Open Forum: inaugural event report
We have held Publisher Forums annually in the US and the UK for many years now, with speakers from within Ingenta and elsewhere in the industry presenting papers on a variety of hot topics (our recent US forum is reviewed here). Whilst these have been popular, we've also had feedback that it would be useful to structure a more discursive event, whereat attendees could engage in more debate around the issues addressed. Hence, mid-way through June, we held our inaugural "Open Forum" in our Oxford (UK) office. The event, designed to provide a smaller number of delegates with a floor for strategic dialogue in a number of key areas, benefitted from the intimacy of a restricted group, and the freedom of discussions that ensued. Those present were open in sharing experiences and concerns, whilst also providing valuable input into Ingenta’s products, services and company development.
Delegates in discussion at the Open Forum
To provoke a healthy discussion, we invited David Worlock and Dan Penny, of publishing consultancy EPS, to open the forum with a brief address on the importance of building and developing online partnerships, incorporating the effect of Google, data distribution and issues around advertising and ethical sponsorship. This introduced a series of discussion topics which proved to be both challenging and engaging - we've summarised a selection below:
Marketing and provision of content in China
Delegates shared experiences of offering full-text trials to Chinese institutions via The Charlesworth Group. Whilst results were encouraging, the consensus was that breaking into this market is difficult - especially without Chinese language display on websites, or Chinese-speaking representatives in the region (both of which Charlesworth do provide). IngentaConnect Client Manager Rose Davies provided an overview of Ingenta's current solution for content provision in China, which incorporates a locally-based CERNET server to ensure institutions do not incur bandwidth charges. This was greeted positively by the publishers present, and most agreed that they would be reconsidering their activities in this market over the coming months.
Print conversion and online archives
The group discussed the market's increasing interest in, and demand for, older content; some publishers are already adding backfile data and many present felt that making a longer run of issues available electronically creates increased revenue opportunities. Head of IngentaConnect Client Management, Louise Tutton, briefly outlined Ingenta's digitisation service which enables us to cost-effectively create high-quality interactive PDFs from hard-copy back issues, thus removing one of the previous obstacles to making backfiles available online.
Advertising
Head of Product Management Kirsty Meddings explained some recent pilot work Ingenta has been undertaking in the area of online advertising. Delegates were asked to feed back their opinions about the possibilities of offering advertising on IngentaConnect. Two primary types of advertising were discussed: externally-sold adverts and publisher-provided "house" adverts. The subject was met with both interest and a certain amount of caution. Delegates were concerned that content of external adverts would need to be managed carefully, but were open to revenue possibilities that this may provide. Delegates were more open to advertising their own products on their own pages, to drive usage to their own sites and create wider knowledge of the products they provide. The discussion was followed up with a publisher survey about advertising on IngentaConnect, and our pilot work continues.
Encouraging use of content: free trials and subscription sales
We've recently expanded our free trials function to enable publishers to offer free trials to institutional users. Delegates discussed how free trials can enable more effectively targeted marketing, since reports of trial participants provide precise information about those accessing the trial. The discussion led onto online sales of subscriptions, and the advantages of packaging and selling content in different ways. A number of recent and pipeline IngentaConnect developments were highlighted, including Connect Collections, MetaStore, and forthcoming improvements to our subscription management tools.
The Open forum was well attended and all delegates were very open in discussing their business needs and demands of their customers; delegate Kirsty Luff, from the Royal Society of Medicine, commented, "It more than met my expectations and it was useful to hear from peers." We will be holding further events of this type in the future, so look out for further details from us in due course.