The Difference A Decade Makes

By Bill King

As we enter a new decade, a reflection on how different the media landscape is today in the water and wastewater markets from what it was back in 2010.

A decade ago, you might have been receiving the last of a diminishing supply of “bingo card” leads. For many years, a reader would fill out a Request Info card inserted into a print magazine and mail it back to the magazine’s publisher. The publisher would then send that info request to advertisers that fit the reader’s buying criteria. Bingo! Companies would keep advertising with publishers to promote their brands and receive these “hot leads.”

But ever since the 1990s and the Internet becoming a mainstream communication superhighway, the supply of “bingo card” leads has diminished. This only intensified over the last 10 years as the water and wastewater market finally arrived in the digital era and joined the B2B content marketing revolution.

With an ever-expanding universe of digital information available to readers, the need for publishers to help connect them to suppliers through discrete vehicles like bingo cards has diminished. Readers’ habits and preferences have changed significantly over the last 10 years.

With the explosion of websites, magazines, blogs, newsletters, discussion threads, tradeshows and podcasts, readers have a myriad of resources available to them to find the information they are looking for. And the technology revolution that has turned what was primarily a cellular phone into a pocket-sized mobile computer means that readers can effectively access information anywhere at any time.

Water and wastewater industry professionals are no longer looking for publishers to write about vendors (which publishers did, and still do, to sell ads). They want publishing platforms that provide truly helpful information that can guide their operational strategy. After years of being bombarded by product messaging, readers are more skeptical today of suppliers and “being sold.” This creates an environment where it is harder than ever for your sales reps to penetrate new decision-making loops. Readers have less time and are less willing to talk to suppliers than ever before.

That’s how we got here: suppliers can’t reach buyers on their own, and publishers face the challenge of a massive amount of information competing for their readers’ short attention spans. The role of B2B publishers has never been more challenging or more important than it is today.

Today in 2020, it’s imperative that you put your customer’s information needs first. Ahead of your product line and your company culture and your impeccable service record. Resolve to help them solve their biggest known challenges and discover those that they haven’t yet recognized. And do it in as unbiased and creative a way as you can pull off.

Over the next ten years, attribution models are going to mature. The results of your content marketing efforts will finally be measurable against other content being produced in the market and in line with your other business development channels.