Chapter 19
Building Out Extensions
Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
Andy Schneider (the Chicken Whisperer) initially built his platform by doing in-person meetups (monthly gatherings with his audience in Atlanta) and home shows. That transformed into his very popular radio show, Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer, now over five years old. Andy then published the book The Chicken Whisperer’s Guide to Keeping Chickens, followed by the print magazine, titled The Chicken Whisperer Magazine, sent to 60,000 subscribers.
Scott McCafferty and Mike Emich launched WTWH Media with one platform, Design World Online, as the go-to online product resource for mechanical engineers. Shortly after, Design World magazine (print) was launched. WTWH then launched both a customer event and an industry event for mechanical engineers.
And this was just the beginning. Scott and Mike have now launched additional platforms into several associated industries such as renewable energy, fluid power, and medical design (Figure 19.1). Today, with more than 1 million registered users, WTWH has gone from nothing to an $11 million business in less than 10 years.
Figure 19.1 WTWH Media reaches over 1 million design engineers. It did this through the help of multiple acquisitions.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT EXTENSIONS
There are two different ways to launch additional platform extensions:
Adding channels within the same platform. For example, Matthew Patrick and his Game Theory brand are in the midst of launching additional shows to target different audiences, all on the YouTube platform. Darren Rowse from Digital Photography School launched a subsite called Snappin Deals, as part of the current website platform.
Extending with current brand into new platforms. This is the Andy Schneider example of taking the in-person platform and launching a radio show, a book, and a magazine.
The standard Content Inc. model is going to already have an online platform (a website or blog) and an e-newsletter offering to build the subscription list. From that, the most common brand extensions within the model are:
Books
Podcasts
Events
Magazines
Content Marketing Institute has launched brand extensions into all four platform types. Let’s take a quick look at each one.
Books
Chapter 18 told you why developing a book is critical to building your personal brand and optimizing all possible business opportunities. At CMI, we assist the members of our staff in creating books in their core expertise area (Figure 19.2). For example, in addition to my own books (such as Epic Content Marketing), Robert Rose, our chief strategy officer, recently released his new book, Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing. And we also partner with industry influencers. As examples, we helped underwrite and promote influencer books such as Brandscaping by Andrew Davis and The Marketer’s Guide to SlideShare by Todd Wheatland.
Figure 19.2 Just a sampling of some of the recent printed books launched through CMI.
Podcasts
CMI launched its first podcast in November 2013 called PNR’s This Old Marketing, where Robert Rose and I cover the content marketing news of the week. This was a natural extension since CMI didn’t have a news offering, and we believed our audience needed this kind of information. Each episode is repurposed into a blog post with show notes later in the week, as well as e-book compilations as subscriber giveaways.
On the basis of the success of This Old Marketing, CMI launched a podcast network that includes additional podcasts such as Andrew Davis’s Claim Your Fame and Pamela Muldoon’s Content Marketing 360.
Events
In September 2010, CMI announced that it was planning Content Marketing World, our flagship event, in September 2011. The key that made this work was a luncheon meeting that took place in November 2010. We organized the lunch with marketing and governmental leaders in Cleveland, Ohio, to announce the event and, we hoped, gain their support. At that event, we secured our platinum sponsor.
Initially we reserved hotel meeting space to accommodate 150 people. By the event date, we had 660 people attending the event, taking over much of the hotel space.
The event concept worked for the following reasons:
We included influencers early in the process.
We gave plenty of time for our audience to budget time and expenses for the event.
We offered the people in our audience tools to attend the event, such as a complete document on how they could justify the event to their boss.
We budgeted for a small event but secured a location that we could grow into if the need arose.
We planned far in advance. As it was our first event, we had to learn all the ins and outs of event planning, and so the time was necessary.
We hired a reputable and experienced event planner.
In five years, that little event idea has grown into 4,000 delegates from 50 different countries and is now the largest recurring business event in downtown Cleveland.
Magazines
Chief Content Officer (CCO) magazine (Figure 19.3) was launched in January 2011. As of September 2015, CCO has delivered 23 issues to 20,000 marketers for each issue. CCO is now critical to our overall strategy since the content of the magazine and the content of the original platform (the blog) are now fully integrated.
Figure 19.3 Chief Content Officer magazine.
The original idea for CCO was to reach chief marketing officers and other senior marketers that had budgetary responsibility for content marketing. Our strategy was simple. Get the magazine into their hands, and they would begin to see content marketing as a valuable go-to-market strategy and start funding content resources within the enterprise.
Understanding the budgeting behind what makes a magazine work is critical. Areas to consider include:
Project management. The fee for someone to oversee the production of the magazine.
Editorial. Raw content costs (including outside contributors), managing editorial costs, and proofreading fees.
Design. Someone to lay out the graphics for the publication.
Photos and illustrations. Investment in any photo shoots or custom graphic creation.
Database fees. Charges to make sure your audience list is postal ready.
Printing. Cost to print the publication.
Postage. Post office fees to deliver each issue.
Shipping. Any bulk shipping fees from the printer or to your office location.
Commissions. If your magazine is supported though advertising revenue, you’ll need to pay a commission to the salesperson. Commission rates are generally 8–10 percent for one of your staff and up to 20–25 percent to hire a freelance salesperson who covers all his or her own costs.
Our general folio (page count) is between 40 and 64 pages. Your cost will depend on the number of total pages, number of editorial pages, and total print count, but you should prepare to spend at least $40,000 an issue. To subsidize this, we include sponsor advertisers in the publication to defray those costs entirely.
Although there are other extension options such as webinar programs, video series, and mobile apps, consider looking at these top four first: books, podcasts, events, and magazines.
CONTENT INC. INSIGHTS
Once you’ve built the base, start to contemplate the best opportunities for diversification.
One of the hottest Content Inc. extensions today is around podcasting. With the technology barriers coming down rapidly for podcasting accessibility, we have only seen the start of the podcasting revolution.