The coming year will see more changes in the MARKETING product offering than at any time in our first 30 years of working with the marcomm community.
Most notable is the transition of MARKETING newspaper from print to digital delivery—via www.marketingnw.com. This main website will continue to provide the kind of editorial and advertising content that has made MARKETING newspaper a valuable resource for the local marcomm community for the past three decades.
For the reader, the switch to digital offers several advantages: News will be posted as it occurs; there’s no limit to story length and editorial content; and audio, video and hyperlinks will be important enhancements.
For the advertising Sponsors, there are a number of important pluses: They can change their digital ad any time, rather than every eight weeks or so, and have it linked directly to their website; place print ads in the annual SHOWCASE and LINK publications; and receive additional digital-advertising exposure on the Awards and IMMORTALS microsites and in emails—all for less than the cost of their annual ad schedule in MARKETING.
Besides twice-monthly (more often if necessary) messages to our email subscriber list, the array of related elements shown at right will help drive additional traffic to the main site. The ever-growing email subscriber list is predominantly company principals, who will be encouraged to share the periodic messages with their marcomm colleagues, which will greatly increase the reach.
Here’s a brief description of each of the elements shown in the illustration:
marketingnw.com: The main website and “hub” for all services. foremost of which will be the news, contributed articles/columns and advertising that have been delivered via the bi-monthly print edition in the past.
Email Support: Bi-weekly (or more often if necessary) email Updates to drive traffic to the main website from our growing and proprietary list of marcomm-professional email addresses, now including more than 1,000 corporate chief marketing officers in Washington State.
News Alerts: Email messages about important marcomm-related news that will be posted—as it occurs—on the main website and further add to its currency and traffic.
marketingnwimmortals.com: Upgraded microsite containing the commentaries of the 62 current members of the MARKETING IMMORTALS pantheon. New inductees will be announced on the site on no set schedule—again, to engender interest and traffic.
marketingnwpoy.com: New microsite for the award to recognize a marcomm professional in Washington State for an achievement culminating in the prior calendar year. See guidelines for submitting nominations for the 2017 MARCOMM Person of the Year Award on Page 10.
marketingnwawards.com: The high-traffic, three-phase microsite for the annual MARKETING Awards, now in their seventh year. The phases include receipt of entries from Feb. 5 through March 26, 2018, online voting in mid-April and the summary of winners, posted in early June.
THE EVENT: The one-of-a-kind gathering of the marcomm community where all winners of the MARKETING Awards and the POY Award will be announced. The next one is May 23, 2018.
The Awards SHOWCASE: New print publication that debuted this year, showcasing all MARKETING Award winners, as well as the clients and creatives who made the winning work possible. In 2018, it also will include profiles of the 2017 POY and recent IMMORTALS inductees, along with advertising by award winners and regular advertisers. It will be mailed in September to the list of nearly 7,000 former MARKETING newspaper subscribers in Western Washington.
The LINK: This new annual publication is the successor to the MARKETING ATLAS and is positioned as The CMO Buyers’ Guide. It will target our growing list of corporate CMOs in Washington State who buy the vendor services that will be advertised in the glossy publication, to be published in January 2019 and also mailed to the MARKETING list.
Melissa and I look forward to working with you just as successfully on the web as we have in print these past three decades. —LC
