Most of the media in the electronics industry is paid for entirely by advertisers, and for most publications a large proportion of the income is from a relatively small number of large advertisers. Small companies and start-ups often feel that with limited budgets there is no point advertising, but still demand a large amount of editorial coverage.
Naturally some large advertisers – and publishers – feel aggrieved that companies don’t support the publications financially, but still expect promotion through editorial. I’ve always believed that the key to an effective marketing campaign is balancing whatever budget is available across a range of activities – just putting everything into PR is rarely the most effective approach – but I do understand the challenges faced by smaller companies with limited budgets. What I really want is to see creative approaches from both the advertiser and publisher to encourage and enable more companies to balance their marketing spend across the right mix of activities.
So I was delighted to see Techfocus Media launch an advertising package tailored specifically to smaller companies and startups. It’s great to see a publisher finding a proactive solution, rather than just complaining about the companies that don’t provide support through advertising. By tying companies to a modest annual subscription, the package offers a huge discount from rate card prices (and a very significant discount from the pricing that you might reasonably expect to negotiate).
The new package has been launched as “the deeply discounted, exposure-maximizing, super-duper lead-generating, get-you-in-front-of-the-decision-makers On Demand program”, or the “Journal on Demand-Momentum (JOD-M) Program” for short.
I hope to see other publishers developing fixed-rate packages to encourage more companies to add advertising to their marketing mix. Any programme that increases the number of advertisers and total amount spent has to be a good thing for publishers, readers and any company that values promotion through editorial or advertising.