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Publishing in the knowledge economy
Table 9.7 Newsletters and
management reports
Connecting Business survey results
Number of companies involved 270
% with newsletters, etc, as primary activity 20
Employees 12,500
Turnover, £m 271
% publishing exclusively for business and
professional market 72
% publishing between 2 and 10 titles 48
% publishing between 10 and 50 titles 36
% publishing some editorial electronically 55
% of titles with electronic editorial content 22
Total circulation, million 11
Percentage with fewer than 10,000 subscribers 58
% with fewer than 1000 subscribers 26
% of companies offering multiple subscription
deals/site licences 57
Breakdown of revenues, %
Hard copy subscriptions 40
Display advertising 11
Recruitment advertising 3
Other classified 4
Inserts 14
Electronic 7
Newstrade 3
Other 18
Total 100
Source Business Information Forum: Connecting Business
9.3 Newsletters and reports
There is no regularly collected data on the
publishing of newsletters, but the data from the
BIF’s Connecting Business study shows that
this is an important segment of publishing,
although for the vast majority of companies, this
is not their primary activity. Twenty-six percent
have fewer than 1000 subscribers, indicating
newsletters can be a high value activity for
niche markets. Electronic distribution is also
becoming more important, as would be
expected for a medium which is based on
reaching a tightly defined business audience
with up-to-date news and analysis.
Some interviewees argued that the
commoditisation of news through the
proliferation of free sources of news and
information on the web were likely to spell a
decline in newsletter publishing. But this was
not widely felt. Against this, high value targeted
information was still seen as greatly in demand,
and the web and email as a more effective way
of delivering it. There is also an expectation that
as online-only news and information services
dwindle, so will the free competition to paid
content. But clearly, newsletters that fail to add
significant value are at risk.
The barriers to entry to newsletter publishing,
especially on the web and via email, are very
low. The data below will not capture many of the
businesses, which may be very small indeed.
Email marketing, the sale of lists, and
advertising embedded within email newsletters
have been seen as one of the more effective
online business models, certainly compared
with banner advertising. Many non-publishing
businesses are also using regular email
newsletters as a means of client contact, but
these are not generally revenue-generating in
themselves, but more a means of prompting
site visits.
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