In 2015, Winsight acquired Technomic, a provider of primary and secondary market information and advisory services to the food industry, as way to jumpstart a data and business intelligence service that could complement Winsight’s media and events properties.

After several years of rampant M&A in the B2B media space, which included the $5 billion sale of UBM to Informa, the estimated $180 million sale of Questex to MidOcean and the acquisition and merger of Hanley Wood into Meyers Group (also under MidOcean), M&A has slowed considerably in 2019--and not just in B2B. The $29 billion merger of Refinitiv and London Stock Exchange notwithstanding, the number of deals across data and information services, consumer media, events and even software and technology have plummeted.

This blog post is sponsored content by a 2018 Business Information & Media Summit sponsor A Data Pro

AAA has roadside help, travel agency services, insurance and other amenities for its members. But they felt it important that their members engage more with them, and thus a content strategy was born. So they partnered with longtime SIPA member Mequoda to develop that strategy, convincing their CEO that, yes, a daily email with strong, relatable content, is the right road to take (traffic and all).   More than 8 million 2018 page views and 1.3 million users later, they feel pretty comfortable about that strategy. And after Day 1 of SIIA's 5th annual and counting Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS) in even warmer-than-usual Fort Lauderdale, publishing and media folks are equally comfortable with this solutions-oriented conference.   AAA Northeast represents a newer type of SIPA member—most niche publishers started with great content and branched out from there—but they depend, like others, on analytics and testing. &nbs ...

This blog post is sponsored content by a 2018 Business Information & Media Summit sponsor NetLine

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are here and reshaping business. But AI isn’t just for tech companies and online retailers—it can be a force multiplier for smaller and mid-sized information companies by enabling them to take control of content and audience data by automating many of the manual tasks associated with maintaining that data and helping create personalized and meaningful experiences for customers.

"If you're looking for a way to build your marketing list—and a loyal constituency of prospects—consider following Diversified Communications' no-cost-to-join association model," Jim Sinkinson of Fired Up! Marketing says.

Like many publishing entrepreneurs, Dan Grech—founder and lead instructor of BizHack Academy for digital marketing training which he started in 2017—spent his early career as a journalist. As an intern at The Miami Herald, he was part of Pulitzer Prize-winning team coverage of the Elián González INS raid. "I call that my award for being in the right place at the right time," he said humbly.

Business-to-business information companies are scrambling to expand their revenue mix and reduce their vulnerability of being overly dependent on any one revenue stream. But when everyone has an events business, a marketing services business and fledgling paid content and data business, is recurring revenue emerging as the real king of valuations?