When marketing industry information and articles in trade journals it makes sense to be certain that the information going into the trade journal fits the trade journals readership and offers new information to the industry that cannot be gotten in other places.

All too often we see filler or articles in trade journals, which come from other industries. For instance perhaps you have seen an article for life insurance in a building magazine for construction. Sure, everyone needs life insurance, but what does that really have to do with the construction industry or the building trade? Not much.

However, there may be some relevance to the building industry and if you are a life insurance salesperson who is writing articles in trade journals in order to attract new clientele through the byline at the bottom of the article, then you need to use your knowledge base to come up with a correlation between the building industry and life insurance which fits.

All too often those who write trade journal articles for public relations purposes do not custom tailor the article enough to make it industry specific. Generally we see an extra sentence in the center of the article and one or two sentences at the end of the article and a lead in paragraph or two or three sentences at the start of the article.

Unfortunately, it is obvious when reading the article that the article has nothing to do with the industry and it really does not belong in the trade journal at all. I hope you will consider this in 2006.