The Marketing Practice was launched in the mid nineties by Chris Bradley after years of working for the B2B press, including Design Products & Applications (DPA), Electrical Products, Transducer Technology, The Independent Grocer, The Engineer and Eureka magazine. Chris has a deep understanding of the B2B press from the perspectives of both the publishing and the client sides of the industry.

In the late eighties Chris contributed enormously to the success of Eureka magazine by developing an innovative solution to a problem that hung round the neck of the publication like a millstone. With a strong editorial policy Eureka was not a platform that provided much scope for advertisers wanting to get their press information, including news and articles, published in the magazine. Even the largest, most innovative companies would be lucky to get more than one or two editorial mentions in the magazine a year.

As a result Eureka was losing advertising revenue to companies who were rewarding rival publications with more advertising as support for publishing their press information more frequently. The argument that it was Eureka's job to deliver readers, through high quality editorial, in order to provide a platform for advertisers didn't cut it. Time and time again the messsage from Eureka's sales team that without maintaining editorial standards the magazine's strong readership would be compromised fell on deaf ears. The magazine was under enormous pressure to publish more of its advertisers' press information or suffer the consequences, but, quite rightly, the magazine's editorial team refused to budge.

Chris came up with the innovative idea of launching a sister magazine to Eureka called Design News. This new publication woud have the basic format of a product journal with the scope to publish vastly more editorial content from advertisers than Eureka. Advertisers in Eureka magazine would benefit from seeing their press information published in Design News and could also advertise at 50% discount on the negotiated rates in Eureka. However, advertising in Design News could only be matched one-for-one with advertising in Eureka. Six ads in Eureka entitled advertisers to up to six ads in Design News but no more, unless the number of ads in Eureka were also increased. Also, Design News was not controlled circulation. It was sent free to all Eureka readers as well as other selected readers on the publisher's database. So guess what? It also generated a shed load of enquiries! Because it was designed to do exactly that.

Not only did Design News protect Eureka from advertisers' pressure to publish more of their press information, it massively boosted Eureka's appeal resulting in it achieving a dominant position as market leader within just 12 months. So successful was this innovative solution that it was also adopted by another of the publisher's titles, New Electronics.

Chris also identified the fact that B2B publishers failed miserably at conducting their own marketing communications relying solely on the quality of their publications, their media packs and their own sales force. Chris argued that publishers should practice what they preach and invest more heavily in their own marketing communications. The result saw the publication of a best practice in marketing guide, published for advertisers, called Marketing Matters.

In the mid nineties Chris launched The Marketing Practice, a marketing communications agency specialising in marketing for engineering and industry. Since then The Marketing Practice is proud to have worked with companies such as Renold Chain, Renold Gears, Renold Hi-Tec Couplings, Renold Clutches & Couplings, SEW Eurodrive, INA Bearings (Shaeffler) and many more.

Chris sees the B2B press as the central pillar of marketing communications across all sectors. Having seen a significant decline in advertising in the B2B press The Marketing Practice has launched a new Publishing Partners service to provide a range of off-the-shelf consultancy reports for B2B publishers that will address their issues in the changing landscape of the current day B2B marketing communications.

"The problem with B2B publishers is that they don't always practice what they preach. They employ great editorial and sales people but very few of them have their own marketing departments, or even people with marketing experience. If any sector of industry needs a great marketing agency more than anything it's the B2B press." Chris Bradley.