Technology Archives - Publish Interactive

7 March 20239 March 2023

Going Global: why market analysis firms are leveraging translation services to scale global reach

Translation tools have evolved to such an extent that they are unrecognisable compared to early iterations – they pose a huge opportunity for analyst firms looking to scale and grow their international reach.

The evolution of translation tools

Early iterations of digital translation tools were notoriously unreliable. Overly literal interpretations, an inability to contextualise phrases, and inaccurate representations of complicated tenses and sentences were the norm.

Today, the huge strides made in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) fields have transformed the quality of translation tools. Tech giants, including Meta, Google and Amazon to name just a few are pouring huge R&D budgets into developing comprehensive, reliable translation tools. They are highly accurate, can quickly generate translations, and easily integrate into content delivery systems.

These tools are now far better at identifying:

Context – the relationship between words, not just the individual terms.
Tone/style – these tools can distinguish between different styles i.e. formal or informal and translate text accordingly.
Cultural signposts – NLP systems have a greater understanding of the cultural and societal relevance of words and adjust translation to fit with these considerations.

The nature of NLP/AI development means that these tools will become ever more authentic, culturally aware, and accurate with time. As these systems are exposed to more data, the better they become.

This new generation of translation services presents an opportunity for market analysis firms looking to scale their global reach and strengthen client relationships.

Distributed Teams, Global Audience

Digital audiences today are truly global. Enterprise teams are no longer confined to narrow geographic regions and analyst teams must accommodate this new reality. While one enterprise account may be headquartered in an English-speaking city, such as New York or London, they likely have teams distributed in other major non-English-speaking cities, such as Tokyo, Paris, or Rome.

These teams may know the language spoken at company HQ but likely feel more comfortable reading a complex, nuanced report in their first language. Providing translation as part of your content delivery service increases the value of your offering to the whole account, not just those based in your linguistic area.

As workplaces become increasingly distributed, positioning your organisation as a global analyst firm keeps your organisation up to speed and opens your research up to a broader market. Greater linguistic inclusivity strengthens relationships with existing subscribers and attracts new users to access and consume your content.

Translation in a Report — An excerpt from a translated report in the Publish Interactive platform

Internationally renowned analyst team

Machine learning translation tools allow your analysts to be truly international in their reach. No longer restricted by linguistic boundaries, their analysis can reach beyond the confines of their first language and be read by information consumers around the world.

In the era of flat PDF delivery, international reach was not easily possible. Now, digital publishing platforms are enabling this change with their dynamic format compatibility and interactive functionality.

Not only does it render content more accessible, but your analysts can communicate and answer questions from customers around the world. Interactions with a broader audience open up the possibility of consulting projects, sales of new products and other revenue-generating opportunities that, in turn, grow per-account value.

Growing per-account value is essential for analyst firms looking to scale. After all, it costs up to 5x more to acquire a customer than retain an existing one. Offering additional membership services not only increases the value of your content, but also the perceived value of your company as an entity among your subscribers. Once customers realise the unique value you provide, you will see increased ROI, less subscriber churn, and fewer commercial overheads.

Translation tools already bringing success to global analyst firms

Content Catalyst clients are already utilising translation tools to improve content engagement and scale global reach.

Oxford Economics, a leading economic forecast provider, has a global audience and workforce. One of the unique selling points of their service is their international economist presence: their analysts are stationed around the world and provide hyper-specific economic coverage on over 8,000 cities and regions.

“For the first time, at the click of a button, clients can see a report in their chosen language – that was a big step forward”, comments Oxford Economics’ Chief Information Officer, Ben Nicaudie, on the impact translation tools have had on their international subscriber base who access the firm’s Publish Interactive-powered My Oxford subscriber portal. Improving linguistic accessibility was crucial for an organisation as global as Oxford Economics and planned development work will enhance the feature further, including the generation of email notifications in a client’s chosen language.

In-platform translation tools have transformed the My Oxford end-user experience and provide the framework for Oxford Economics to grow and scale its global reach.

Scale your analyst business with translation tools

Translation tools are now too easy to incorporate into your content delivery platform and too accurate to ignore.

Implementing AI or NLP-generated translation tools provides the foundation to scale your international reach, grow per-account value (PAV), and generate additional revenues.

Today’s information consumers are truly global and distributed. Remove linguistic barriers, which prevent a massive segment of your potential audience from reading your content in their first language and watch your market analysis business grow.

For more ideas on how to scale your market analysis business with publishing technology, download ‘The Future Market Analyst’ here.

17 January 202318 January 2023

The Future Market Analyst: Six ways publishing technology equips analyst teams for future success

Download this whitepaper to discover the six ways digital publishing technology brings analysts closer to end-users and supports market insight providers as they keep pace with changing consumer expectations

Read the whitepaper now

Understand how to free your analysts from mundane tasks and arm them with the tools to help your organisation keep pace with ever-changing consumer expectations today.

According to McKinsey & Company, “COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point – and transformed businesses forever.” Their research shows that COVID-19 accelerated the adoption of digital technology by several years with distributed teams, remote working, and changes in employees’ perceptions of work-life balance forcing companies to adapt to new workplace trends.

Approaching three years since the start of the pandemic, these changes are undoubtedly here to stay.

Pandemic-fuelled advances in the quality, proliferation and accessibility of digital services have changed consumer expectations. We’ve now come to expect the same ease of use, convenience, and speed of service from all digital services, including from market analysis providers.

The Future Market Analyst explores why analyst firms must embrace digital publishing technology if they are to keep pace and meet the needs of the businesses they serve.

Access your copy of the whitepaper today and begin unleashing the potential of your analyst teams.

4 The pandemic has changed businesses forever

6 Breakaway from restrictive PDFs

8 Provide trusted, on-demand information for time-poor customers

10 Reclaim your most valuable assets – your analysts

12 Keep analysts informed on valuable topics

15 Make knowledge-sharing more efficient

16 Deliver research to a global audience with translation tools

17 What next?

Front Cover

Figures

Figure 1: Most effective sources of market intelligence for strategic decision-making

Figure 2: The shift from one-off reports sales to recurring revenue

Figure 3: The time and financial cost of manual re-formatting

Figure 4: How long does market analysis retain value for?

Figure 5: Maximise the value of your research through smarter updates

Figure 6: Example analyst activities that can grow per-account value

11 October 202212 October 2022

Time for a website and research portal overhaul? Improve efficiencies with this project management approach

Development to market analysis publishers’ marketing and content delivery sites is often plagued by delays and overspending. A change of outlook is required…

One Project, Not Two

Publishers of market analysis are familiar with the headaches caused when their core customer-facing sites – their marketing site and content delivery platform – require an overhaul.

With good reason, publishers often complete this work concurrently given it is vital that the sites seamlessly connect and reflect one another from an aesthetic perspective. But all too often, the projects become misaligned. One project inevitably blocks the other’s completion, causing delays, money sinkholes, and, ultimately, frustrated clients.

Publishers need to rethink their approach. Instead of two separate projects completed simultaneously, they must view them as the same project.

For clarity:

Marketing site:

The website prospects and existing customers visit to learn about your company, the services you provide, and understand your authority within your niche.

It’s often the first thing prospective customers see about your company, so good first impressions are vital!

Marketing sites are always open and not protected by any user authentication systems.

Content delivery site (often referred to as a research portal or content library):

The platform showcasing your library of syndicated research reports and data, consulting deliverables and shorter-form ‘news’ content.

Visitors sometimes find additional functionality, such as flexible licensing, sales enablement features, user management, and end-user workflow tools on publishers’ content delivery sites.

They are often hosted on a separate domain from the marketing site and require users to log in to access content.

The Planning Phase

It goes without saying that the planning stage is an integral phase of any project – particularly a project involving many moving parts.

Approaching this development work with two distinct project plans means you could miss out on potential efficiencies like streamlined use of internal resource. Decisions regarding budgets, for example, should involve one team who can consider the refresh of both sites as one budgetary expenditure.

Separation also risks scheduling clashes which could place undue stress on internal and 3^rd party resources. Your projects risk being delayed and potentially accruing unnecessary costs as divergent priorities and aims negatively impact the progress of one project.

With this in mind, we should consider the foundations central to any project regardless of industry from a single, unified perspective:

Aims – why are we refreshing our online presence? What have our customers asked for that we don’t currently deliver? How will this help our internal analyst, sales, and production teams?
Time frames – when do we want to launch?
Internal resource – how many people are working on the project?
Budget – how much do we want to spend?

Your project delivery team should have a clear understanding of each of these before any development work begins.

On top of these foundations are the specific considerations market analysis firms must consider:

Consistency is Key

First off, we need to ensure both sites look the part. Having oversight over both will ensure consistency in terms of the user journey and brand identity.

Inconsistent branding between your marketing and content delivery sites is a glaring and obvious issue. Consider your user journey as they move from the marketing to the delivery site. If the user sees a beautifully branded, slick marketing site upon discovering your company; then, as they go to read your research content, they’re faced with a bland, academic-looking system you’ve gone wrong.

Your brand should still shine despite it hosting your serious assessments of the latest market trends. After all, your research is your product – make it look like a sellable, attractive asset.

One of our publishing partners, ISR, a leading pharmaceutical market research company based in the US, created a clear brand identity across their two sites:

ISR Homepage Marketing Site — ISR's Marketing Site Homepage

Research Portal - ISR — ISR's Research Portal Homepage

Colours, fonts, and imagery are consistent throughout. Ensure your design considerations are the same for both sites, so your product truly lives up to its marketing billing. This process could be more difficult if each site is developed by separate teams with different goals and priorities.

How to get from A to B

So, we now have a clear, consistent brand across both sites. Now we need a seamless gateway connecting your customer-facing marketing site and your content delivery platform.

Typically, this comes in the form of a simple link or button signposting where end-users need to go to access your research content.

This could be ‘client login’ if you want a closed site or ‘access research’ if you opt for the open site route. In either instance, this button should be visible on your marketing site homepage and clearly signposted as users browse through other pages.

The two sites are intrinsically linked to one another, and this button is a natural pathway for your users when they interact with your services, so there must be a coherent, clear connection between the sites. It requires consideration of both sites to ensure the process is smooth and secure.

Integrate your Systems

Next, we must consider the deeper, more technical integrations. Approaching this as one project allows you to adopt the holistic outlook that these deeper integrations demand. Considering the sites as two parts of one whole allows your team to understand how each site feeds into the other, the connections each site needs with other systems and the function these integrations play to complete business-critical tasks.

These integrations include:

Single-sign-on (SSO) – creates a seamless user authentication process between your sites and other digital services your end users regularly access.
Shopping cart/eCommerce – allows end-users to easily purchase products on either site. Stripe, for example, is an easily installable, flexible plug-in that many content providers use.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system – link all licenses, accounts, purchases, and usage stats into your chosen CRM. Hubspot, Salesforce and many others provide clear integration paths using REST APIs that connect with other software and web applications, such as Publish Interactive.

The Small Print

From here, your project team must decide on the finer points. These points may appear granular but apply to both sites so require oversight of both.

Considerations include:

How much ‘freemium’/lead gen content will we offer on the marketing site? And how do we facilitate the user journey from this freemium content to becoming fully paid subscribers regularly accessing our content delivery platform?
Are our marketing and content delivery sites SEO-optimised?
Do we want our content delivery portal as an open or closed site?
If we need to make changes or updates to either site, is our development team ready and able to do this?
Which customers can we test our new sites on to ensure they are user-friendly and address the pain points associated with our old site?

One Project, One Project Manager

Finally, you need a trusted colleague to oversee this project – a project manager who can schedule, manage budgets, delegate responsibilities, and keep development work in line with the project’s overarching aims.

Working alongside them should of course be your development, commercial and operational teams delivering the overhaul of your content delivery and marketing sites. These teams should similarly be aware of the work being a single project with a single aim.

Having this ‘single point of truth’, with oversight over the whole project means they can instil a holistic mindset among the project delivery team. With this, you will alleviate planning and budgetary issues and drastically improve project delivery efficiency.

Time is of the essence: 3 ways publishing technology can reclaim your analysts’ valuable time

Thought Leadership

Retention trumps acquisition: how (and why) you should focus internal resources on increasing per account value, not account numbers

Best Practice

Ask the Analyst: Four reasons to make subscriber-to-analyst interaction a breeze

26 May 202214 June 2022

How MarketResearch.com grew user numbers after implementing SSO for enterprise customers

MarketResearch.com (MRDC) activated Single Sign-on (SSO) for a corporate client, doubling the account’s active users, increasing the value of their service, and significantly boosting customer engagement.

MarketResearch.com (MRDC) is a distribution service for over 400 publishers and a publisher of market research insights. They leverage Publish Interactive technology in their publishing division to offer subscription access to their various brands, including Freedonia Group, Freedonia Focus Reports, Packaged Facts, and Simba Information. Their clients are corporate entities, generally with a broad interest in the overall collection from one of the brands.

Password prompts prevent easy access to content

Username and password prompts interrupt the user journey and present a potential barrier to accessing services. While modern browsers help the user by saving log-in credentials, passwords are inevitably forgotten or expire.

If subscribers successfully enter their password the first time, they will complete their task unimpeded. However, if they forget their password, it may take several attempts, and even a password reset to access an application.

“Any time there is a barrier to accessing something, it reduces the likelihood that we use it,” says Ned Zimmerman, Director, Technical Publishing Operations & Analytical Support at MRDC. “Most of our clients’ users are not in our platform on a daily basis, so remembering their username/password becomes more of an issue.”

SSO reduces the likelihood of a user forgetting their log-in credentials and abandoning their task. For publishers like MRDC, SSO diminishes the barriers users face when researching and collating information, resulting in their content becoming increasingly embedded in end-user workflows and integral to the completion of business-critical tasks.

Simplified password management with SSO

With SSO enabled, employees of an organisation need just one username and password to access all applications for which they have permission.

For example, an employee who needs access to four applications during their working day must go through four separate log-in sequences. With SSO, they need just one set of log-in credentials to access all four services.

MRDC implemented SSO for a corporate client to simplify password administration and improve security while making it easier for subscribers to access research products. In the first months after activation, active user figures doubled. They also significantly boosted the client’s engagement with the platform and increased the value the client receives.

SSO Graph — Graph showing the number of users accessing MRDC's Knowledge Center before and after SSO implementation

“Not only did we make it easier for new users to gain access to the service, but we also made it easier for existing users to reach the content as well,” reveals Ned. “For us, we have an additional value proposition we can offer our clients when they consider our services, and we have more client engagement, which then smooths the renewal process.”

“We now have an additional value proposition we can offer our clients when they consider our services, and we have more client engagement, which then smooths the renewal process.”

Ned Zimmerman
Director, Technical Publishing Operations & Analytical Support
MarketResearch.com

SSO Integration

To integrate SSO with Publish Interactive technology, the client must already use this service within their organisation. We support OAuth SSO via Okta and Azure Active Directory. Ned concludes: “We have other services where we have also implemented SSO and working with the Publish Interactive team we were able to add this without too much difficulty.”

Some of the benefits of SSO for publishers of market analysis include:

Frictionless account access allows users to get more value from subscriptions by embedding content seamlessly into end-user workflows.
Provides a superior sign-in experience for subscribers by reducing or eliminating sign-in prompts.
Strengthens publishers’ value propositions, resulting in improved client engagement and renewal rates.
Limits the reuse of usernames and passwords across apps to reduce the risk of security breaches.

19 May 202226 May 2022

5 ways Life Science market analysis providers can strengthen subscriber trust and content authority

Rapid advances in the treatment of Covid-19, medical supply chain constrictions, revolutionary MedTech developments… there’s a mountain of life science market information to stay updated on. Your subscribers need information on these developments and industry-defining events – and they need it from a technologically reliable and trustworthy source.

While many industries have undergone rapid change in recent years, there are arguably none that have seen such a defining and multifaceted shift as the life science industry. As we pass the two-year anniversary of the Covid pandemic, the world has witnessed the power the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors have had on every facet of human society. The pandemic placed immense pressure and reliance on all life science markets as the industry naturally took the lead in developing Covid treatments, research, and advising government bodies on public health policy.

During times of crisis and transition, markets, particularly those on the front line of a crisis, undergo rapid innovation and change. And, with change, comes increased demand for information.

To sate this demand, your life science research business needs publishing, distribution, and content creation technology that delivers highly engaging, timely insights when your subscribers need them which require minimal effort for your production and analyst teams to create.

Your life science research business can enlist the help of an experienced, market-leading research delivery platform to transform your relationship with subscribers.

Here are five ways that Publish Interactive can secure your position as the trusted authority in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, or biotechnology sectors and help your research firm develop long-standing relationships with readers by cementing your position as the leading source of industry information.

1. Extensive industry experience

Publish Interactive has extensive experience partnering with leading life science intelligence firms, including TGaS Advisors, The Science & Medicine Group (SMG), and FirstWord.

When we spoke with SMG’s Director of Business Development, Devin Holland, he described how the platform allows his team to ‘fine-tune our offering, build trust and reliability, and further reinforce our position as one of the leading research resources in the life science industry.”

Devin Holland, Director of Business Development, The Science & Medicine Group

For SMG, the Publish Interactive system drives customer growth and creates cross-selling opportunities. The platform enables the sales team to glean invaluable client insight through user analytics, allowing them to quickly transform their customer engagements into further revenue.

Devin, commenting on the impact Publish Interactive has had on SMG’s sales efforts said: “Having the usage stats to show clients the value they receive from Science and Medicine Group’s content – which is usually between four and five-fold their spend – as a resource for their work is incredibly valuable and often makes a potentially tricky sales conversation pretty easy. We are able to make data-driven arguments that buying our content is a necessary part of our clients’ budgets”.

You can watch Devin explain how his sales team at SMG used content usage data drawn from the Publish Interactive platform to grow subscription renewals, in this webinar.

2. Build trust and account-wide buy-in

If there’s one quality readers look for in life science market analysis content above all else, it’s trust. In a space as complex and specialised as the Life Science arena, positioning yourself as a trusted source of information is essential.

When you first sign a new client or account and trust is still being fostered across the organisation, content usage may initially be focused among a small set of ‘power users’, who may be members of the same department, or all have specific content requirements. Once these users become reliant on your content they will act as advocates and evangelists to help you win greater trust and promote wider usage within their business.

This is where the quality of publishing and subscription software really tells and ensures your content achieves company-wide trust and buy-in. If new users can easily access, find information, and buy new products quickly and seamlessly, usage – and dependence – will naturally increase.

3. Deliver personalised content

Specialist technology gives publishers the flexibility to serve various customer groups, each with different requirements – for instance, some of your subscribers may require analysis on the increasing digitisation of the healthcare sector, while others may need live data on pharmaceutical product supply chains. They do not want access to whole swathes of information and products that are not relevant to them or their business. In a sector as broad but also specialised as the life sciences, the need for user-specific experiences is particularly pressing.

Your subscribers need personalised, tailored content packages.

Personalisation is underpinned by flexible licensing technology, enabling publishers to manage subscriptions on a granular level and grant access to individual sections of reports or datasets. The specificity now available is transforming how publishers sell their content, revolutionising subscriber interactions with market analysis, and facilitating automated, personalised user journeys.

“Having the usage stats to show clients the value they receive from our content is incredibly valuable and makes a potentially tricky sales conversation pretty easy”

Devin Holland

Director of Business Development, The Science & Medicine Group

4. Deliver timely insights

In a market that covers the most advanced human developments, information is complex and new data is constantly on offer. Pharmaceutical markets in particular shift and evolve continually – with Publish Interactive’s Instant Insights technology, you can deliver the content your subscribers need, when they need it. Instant Insights are short-form content pieces that, when combined with Instant Access Links, allow your subscribers to frictionlessly access research content on the go.

With Instant Access Links, content can be accessed by your subscribers without the need to log in – meaning you can unlock your research library to subscribers, without compromising security.

Read how one of our life science analyst partners used this feature to transform engagement: Instant Access, Instant Results – how TGaS transformed engagement across their industry reports

5. Understand your subscribers

The most valuable aspect of adopting a powerful subscription platform is its ability to provide analysis providers with a powerful new understanding of subscriber behaviour. Understanding and clearly determining individual users’ subjects of interest is vital for future commissioning and upselling. For example, if you can see one user is only accessing data on government spending on healthcare, your account management teams can use this data to offer similar reports and perhaps suggest reports covering related, but distinct fields.

Usage analytics underpin every aspect of an intelligent publishing platform. It enables a subscription model to exist, but more importantly, it adds value to that subscription or alerts the sales team to declining renewals.

In a market as competitive and specialised as the life sciences, these insights keep you ahead of the competition.

If you would like to learn more about how the Publish Interactive platform can transform your life science research business, please get in touch today.

4 April 202219 April 2022

5 ways tech market analysis providers can strengthen subscriber trust and content authority

Ever more sophisticated cybersecurity threats, seismic pandemic-driven swings in tech consumption, revolutionary AI developments, the metaverse…there’s a mountain of tech market information to stay updated on. Your subscribers need information on these developments and industry-defining events – and they need it from a technologically reliable and trustworthy source.

Data Centre While many industries have undergone rapid change in recent years, there are arguably none that have seen such a defining and multifaceted shift as the tech industry. As we pass the two-year anniversary of the covid pandemic, the world has witnessed the integral and ubiquitous role tech plays in our private and professional lives. While the pandemic forced everyone to live increasingly digital lives, technological developments kept pace with our increased reliance on personal devices, cloud services, and virtual experiences.

During times of crisis and transition, markets, particularly those on the front line of a crisis undergo rapid innovation and change. And, with change, comes increased demand for information.

To sate this demand, your technology research business needs publishing, distribution, and content creation technology that delivers highly engaging, timely insights when your subscribers need them which require minimal effort for your production and analyst teams to create.

Your tech research business can enlist the help of an experienced, market-leading research delivery platform to transform your relationship with subscribers.

Here are five ways that Publish Interactive can secure your position as the trusted authority in the tech sector and help your research firm develop long-standing relationships with readers by cementing your position as the leading source of industry information.