By Steve Smith, Digital Media Editor for min, min's b2b, and min's Digital Media Report

http://www.minonline.com/mindigital/4949.html

Poor FierceMarkets. They have the B2B digital model all bass-ackwards. Most trade pubs bring their print product online in a hub site that addresses the many niches that compose an industry. Then, if they are smart, they use the efficiencies of the Web to parse that audience into those smaller categories, create e-letters that serve these targeted interests, and sell high-CPM ads to clients who want to address such specific nano-verticals.

FM is working in the other direction. It started with precisely targeted e-letters, like the flagship FierceWireless, FierceBioTech, and FiercePharma, where they cultivate lucrative ad and event sponsorships from these industries. Now the company is moving some of its focus from the e-letters to the Web, where it hopes to aggregate these vertically oriented e-letters more horizontally into multi-title portals in both biotech and wireless.

"We can organize content as verticals and as a network," says president and publisher Jeff Giesea.

Now the news, special reports and events can be shared across similar titles in the telecom or life sciences categories while still maintaining tabs at the newly-launched hubs for each e-letter. In the last year, FM has been putting more of its e-letter content onto the Web and shifting editorial production to more 24/7 coverage than once-daily email drops.

"This year our goal is to take it to the next level," he says. "This is a concept of vertical families, how to tie together titles so they preserve niche and brand and also leverage the network."

If FM has the model backwards, then we should all start looking at things in a mirror. The company reports a 50% revenue increase in the past year. Traditional trade brands have always kept an eye on the FM model, as it seemed to grab reader and advertiser share very quickly in wireless, financial news and biotech markets. Now the competition should be watching their staff rooms.

In the past year, Giesea has poached from high profile brands. Maurice Bakley, the VP in charge of the new Web effort, comes from the PostNewsweek Tech Media group, and Sue Marek, editor-in-chief, Telecom, comes from WirelessWeek. Former Telephony editor, Dan O'Shea,is heading FM's upcoming move into the landline phone market.

"What we learned is that when people have deep industry knowledge and contacts and can make the transition from being a reporter to being a host and a personality in the industry, we can monetize that," says Giesea. FierceTelecom will launch next week, and he claims it already has sold advertising through November.

While FM seems to have led a charmed online life since its inception in 2001, in fact not everything it touches turns to gold. The company folded its video game industry e- letter back in June.

"We have a highly engaged readership," says Giesea. "We just couldn't monetize it effectively, so we killed it."

And like many other trade pubs, FM is trying to find the right levers to pull that activate online peer-to-peer interactivity.

"We could do a better job," he says. "We have a very active readership, and they comment to us all the time via e-mail. We just need to continue translating that into community."

Regardless, FierceMarkets is baring its teeth and looking to eat some of the industries it is targeting. Trade pubs that may have been nervous about where this infamously lean and mean e-media company might strike next can rest easy for a while. Giesea says they are not looking to expand into new sectors any time soon.

"We see opportunity everywhere in a lot of different industries. But we can't focus our time and attention everywhere. We see value in going deep. We want to gain market share."

For now, at least, FM is hungry for telecom and life sciences (biotech and pharma).

"Momentum and market share--being competitive where we can win in both of these industries and be number one," says Giesea.