the hot topics?

First of all I have to give credit where it’s due; the event was really well put together by the team at Mash Media. They did a stand up job.

Probably the best thing about the event, for me personally, was to be back face to face with our partners in the publishing and media industry. It’s not until you start to interact with people in person again you realise how the pandemic has pushed us all apart. 

As for the hot topics, the event definitely revolved around the options for monetisation for brands. Things like how to build community, the best tactics to use and the best tech providers to partner with as the industry continues to digitise. 

The event was really well attended by both direct publishing and media brands from the editing stream through to marketing and data managers. There were also some great brands presenting and speaking about those topics too. 

That ties in well to your topic on the day. What can you tell us about the panel and what were the key takeaways? 

I was lucky to have two great guests from a couple of up and coming organisations in the publishing space. I discussed all things data and engagement with Tom Lyons, Editor in Chief of the Currency, and Matt Steerman, Founder of Locker.

The Currency is one of Ireland’s best business news sites and Locker is an Irish sports technology brand that aggregates sports news and content into one place for fans.

It was a great panel with two very different perspectives from innovative businesses. They had very different use cases for their technology partners. 

The biggest takeaway was the absolute necessity from businesses of any size or ambition to have a solid understanding of their first party data. Especially with the cookiepocalypse looming. 

Terms vary for this, from community, audience and readers but making sure you have the ability to access and use your data is so important.

And that is where Xtremepush can help?

For full disclosure, Locker is a partner of ours. We help them day to day with their data and executing communications with their fans. 

Customer engagement is a priority for Locker. Registration journeys, ongoing lifecycle campaigns, and behavioural and event triggered campaigns engage with fans as sports news breaks. 

Having your data in one place where all your channels are accessible is so important for lean marketing and data teams. I am yet to see a team that is not lean in the publishing and media space!

Community and audience are a recurring theme for the event? 

We had a great question from the floor about innovative ways to build community for publishing brands. One of the core takeaways from both Tom and Matt was that authenticity and relevance is essential. 

Having great content is of course key. But making sure your audience is able to engage with that content in the right way is just as important. There are lots of things competing for people’s time and attention, so you need to deliver an awesome customer experience.

How are brands monetising or looking at expanding their audience and reach? 

This was probably the biggest topic across the two days at the conference. There are so many different ways for publishing brands to monetise their products. Whether it’s a more traditional advertising led model of eyeballs on content through to hard subscription paywalls. 

What most businesses are in agreement about is the need to drive CPAs down for audiences. Taking back control from some of the big players like Facebook and Google and owning your own data is key. 

There is a real ground swell around the power publishers have by being content creators. They have the power to grow significantly engaged audiences and all that brings opportunity. 

We chatted about that last year in one of our webinars about customer data. I think overall publishers recognise that their audiences are willing to pay for the right content. A mix of paid/subscription based models is good for both the publisher and the end consumer as well. Traditional advertising models are changing and brands need to be at the front of this change to survive. 

Were there any other highlights or closing comments? 

Learning how publishers like the Financial Times, New Statesman Media Group and The Economist are conceptualising data and audiences is huge.

Also, it was amazing to see some of the new technology providers shaking up this space. I think there is considerable scope within the industry. Especially as more and more D2C businesses start to have a ‘community and content’ element and can rightly be seen as publishers. 

How can publishing and media brands take the next step?

It’s so important for businesses to adopt an engagement oriented strategy. With competition as fierce as it is, content has to work as hard as possible.

Customers will pay for content providing they feel like it’s valuable enough. That means quality content, tailored to their audiences first and foremost.

Then you need unified first party data that will allow businesses to communicate with their audiences in a more personalised way. Combined with relevant content, they’ll find themselves ahead of the competition.

But good data in one place is key. Without that communicating with audiences will be disjointed. And, more importantly, dissatisfying to the reader. That means the only clicks publishers will be getting are on the unsubscribe link.

To learn more about how Xtremepush could help with your data, get in touch with a member of the team to request a demo.