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Web Strategy & Brand Consolidation

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Our Mandate

To compete and thrive, we must:• Develop the right content and delivery medium for our

audiences. • Cater to customers who have a specific, granular information

need, but who don’t have time to spend hunting down the information to fulfill those needs.

• Find ways to grow sales to libraries that have shrinking budgets.• Form fruitful partnerships and alliances with learned societies,

aggregators, distributors and even competing publishers. • Develop strategy to combat growing movement for open access to

publicly-funded research without cannibalizing growth and profitability.

• Protect copyrighted materials from piracy and illegal distribution on the still vastly unregulated Internet.

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Overall Business Vision

• To turn the web into a primary sales channel where it’s easy, convenient for our customers to buy our products online – the way they want to buy them—whether it be by the topic, by the answer, through a subscription

• To maximize profitable acquisition, retention and lead generation of customers online

• To expand our brands and credibility online by establishing ourselves as true thought leaders in our areas of expertise

• To develop an engaging online experience where customers can interact with our content, tools, experts (editors) and each other to find and/or produce the information solutions they need for their businesses

• To deliver the information, tools and services our customers need – how they want it, when they want it and where they want it

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Marketing Site(s)

ecommerce

CRM

Product Delivery

CME C

ity

BioW

orld

Sheshunoff

One Platform: Multiple Branded Entry Points

AHC

AS

Pratt

Thompson

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Brand Strategy Intersects with Web Strategy

• Cohesive Customer Experience and Brand Strategy demands we view marketing (public) and product (private) sites with a combined vision

Marketing

(Public site)

Product

(Private site)

Lo

gin

/Pay

Customers

Prospects

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Four Main Areas of Consideration

1. Web strategy

2. Brand strategy & customer experience

3. Business case & high level benefits

4. Technical options

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Web Strategy – Main Components

1. Shopping experience

2. Corporate presence

3. Member area (user account/dashboard features)

4. Web ‘2.0’ and other social/community

5. Definition & delivery of new products

6. Migration of existing products & content

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Web Strategy: Overview of 1-3

Shopping Experience• Browsing and shopping need to be easy and fast• Guest check out

Corporate Presence• Only mention of corporate brand relationships; little effort to drive direct

traffic other than through some PR• Goal is to establish expertise and credibility in the history of the brand

Member Area• Enhance member area for greater usability, product access and

administrative access• Ability to change user information, pay invoices online, set up reoccurring

payments, and renew online• Portal to access online products

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Web Strategy: Web 2.0 & Social

• Dynamic featured and related products• Emailed/SMS’d alerts and updates for news articles/content• Free news and content registering and commenting• Community development for active market segments• Widgets for polls, visualization of social media trends and other RSS news (creative

and visual aggregation and analysis of information—internal and publicly-available)• Next Generation Publishing: Incorporating CGM (consumer generated media) into the

publishing process

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Current Online Products

E.g. BILD=Application, SMART=Subscription

True Online Product (News)

Key Benefits to customers: Timeliness, Credibility, Training modules, Push/Pull

Info, searchable archive. (AHC)

True Online Product (Solutions)

Key Benefits to customers: Workflow Tools, Archived training modules, interactive forms, Push/Pull Info, searchable archive. (TPG/SIS)

Full-text, searchable products

E.g. Medi-Regs model, eTIME, eFAIR

Linear format, enhanced by search engine AKA electronic abstracting and indexing (A&I) databases

CMS Platform & Consolidated Web Structure

Products – New & Migration (Starting Point)

eBooks: PDFs (E.g. Sourcebooks)1

2

3

5 4

Redesign outdated web sites &

fix URL architecture

v

Redesign outdated web sites &

fix URL architecture

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Brand Strategy & Customer Experience

1. Build brand equity, recall and trust in individual, specialized brands– Simplify web site domain structure under 8 main brands, enabling improved

SEO, more efficient and effective advertising, a stronger customer experience, and more efficient content updating

– Redesign sites to industry standards, optimizing usability (affects brand favorability and purchase intentions)

– Create more engaging user experiences to increase returning visitors

2. Create horizontal and vertical entry points to attract customers, partners and organic traffic based on customer self-definitions

3. Create destination pages by market that integrate news, analysis, solutions and training

4. Develop topic areas to offer comprehensive and targeted solution to compliance challenges

5. Engage users with rich media and offer opportunities for user-generated content

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The Core 8 Brands

ASMI

PI

CME City

AHC

BioWorld

AS Pratt

Sheshunoff

Thompson

ThompsonPublishing

Group

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Thompson (horizontal/vertical breakout example)

Energy

Environment

Legal

Healthcare

FDA

Grants

Government

HR

Thompson=Compliance

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Brand/Product Integration Structure (TPG Example)

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Sheshunoff Information Services

Finance

Legal

Treasury

Lending

Operations

CreditUnions

Banking

Compliance

Sheshunoff=FinancialServices

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Product/Brand Integration Structure (SIS example)

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Vertical & Horizontal Entry Points (TPG Example)

HR GOV Grants Legal FDA

TIME ABLE PERK SASS GRAN WATCH

FMLA FSLA COBRA A-122 A-133 Audit

Grants HR EDU

GRAN ABLE ELL TEAC

GrantsManager(Local Gov)

HRManager

(Local Gov)

A A A A

A A A

A A A A

A A A

A A A A

A A A

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HR Manager

Larger organization, steady flow of compliance issues/questions.

Small company, need answer to one question

Need comprehensive

solution

One Hot Issue

Issue-Based

Solution

Format-Based

Solution

One product, one development process and different prices for different size pieces

Vertical & Horizontal Purchasing options

TIME

FMLA

A

TIMEA

FMLA

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Customer Experience Walk-through

• Public Website Wireframes– Level 1: Corporate site (TPG, SIS, AHC)

– Level 2: Primary content areas

– Level 3: Secondary content areas

– Level 4: Product pages

• My Account Wireframes (coming soon)– Dashboard

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Architecture and Traffic Overview

Level 1 Corporate

Level 2 Category

Level 3 Sub-Category

Level 3 Product

Account Dashboard

SEM Email Display

Organic Traffic

Product

Shopping Cart

Trial Touchpoints

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Level 1: Corporate Site

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Level 1: SIS

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Level 1: AHC

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Level 2: Primary Content Area

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Level 3: Secondary Content Area

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Level 4: Online Product Pages

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Member Area

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Branding Strategy

• Define and Grow our brands in specific markets• Understand and eliminate (by finding

opportunities) on brand overlap

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Salient Laws of Branding

• The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope. Trying to be all things to all people undermines the power of the brand. The strength of brands lies in becoming synonymous with a single category. Brands that spread themselves across categories lose brand focus, identity, and ultimately market share.

• A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus. By narrowing the focus to a single category, a brand can achieve extraordinary success. Starbucks, Subway and Dominos Pizza became category killers when they narrowed their focus.

• Brands are brands. Companies are companies. There is a difference. Customers think of brands, not companies. Procter and Gamble isn't Tide. General Motors isn't Cadillac. The brand itself should be the focus of your attention. Use the company name, if necessary, in a decidedly secondary way.

• There is a time and place to launch a second brand. A second brand can be launched to focus on a new subcategory within the same product family. Toyota launched Lexus because the Toyota brand couldn't fill the luxury ar category. The focus is on the brand, not the company. Customers buy a Lexus not because it's made by Toyota, but in spite of it.

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Our Brands and Markets Served

ThompsonCompliance Solutions for Professionals in HR, Grants, Education, FDA

AHCNews and Expert Analysis for Healthcare Professionals

SheshunoffInformation and Insights for Financial Services Professionals

BioWorldTimely news and insights for Biotech Professionals

AS PrattAnalysis and Guidance for Banking Law

CME CityComprehensive Continuing Medical Education Resource

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Brand Mapping - Limited Overlap Today

Thompson

AHC/BioWorldSheshunoff/AS Pratt

HR

Healthcare, FDA

Legal

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High-Level Benefits

• Improved efficiency in SEO, operations and marketing with consolidated, combined platforms

• Customer-focused online experience, cohesive between public site, private site and product

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Next Steps

• Business Case• Technical Requirements

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Appendix

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Appendix A: Core Brands

ASMI

PI

CME City

AHC

BioWorld

AS Pratt

Sheshunoff

Thompson

ThompsonPublishing

Group

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Thompson

Energy

Environment

Legal

Healthcare

FDA

Grants

Government

HR

Thompson=Compliance

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AHC Media

HospitalQuality

&Outcomes

AlternativeTherapies

Outpatient &Women’s Health

PatientManagement

HospitalCompliance

ClinicalAlerts

InfectionControl

EmergencyMedicine

AHC=Healthcare

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BioWorld

MDD

BioWorld=Biotech

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CME City

TestWeb FreeCME

CMEweb

CME City=CME for

Healthcare

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Sheshunoff Information Services

Finance

Legal

Treasury

Lending

Operations

CreditUnions

Banking

Compliance

Sheshunoff=FinancialServices

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AS Pratt

AS Pratt=LegalFor

Banking

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The Performance Institute (gov perf mgmt)

Environment

HRManagement

Leadership/Indv Perf

Social Serv/Nonprofit

LawEnforcement

ProcessImprov

ProjectManagement

FinancialManagement

PerformanceManagement

ThePerformance

Institute

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ASMI (private sector performance mgmt)

ProjectMgmt

ProcessImprovement

Marketing

HRMgmt

FinancialMgmt

PerformanceMgmt

ASMI