by Ronn Levine

In the events Power Panel at BIMS 2020, Orson Francescone, head of FT Live, spoke about how their events work to bring in new subscribers. “We had 160,000 ‘digital delegates’ [this year - attendees to their events], so suddenly those numbers are kind of blowing our model out of the water, in the sense that we are bringing in a huge funnel of new subscribers. That’s a very attractive proposition to someone who owns an integrated media platform like us.”

On the NPR quiz show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, they've taken to asking celebrity guests on "Not My Job" a multiple choice question—where all the choices are right! It makes sense. Number one, it allows them to give three correct pieces of information, and two, nobody loses. I thought of that watching Jim Sinkinson give his thorough, benefit-laden Copywriting Bootcamp today at Day 2 of BIMS 2020.

“Data’s greatest promise is becoming a roadmap of actions that, when completed, result in the actions we want to see,” Stephanie Lievano wrote on INMA this week. For a 2021 roadmap, it will be worth your time to hear Sherrell Dorsey’s keynote, Audience Data: Creating Inclusive Connections to Grow Your Business, at BIMS 2020 Featuring the SIPA Sales & Marketing Leadership Summit next week.

"People don't want to be marketed to; they want to be communicated with." As I look back on my notes from SIPA 2020, that quote from Jeson Jackson, marketing and customer experience manager, Education Week, stands out. Because even though so much of what we are doing continues to be in response to the pandemic, there will be a carry over of successful ideas and methods.

“The landing page, it’s one of those things, it can become its own science,” Matt Bailey, founder of SiteLogic, told me a couple months ago. “The landing page is the critical part that a lot of people forget about in this type of lead marketing or content marketing or even dealing with the funnel.”

Like many others, we pay tribute to the great host Alex Trebek with this challenging, 8-question BIMS 2020 quiz (Dec. 2-4). One other similarity with Jeopardy at BIMS is that we'll give you loads of answers and welcome all your questions! See how you rank here with your peers!

‘Lucy Kueng, senior research associate at Reuters and internationally renowned expert on digital disruption, has published a new ebook titled Transformation Manifesto: 9 Priorities for Now. It delves into how publishers can change for the better in the aftermath of the pandemic. She wants to help them “seize the opportunities presented by the undeniable crisis we face, because those opportunities are truly huge.”