Sean Griffey, until recently the CEO of Industry Dive, joined Brian Morrissey on “The Rebooting Show” to discuss the big things Industry Dive, and by extension a lot of B2B, got right.
Here are some highlights:
- Focus on a specific audience. Industry Dive would turn off ads if it had a story picked up by Reddit that led to a flood of viral traffic. That’s because the people arriving weren’t the “right people.” B2B isn’t about reaching everyone.
- Know who you’re writing for. A trick of B2B that narrows the focus: Write for a specific job title. Media properties nowadays can be messy, but they need to have a person in mind (and know enough similar people exist).
- Get receipts. Industry Dive focused its business model on marketing services and lead generation. In B2B, budgets are far greater for demand generation than branding or thought leadership.
- Do more with less. Industry Dive operated dozens of publications in verticals like wast management, retail, marketing and for CFOs, CIOs and more. But it operated a single platform. That allowed it to quickly move to create new brands, even if it sacrificed unique branding elements.
To listen, go here.
Chris RoushChris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.