Trade press - the quality publications

The last blog - "The changed role of trade press" - brought a deserved rebuke from an editor for failing to mention the quality publications.

At the centre of the blog item was the old and on-going practice that evolved from 'colour separation charges' into the now quite open charge to print press releases. A subject also picked up today on another blog. At one end of the publishing spectrum are the vaguely positioned publications that seem to have no defined target audience, perhaps deliberately so to accommodate a breadth of content in the form of published press releases. Here is an example of such a communication following up the initial 'sales' call. Only client details have been removed for reasons of confidentiality. 

"Hi,

Hope your well, nice talking to you earlier, here is a quick email discussing what we are looking too do with your company. We are looking too feature xyz groups ( name of item removed)  'within our industrial feature in the next issue of the publication, Its due to the fact that we have been let down with artwork at the last minute and need to fill the relevant space. As a result we will be reducing the cost to £125+vat as it is normally alot more than this. I hope to here from you soon. If you are happy too proceed, could you please reply reserving down your location and i will send you a booking form. 

We are national basis to 15000 readers which include company directors, plant managers,maintenece engineers, machine builders , design engineers, health and safety officers etc.

Kind Regards" 

What I failed to mention is that despite the emergence of the opportunist publishers most sectors still benefit from the continued existence of quality journals.  The comment on the last blog from the editor of such a quality publication offered the following conclusion.

"Industry needs a symbiotic relationship with a healthy trade press. While the enquiry mechanism has undoubtedly moved online, there is a mass of independent research highlighting that ideas are generated and business decisions made on the printed page. While the paid for advertorial magazines persist, they drag the whole of industry down around them. Those of us in the quality press do our utmost to maintain standards and to hold industry up around us. It is time that more of the PR world tried to do the same."


In previous blogs we have observed the importance of news items/press releases online in contributing to search engine optimisation performance and also the archive role of news items online. However there is emphatically a role for the quality printed publication that provides well informed and researched content that offers an authoritative voice in the industry sector it addresses.