Skip to main content

ACCESSE17 Conference Takeaways: Publications a recurring theme

The annual CESSE conference (Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives) has historically been focused on high-level strategy, so when we headed up to Quebec City for this year’s I wasn’t sure I’d be hearing a lot about publications.

But I was surprised at how many discussions—both in the sessions, and in the hallways—revolved around issues that publications really are central to.  The issues themselves are nothing new…
  • Recruiting, engaging and retaining members
  • Building organizational branding and identity
  • Finding effective value propositions for members and prospects at all points in their careers
  • And of course, adding revenue streams
What’s new is that we’re seeing more and better ways of using publication content to address them.  

For example, associations can recruit, engage and retain members by meeting readers where they are, making it easier to find publication content in Google and social media, and reducing the barriers to sampling, with metered paywalls, rather than strict access denieds.  

If you do it right, some of that traffic converts to publication sales and new memberships.  And more of it converts to awareness that your organization is the place to go for information that is both relevant AND credible.  

Another example: repurposing your publication content in continuing education, courses, leveraging existing materials to create offerings that deliver educational outcomes, and can be adapted to each waypoint in the member’s career journey.

A conversation I had on the flight up neatly captured the challenge.  The woman sitting next to me told me she’d recently started her career as an occupational therapist.  She’d had a student membership in her organization—the AOTA—while in school, but hadn’t renewed when that lapsed.  She clearly felt bad about it, and was aware of the research and other valuable contributions the organization made to her profession, but felt she could get the information she needed to do her job from colleagues, and yes, Google.  

Fortunately, AOTA recently started working with Tizra, and hopefully next time I happen to sit next to an occupational therapist, she’ll be reading one of their digital publications.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

AppGap: Tizra more than just a "great tool for content sellers"

Bill Ives has been writing about knowledge management since the days when for most people that meant color coding your files, so we were really pleased when he agreed to evaluate Tizra Publisher in The AppGap , a blog on the future of work. We were even more pleased when he said "I see this service as a great tool for content sellers." But we thought his keenest insight was into applications beyond traditional publishing... [Tizra Publisher] can also be a useful content distribution system for enterprises that need to manage the presentation of their information. This will be especially useful for verticals with a lot of internal content such as legal firms, pharma, and other research oriented enterprises. Ives saw Tizra's combination of easy and yet precisely controlled content distribution as key for these users, and others needing to share marketing and technical information. Read the full review .

2018 Tizra User Summit: What We Learned by Meeting Our Customers Where We Are

They say you should "meet your customers where they are." Well, for Tizra 's 4th annual user conference we decided to take a chance and do the opposite. Instead of going to Chicago or DC, where Tizra customers are concentrated, we bet on hosting in our home town of Providence, RI. It's not that we don't love Chicago and DC, but we really felt we could do something special with the home field advantage. As it turns out, we were right. The Tizra user community is a silo-busting mix of creatives, technologists, content strategists and executives, who share the goal of building, engaging and generating value from audiences with digital content. For this crowd, we didn't want a sterile conference facility. We felt that by giving them a place they could really connect with, we'd help them connect with each other. Providence, with its vibrant tech and design scene, walkable downtown, and non-traditional venues, provided just the funky catalyst we were loo

Free Webinar: How to get off the mult-format content treadmill

Free Webinar: Friday, September 21 12-12:30 pm (ET) How to wrangle ALL your content types into one beautiful online hub… and get off the treadmill for good! It never lets up. First it was publications and conference materials. Then blogs and social media. Then webinars, infographics, podcasts and online courses. You keep cranking them out, but where do they all go? How can you keep your communications investment from evaporating at the speed of Twitter? Tizra lets you bring it all together into a great-looking, searchable, mobile-friendly website that delivers long-lasting value to your audience. In 30 minutes you will learn... How to broadcast and curate mixed media types for maximum impact. How to categorize content for ease of use and maintenance. How a well-tuned search can reveal hidden gems. REGISTER NOW!