Harvard University's Content Marketing Strategy to become a media first brand with Harvard Business Publishing
Harvard University's Content Marketing Strategy to become a media first brand with Harvard Business Publishing
Case Study-2 for Media First Brand
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Harvard Business School (HBS), under the Harvard University in Boston, is among the consistently top-ranked business school in the world. As a part of its legacy, it also owns Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), a well-reputed publication that has elevated HBS into more than just an MBA school - a respected media brand that publishes thought leadership articles, business books, case studies, and houses the respected Harvard Business Review.
But why does a university need a publishing arm?
As per its annual report-2019, HBP alone had a record revenue of $262 million! If it were a for-profit company, it would have been valued at $1.2 Billion.
But apart from being a cash cow with its revenue contribution second to the main business school tuition fees, it also helps them build authority across other universities and reputation among the Business class across the world - using content.
HBR was founded in 1922, while Harvard Business Publishing was founded in 1994 to incorporate HBR and expand by publishing in other formats.
Let’s explore HBP’s content marketing and publishing strategy and understand how it has contributed to building Harvard University’s unparalleled legacy.
What ideas does HBP sell?
“I think [the magazine’s] most important role, more and more, is to be a kind of a conscience for business.”
- David Ewing, managing editor at HBR
HBP primarily wants to sell the idea of ‘improving the practice of Management and its impact in a changing world’. It aims to do so using smart thinking and courageous leadership to solve the world’s toughest management challenges.
It is committed to:
excellence in management education
developing leaders who foster and leverage diversity
create best learning experience through various content formats
Target audience
HBP is very clear that it is targeting markets with 3 major themes:
Academia with HBP Education
Corporate with HBP Corporate Learning
Individual Managers and others with HBR
By having a look at its content, it seems to specifically target the following professional profiles:
MBA aspirants
Students
Leaders
Universities and Academicians
Independent thinkers
Business evangelists
Managers
Business strategists
Consultants
Brand emotions - If Harvard Business Publishing was a person
When Harvard Business Review (HBR) started in 1922, it experienced very slow-paced growth. By 1945, they grew at a rate of only 600 subscribers a year. Post world war II during which America’s budding entrepreneurs thrived, its circulation shot up from 14,000 in 1945 to 243,000 in 1985.
Under the leadership of Ted Levitt (Editor-In-Chief-1985), HBR got rid of its academic-ish looks to the modern makeover that we see today that steered its acceptance in the mainstream business media consumption market.
HBP’s content works towards making an impression of a person who:
provokes thoughts
believes in preserving core values
is inclusive
sees diversity as an opportunity to grow
not afraid to voice controversial opinions
has formal tone, yet can simplify complex topics
addition of illustrations tones down the seriousness of the content
is constantly reinventing itself
How does Harvard Business Publishing build trust?
Companies put their resources in content marketing to build trust and create an impression of being an industry leader with every stage of customer interaction.
Today, HBP is not only teaching business leaders the ways of doing things but also defining itself what is ‘right’. - a luxury that media-first businesses enjoy.
Here’s how it has gathered the authority and trust to do so:
It’s Harvard, after all: Founded in 1636, Harvard University is an Ivy League having an existing global legacy and network. This itself makes it easy to trust any of its offerings
Case method legacy: HBP opened up the very famous ‘case methodology’ as a way of teaching business to the general public, a privilege only for HBS students enjoyed via its podcasts, webinars, courses.
Access to thought leaders across domains: With its wide network, it’s easy to onboard the best minds across a variety of disciplines ranging from neuroscience, history, psychology, economics, sociology, etc to yield their insights into business management. HBP also gets backlinks as quotes by these leaders or data in reports with other publications linking their content
Open to experimenting: HBP has not stuck to traditional media formats like magazines or print. It has adopted simulations, podcases, games, mentor programs, etc that assure its subscribers that HBP is open to doing new things to keep pace with the world
Providing teaching resources: Under HBP Education, one can access teaching resources curated by Harvard Academicians. Also, with its Course Explorer offering, one can explore their content to create their courses and assignments. This propagates their content at the university level
Supporting diversity and inclusivity: With multiple courses, written content, and mentor support programs, HBP has included various diversity themes across its content to help shape an inclusive culture within its influence
Leveraging graphics: Unique and vibrant illustrations that throw some energy and modernity into their website design and content create a sense of familiarity with the upcoming generation of leaders
Owning up to controversial opinions: HBP has not shied away from publishing opinions that might not follow the norms in the business space. Examples include the first mention of women in the workforce as a model of responsible wage policy in 1935 and the idea of social enterprises which HBR first addressed in a 1983 article, “Should Not-for-Profits Go into Business?”
Community: while it heavily relies on social media like LinkedIn, Meta, and Twitter, there is more scope for improvement for HBP in terms of community building as an additional benefit for paid subscribers
Harvard Business Publishing’s Business Model
One of the greatest advantages of designing a media-first content strategy is that your marketing expenses themselves can turn into a cash-generating machine. Here’s how HBP has structured its business model:
Premium subscription: the basic subscription starts at USD 12/- per month with a premium offering of USD 20/- per month. It provides unlimited access to premium content, archives, newsletter, print editions, and books depending on the plan you choose
HBR analytic services: HBP has its own independent commercial research unit for analyzing and comparing emerging business opportunities and solving business challenges. Services include research, surveys, and consultations
Advertisement: With the 300,000 elite crowd consuming HBP’s content, a global reach with support for 46 languages, and 10 Million+ website hits, brands can easily reach their target audience via ads
Content store: HBP has published numerous books under HBR Press, case studies, articles, tools, and magazine issues that you can individually purchase as required
Training: One can use HBP’s content across its formats to design courses and assignments that one can sell to their audience. It also provides leadership training and solving business challenges for corporates under HBP Corporate Learning
With accounting for 27% of Harvard’s revenues, HBP generates more revenues than leading business publications like Forbes or Fortune Magazines.
Harvard Business Publishing’s Content Funnel
For your Information:
A content marketing funnel is an arrangement under which you create targetted content in each stage of your customer’s interaction with your product that range from generating awareness to converting visitors and making final sales.
HBP has used various touchpoints to ensure its most obvious target users - leaders, businesses, and educational institutions get comfortable and familiar with their legacy and become an influence that shapes their business style.
We have analyzed its content across various platforms to segregate it in terms of 4 funnel stages - Awareness, Education, Sales, and Training.
Awareness
HBS marketing professor Ted Levitt saw the magazine (HBR) as an underleveraged brand that he could manage like a consumer product.
- Inventing HBR by Julia Kirby
58% of HBR’s website traffic is organic search - indicating how Google values well-articulated content by a trustworthy domain over anything else.
Social:
With 25 million followers across socials, 49% of HBP’s traffic is coming from LinkedIn, while 30% is from Meta. Twitter, Pocket (shows high bookmarking activity among readers!) and YouTube form the next social traffic sources.
Audio:
HBR itself hosts 9 podcasts themed across work, leadership, ideas, etc.
Directories:
HBP has an interesting tool called ‘Course Explorer’ which is a curated library of course materials and assignments that you can choose to develop your course. They also house Case selections, which is a collection of real-world business case study challenges under the premium offering. When people utilize these directories linked with HBP’s legacy to create their content, they end up spreading the word within their network where the content is consumed.
Newsletters
It houses 7 email newsletters that you can subscribe to for free but can have unlimited access when you become a paid subscriber. Themes range from book recommendations, work-life balance, remote work, etc.
Link Building:
With HBR Analytics Services and Visuals section, a lot of their reports are considered as industry benchmarks and linked by other digital publications for their analysis.
Event Marketing
HBR actively organizes insightful webinars on pressing business trends by bringing relevant thought leaders into the spotlight. These are freely available to view on YouTube and its website.
Education
HBP has a separate focus on the higher education market with its HBP-Education segment. Under this, they have published various content formats for educators across the world to use for teaching business management. All this content falls under their paid offerings.
Text
HBP publishes:
extensive educational articles across business topics written by the best in the industry
themed digital/print Magazine under HBR
books under HBR Press, both own as well as distribute external author’s work
collection of core curriculum concepts and frameworks to understand fundamentals of business management
Audio
It runs a unique format of audio storytelling where they share real business stories as case studies called Podcases.
Online Courses
HBP-Education houses various paid courses across business domains to help students and educators upskill their management game. It also runs a focused Harvard ManageMentor segment that aims to equip non-business majors and students with core business skills.
Videos
HBR publishes videos as explainers, case study discussions, and interviews with industry experts that are available for free and paid basis.
Simulations
One can expose their students to real-world business scenarios via simulations where they can solve problems to hone their decision-making skills.
Corporate Learning
HBP houses dedicated corporate learning programs that can be accessed by businesses and leaders either on-campus or digitally.
Sales
To ensure its potential readers feel comfortable trusting the authenticity and authority of HBP’s content, it has adopted some strategies like:
Sharing case studies on how corporates have leveraged HBP’s Corporate Learning offerings
HBP partners with various universities and institutions to publish content across topics. This showcases various regular collaborations it undertakes
It provides you 3 articles for Free every month as a ‘Product Demo’ for you to try out the content, post which you have to make a premium subscription purchase
Training
HBP does not extensively focus on providing training for using its publication as such. But it does facilitate its readers by:
providing a dedicated teaching resources section to train educators on how they could improve their teaching methodologies and use Harvard’s content to educate business management concepts
curating their content library with reading lists and collections
providing a separate archives section with powerful search options
FAQ section for premium subscription queries for HBR and Help Center for HBP-Education segment
Key Takeaways
Harvard Business Publishing is a great example of leveraging content to not only market oneself but also generate sustainable revenues. While SEO generates domain authority, a sharp focus on the target audience and well-written content lead to establishing brand authority.
Here are some major takeaways to keep in mind:
Identify your core values and keep them as a basis to transform with changing times
Perform thorough research on your target audience before you create content. HBP did not do this during its early 25 years and relied on its academic image due to which it struggled to break even. It’s only after the 1985 transformation, they experienced growth
Creating well-researched content is what will generate respect and revenues in the long term
Invent and monopolize new content formats as done with case methodology, podcases, simulations, etc by HBP
Leverage your network to create more content
You can be a not-for-profit entity, and still, generate eye-popping revenues as a self-sustaining business model
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