Chris Bland

About Chris Bland

Chris started Monkey Media in 2012 by accident when he was supposed to be taking a holiday. Prior to that he had launched six successful magazines, as well as couple of unsuccessful ones, and lived through the most tumultuous decade in the history of publishing by learning to adapt. He has helped hundreds of business-to-business companies improve their marketing and reach further into niche markets, and won’t rest until he has helped hundreds more. Chris has previously served on the board of Publishers Australia.

The SEO trap

It is well known that most traffic on the internet comes via search, mostly Google, and that nobody looks past the first page of search results, so ensuring your site is optimised for search is vital right? Absolutely! But if you are a business-to-business company, operating in niche markets such as the water, energy, utility, infrastructure or local government sectors, then taking some mainstream advice on SEO can actually backfire and undermine your reputation. How B2B is different To understand this dilemma, first we need to look at some of the main ways that business-to-business (B2B) differs from Business-to-Consumer (B2C). B2C sales are often large-scale and transactional, the target market is large, the decision-making process is quick, and decisions are usually made by individuals. For example, someone might be looking for a new pair of shoes, they’ll search online, click some of the top results, [...]

What does the future hold for live events?

As some parts of Australia gradually move out of lockdown, and others seem to be experiencing second waves, the live event industry is watching nervously to see what the future holds. Chris Bland, Managing Director of Monkey Media and an event and trade show veteran gives his predictions. Firstly, nobody knows what the short term future holds. When even the world’s leading epidemiologists can’t agree on predictions for future outbreaks of COVID-19 or the likely timing of a vaccine, we can’t make any specific predictions. So what that means is the event sector is going to need to be patient and it’s going to need to be flexible. People are rightly wary that even if the situation looks under control further outbreaks are very possible, which makes it hard to commit to run or attend large scale events, even 6 or 12 months in the [...]

4 ways B2B marketing is different to consumer marketing 

So your cousin has had a lot of success marketing his plumbing business on Facebook. Should you follow suit and invest in some Facebook marketing too? There’s so much advice out there on marketing nobody can take it all in. To make matters worse, most of it is based around consumer and mass marketing. But the fact is, if you’re in business-to-business and trying to reach a specific niche, then a lot of this advice doesn’t apply. The key is understanding what does still work, and throwing out the rest. Firstly, a quick definition, we are talking about business-to-business (B2B) marketing – marketing where you are selling to other businesses (including government organisations) rather than individuals. 1. Different demographics When marketers are targeting the consumer market, they often base their campaigns on traditional demographics like age, gender and income level – and Facebook is excellent [...]

Lead scoring and segmentation: how to sort the wheat from the chaff

So you’re back from a conference, or you’ve recently completed a lead generation campaign. But how do you work out who is the keenest, and who is going to be happy to hear from you? Here are our three top tips. 1. One step at a time Resist the temptation to jump all over your new leads straight away. As in any relationship, if you rush things you might put the other person off. Of course, if you’ve got people inquiring and wanting a response on your website, or you met them at a trade show and they were keen, you should get in touch straight away. But if they tell you they’re not ready yet or just browsing, or you’ve a bunch of leads from a raffle you held on your expo stand, or an online lead generation campaign, then you need to take [...]

How to work with Monkey Media to to educate the market

When your solution is unique or complex, it can be a challenge to get acceptance from the industry. It’s not something that can be done overnight, but by a consistent approach to educating the market you can change hearts and minds and create new demand. Many companies also find that their customers have ‘pigeon-holed’ them for a particular product. An education campaign can help show existing customers that your offerings are much broader. It’s also important to let the market know when you have a new product or service available. We can help you educate both your current customers and new prospects about what you offer.  B2B buying decisions often involve numerous decision makers, so it’s also important to be able to communicate different but consistent messages with different levels. Some of the sector’s most innovative companies work with Monkey Media to educate the market [...]

Monkey Media’s secret sauce

Marketing with Monkey Media works. It doesn’t happen by chance, we know exactly what our secret sauce is, and if you’ve stumbled across this article, we are going to share this recipe with you. Here’s our secret: Good content ⇒ good audience ⇒ marketing results It’s not that complicated really. More than half of our team work solely on content creation. Each of our magazines has a dedicated editor. Their role is actually more about communicating with and being in touch with the industry, and understanding what they want to know about. Our Utility editor talks directly to water and energy utilities every day. Our Infrastructure editor talks to infrastructure asset owners and government agencies. Our Energy editor talks to energy generators, distributors and retailers. Our Pump Industry editor talks to pump users. They also work with key industry associations and government bodies. All this [...]

Reducing the risks around website hosting

Over the years we’ve come across a few horror stories where businesses lose access to their own websites and are forced to pay someone to get back in. All because they didn’t have control over their website hosting. Many people we’ve talked to have no idea who controls their website hosting or their domain name, they simply leave it all to an external web guy to deal with. Which is fine, until he disappears. A website might have your name, your products, contact details and even a giant picture of your face on it, but that doesn't mean you actually own it. It’s like if someone moved into your house, threw your stuff outside and changed the locks – it would be theft. But if you gave that person ownership and now they won’t let you back inside, you’re the one who’s trespassing. Recently a [...]

Publishers need to stop whingeing and start adapting

If a new competitor enters the market and succeeds where other businesses are failing, they have two options: either close up shop or compete. The Victorian Government is considering a third option for taxi drivers who have been losing money to uber, placing a $2 levy on all rides to compensate taxi drivers for the disruption to the industry. I’d suggest a levy on all digital ads to bail out newspapers, but I’m worried the Government would actually take me seriously. Businesses don’t get bailouts if there’s someone doing something better than you. There isn’t one for publishers, and frankly, there shouldn’t be. While news reports signal the fall of the publishing industry, the fact is that all business is challenging. Have publishers actually been hit harder than anyone else? If you’re selling a car ride service and someone else comes along offering customers exactly [...]

Email: you’re doing it wrong

I’ve seen a lot of blog posts recently about how companies are banning emails or only allowing employees to check them at certain times of the day because apparently they are a distraction and decrease productivity. The theory is that people spend too much time looking through the barrage of emails they receive and less time doing actual work. One article even called email a form of ‘knowledge pollution’. The thing is, if your email is distracting you to the point where it’s stopping you from working, maybe you’re doing it wrong. Or rather, you’re getting the wrong emails. Email is simply a communication tool, so if it’s becoming an issue then maybe it’s the content that’s the problem, not the tool itself. If you’re getting emails from customers repeating the same questions, clients making unreasonable requests, colleagues trying to dump their work on you, [...]

You get what you pay for with free media

When people ask me whether using PR firms and press releases is effective, I generally tell them with free media you really get what you pay for. Which is to say: nothing. Say you’re throwing a 1st birthday for your daughter, and you want as many people as possible to attend and bring gifts. Rather than printing expensive invitations, you get a friend, Kevin, to go around to tell everyone about it (he’ll do it for a six-pack). Kevin goes out a tells a few people but given that it’s a fairly uninteresting one-year-old’s birthday and he tends to ramble, people brush him off. After many failed attempts, he gets a few people to listen and agree to tell others. Unfortunately, these particular people aren’t very popular. Still, Kevin comes back and says he’s spread the word. Job well done. But when the big day [...]