Many of these considerations rely on data to inform planning and drive growth, and that ground is shifting with the death of the third-party cookie, privacy policies, and more. In response, they’ve started building infrastructure to capture and leverage first party data from the users of their content, using that data to drive new product development.
As publishers plan for 2022, they’re grappling with how to get the most mileage from their valuable content and ride the waves of changes in our industry. To understand these trends and gather ideas for the future, we and our sister company Hum caught up with five publishing industry leaders to share their predictions for 2022.
Our Panel of Experts
- Allison Belan, Director for Strategic Innovation and Services, Duke University Press
- Dominik Pucek, Group Product Manager, McGraw Hill
- Colleen Scollans, Practice Lead: Marketing & Customer Experience, Clarke & Esposito
- Heather Staines, Senior Consultant and Dir. Community Engagement OA Data & Analytics Tool, Delta Think
- Micah Vandegrift, Open Knowledge Librarian / Visiting Program Officer for Association of Research Libraries Accelerating the Social Impact of Research, NC State University
In what ways will we see publishers monetize content in 2022?
“Via more ancillary services like research communication, media production, and translation.” —Micah Vandegrift“With small, targeted packages of existing titles.” —Allison Belan
“I could see a shift to content packages that are literally parts of various materials in the interest of getting high-yield information for the education sector; part of that will be repurposed for an NFT-selling effort, which I am not confident in being a good source of revenue, but I am confident some conversation will go that way and something will be attempted.” —Dominik Pucek
“Using data and propensity modeling to find new opportunities.” —Colleen Scollans
In what ways will we see publishers' priorities for delivery and dissemination of content shift in the year ahead?
“Publishers will be more open to syndication agreements and more flexible on where and how their content can be accessed.” —Heather Staines“I think that corporate SSO will take over things like EZproxy and that this year will see an increase over last year in requests from our customers for SSO setups.” —Dominik Pucek
“A more significant focus on headless experience and multi-channel publishing.” —Colleen Scollans
In what ways will we likely see publishers' content priorities shift in the year ahead?
“Video as a primary mode of educational content, specifically formats that we know work well on YouTube.” —Dominik Pucek“I think discovery for the variety of research products that are being recognized as part of the scholarly record will greatly increase in importance this year.” —Micah Vandegrift
“Adding OA articles enables publishers to increase output more quickly than adding subscription articles, so look for a continuing shift there.” —Heather Staines
“I think we’ll see an increase in the diversity of content formats (i.e., more multimedia) and the types of content produced (e.g., both core editorial content and content marketing). Data informs content strategies.” —Colleen Scollans
More 2022 Predictions
Our thanks to Allison, Dominik, Colleen, Micah, and Heather for sharing their predictions around how publishers should be thinking about the evolution of content strategy in 2022. Interested in hearing some of their predictions around data and growth? Check out the companion piece on Hum’s blog.Unify Publishing Content + Data
Unify your Publishing Content and Data in one place with Silverchair and Hum. Our family of PubTech tools is purpose-built to help publishers keep up with the ever-changing reader and author landscape. Silverchair helps publishers to bring all their content together (journals, books, meetings, education, news, multimedia, and more), improving user experience and opening new product opportunities. Hum’s Customer Data Platform unifies and mobilizes data across publishers’ entire technology suite, providing one golden record of reader, author and subscriber activity.Interested in learning which technology trends will drive success for publishers in the year ahead? Download your free copy of Hum & Silverchair’s 2022 Technology Trends Report.
