A Note from the Publisher on the Reinvention of B2B Marketing

By The Myers Report Archives
Cover image for  article: A Note from the Publisher on the Reinvention of B2B Marketing

In 2008, with an economic downturn and accelerating media industry disruption on the horizon, I made the decision to refocus my career and priorities, closing my lucrative consulting practice and taking a year for recalibration and for setting new priorities and focus. With a goal of incorporating my market intelligence reports, an established editorial "voice," years of building valued relationships, and my experience in developing innovative business models, I envisioned a new-age media company without dependence on advertising, subscription or conference revenues. My hope was to reach beyond implementing an innovative approach to B2B market research, PR and trade communications that was within my grasp. It's not an exaggeration to claim I aspired to completely reinvent B2B marketing.

After several years of development, in 2015 I launched MediaVillage with the support of my long-time colleagues Maryann Teller and Ed Martin and a small entrepreneurial team.

Against the backdrop of technological, social, cultural, economic, regulatory and gender disruption, MediaVillage anticipated the need for a different kind of customer engagement. I vowed that MediaVillage would frame the best ideas, case studies, research, creative innovation, technological advances, talent development and inclusion initiatives, leadership profiles, and economic insights in a professional journalistic environment.

My vision was to empower all players in the expanding media community to share their vision, their perspective, and their stories at an open platform, with each company's content housed and archived under their individual brand identity. Just as marketers are investing in innovation, requiring new models to communicate effectively with their customers and demanding improved performance metrics, so must media companies and agencies reinvent their marketing to stand-out in a highly competitive marketplace.

Today, MediaVillage is the exclusive home for the thought-leadership commentaries of more than 70 companies, organizations and industry leaders, empowering them to respond to changing marketplace conditions with agility, insight and control over their messaging. As examples, visit MindshareInsites.com, ViacomInsites.com and NielsendataInsites.com. At MediaVillage, we are proud to have become the industry's most read and most trusted home for rich storytelling, case studies, executive profiles, market insights, exclusive economic reporting, research data, visionary leadership and knowledge resources. The more than 8,000 exclusive and original articles archived at MediaVillage include member content surrounded by thought leadership from the best and brightest journalists and well-known industry experts. We're proud of an average e-mail open rate of more than 20 percent.

The MediaVillage vision, now led by John McMenamin and an expanded executive and journalistic team, seems especially relevant as traditional trade publishing revenues continue to decline at an accelerating rate and as the media, advertising and marketing community struggles with eroding business models and revenue streams. The business models that have supported the traditional trade press, traditional public relations, traditional conferences and traditional T&E budgets are collapsing. Dependence on press releases, trade reporters and trade press to tell your story is no longer reliable or safe.

The challenge before us all is to adapt to disruption of the tried-and-true, adjust to new marketplace realities, and adopt new strategies and tactics that keep us ahead of the competition. At MediaVillage, we are investing in AI to improve our content targeting capabilities, expanding our audience through the recent launches of CMOVillage, CreativityVillage, AudioInsitesVillage and AdTechVillage, and developing media partnerships that enable us to broaden the targeted reach of our content through relevant B2B publishers. We are expanding our journalistic and partnership teams, developing improved metrics, investing in video and podcast resources, enabling customized content management platforms, introducing our new MediaPedia.com search engine, and piloting our R-O-I focused business development program. We're focused on leading the B2B marketing business in delivering advanced and customized solutions for engaging clients, identifying business opportunities, and measuring the impact and value of innovative communications and outreach models.

As I look to the future of media, marketing and advertising, I see continued and accelerating disruption from blockchain, AI, IoT, programmatic, OTT and more – all requiring organizational and budgetary realignment. I'm excited to have successfully built a community – a media village – where relationships can be established and maintained as they are becoming more and more difficult to target and sustain. The MediaVillage Perceptions Engine™ offers stability and consistency in B2B communications, accompanied by cost savings through consolidation of market intelligence, content creation, content distribution, talent management, and business development.

Our model is empowering journalists such as Ed Martin, Stuart Elliott, Simon Applebaum and many others to continue to make an important contribution to our community. Through the underwriting support of our member companies, we are expanding our research programs to improve their ability to respond with agility to changing market realities and business opportunities. We are committed to leading the industry in diversity and inclusion advances through the Jack Myers KnowledgeExchange initiatives, including Advancing Diversity, WomenAdvancing and 1stFive.

I believe that the media business of the future will be led by those companies and individuals with the fastest reflexes, who adapt quickly to new market forces, and who communicate their brand value and organizational differentiation the most effectively. It's clear the landscape is changing, yet so many companies remain entrenched in traditional B2B marketing – continuing to invest budgets in outdated models. I'm proud that MediaVillage is delivering on my original vision: to build a new age B2B media company without dependence on advertising, subscription or conference revenues. We truly have reinvented B2B communications and marketing. Thank you for your past, present and future support.

Jack Myers
Founder & Publisher, MediaVillage

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