PackagingInsider.com Maximizes Traffic with a Trade Publishing Partnership

Goal: Promote latest site makeover, raise numbers of registered site user

Campaign: An integrated campaign using email to alert previously registered users, print ads in trade and association publications, press releases, and, of course, big presence at related trade shows.

Print Media: As a joint venture between TechTrader, Inc. and Independent Publishing Company (IPC), this new packaging-industry Internet marketplace gets preferred position and pricing on space ads in IPC’s packaging trade pubs--such as “Food & Drug Packaging”--with a combined total circulation of 135,000 executives. (Hint: If your Internet marketplace doesn’t have joint ventures with major trade publishers, maybe you should get some.)

Email Marketing: Marketing VP Patti Smith wouldn’t tell us the raw numbers, but she did emphasize that PackagingInsider.com only emails users who have opted-in by registering at the Web site. “We could email all 135,000 readers [of IPC pubs], or all the members of associations we work with, but that would violate their privacy,” she says. Instead, the company follows-up each opt-in registration with an immediate welcome email asking for feedback on the Web site’s new design and functionality. All subsequent emails are “newsworthy” and “press-related”, says Smith. “There’s really no sales pitch in any of our email updates.

Opt-in Email List Building: PackagingInsider.com doesn’t let visitors get anywhere beyond the front page without registering (not even to “Company News,” so this reporter now is registered among packaging buyers and sellers online). This first level of registration does not, however, enable us to start trading packaging supplies on the site. That requires a second, more qualified registration level. (Whew!)

Trade Shows: As with many Net marketplaces, events are a major channel for PackagingInsider.com. For several months prior to release date, the Company began touting its new makeover at trade shows by explaining future content, features and tools over a demo of its then current site. (We think a live demo of the new site to come–-á la VC pitch--would help create pre-release buzz, but you don’t want to let the cat out early either.) Now that the new site is up, PackagingInsider.com will show it off at EastPack 2000 in Philadelphia (May 23-25), with demos in a special presentation room and at the company booth.