June 20, 2003
Interview

12 Business Newsletters Seek Contributed Articles

SUMMARY: No summary available.
Here is a new PR opportunity for everyone who wants to plant articles by their CEO or client.

Hank Stroll, who heads up InternetVIZ, a custom email newsletter publisher for 18 organizations, says his editorial team are open to accepting contributed expert columnists and articles in the following ezines:

Topic: Title:

local government Municipal Technology Journal

higher education Higher Education Digest

telecommunications The Dial Tone

commercial real estate Cohen Financial Direct

pharmaceuticals Healthcare Intelligence Report

internet marketing eNewletter Journal

professional services Professional Services Journal

event marketing Face-to-face Marketing Journal

field service maintenance Service Business Review

business software industry Software Business Journal

hi-tech strategy The Sweet Spot

supply chain management MMI Supply Chain Review

document management Expert Access

He says, "We specialize in executive audiences. 80% of our 250,000 readers from the industry journals we publish are director level and above." His specs for contributed articles are:

- Article must be applicable to our readers everyday professional lives. Usually about a business problem they face. They do not need to offer a solution to the problem. However, they do allow the reader to identify with the problem. I picture a successful story causes the reader to bob her head up and down in recognition and the feeling that they are NOT alone.

- No product pitches, case studies, endorsements, or whatever a marketing piece is called.

- Length is up to the writer. Our studies have shown that long pieces can work as well as short pieces. The typical piece is between 700-1,200 words, however, each article in the series that won the Purple Cow award (Cincom) was over 10,000 words. Good writing to a targeted audience makes up for it.

- We have a style guide for our writers, however, I find that each writer's personal style is what makes our journals so popular, so we stopped using it for outside writers. The basic style we like is casual. We accept controversial topics and anything we consider to be 'edgy.' Basic business buzzword articles need not apply.

- Although our audience has internet access and some work for technical firms, they are not techies, so standard pieces about the state of technology within an industry is not the reason why they read our publications. They have many, many other sources for those type of pieces. They are business persons first.

- Pitching us: The best thing they can do is to subscribe to one of our industry newsletters they find applicable to them and read it. Each one has a definite focus on business problems the reader faces in their everyday professional life. Then email me at Hank@internetVIZ.com and let me know what they have in mind. We encourage reuse of their existing content, just with a current date. Since most of our content is about good business practices and not dependant on trends, 'evergreen' material is encouraged.

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