Find the shared topic.
Pick a question, challenge, or experience both people have reason to discuss.
Publication-led ABM / B2B companies
Give the right people in your target accounts a reason to respond.
We build and run company-sponsored industry publications. We interview people inside the accounts you want to reach, publish stories about their work, and help your team find good reasons to continue the conversation.
Illustrative example. Every publication gets its own audience, sponsor, and editorial focus.
Who gets featured
Feature the people you want to know.
Start with the accounts and relationships that matter to your team. Then give the people inside them a good reason to share what they’ve learned.
A company-sponsored publication gives a prospective contributor something to inspect before saying yes: the stories, the editor, the audience, and the sponsor. Every invitation has a clear editorial purpose.
Your ABM team keeps its account plan. First Article runs the publication that supports it.
The goal is coverage people want to share and better conversations with your accounts. Nobody gets dropped into a sales sequence.
After publication
After the story runs, we help your team earn the next conversation.
A good interview builds trust with the editor. Trust with your company takes its own work.
We look for subjects your experts and the contributor both have reason to discuss. When there’s mutual interest, we help set up an introduction or a follow-on conversation within your program’s scope.
Often the best person to follow up is an engineer, an implementation lead, or a customer expert.
Bring something useful.
Choose someone on your team with hands-on experience worth trading.
Make a clear invitation.
Say who wants to connect, why, and whether the conversation is commercial. Both people choose.
Give the next step an owner.
Record the agreed action, who owns it, and what actually happened.
The story stands on its own. Saying no to a follow-up conversation never costs anyone their coverage.
Illustrative exampleSee what a relationship brief looks like
- Account objective
- Meet an operations leader at a priority manufacturing account.
- Editorial subject
- What helps a new production process stick?
- Shared topic
- Training, handoffs, and implementation lessons.
- Client contribution
- An implementation lead who has rolled out a similar process.
- Proposed next step
- A peer discussion about introducing a new process, separate from the original interview.
- Owner and permission
- A named client participant and a First Article coordinator. Not yet introduced. Both people agree before anything gets scheduled.
The program
We run the publication so your team can stay on the accounts.
Research, outreach, interviews, writing, publishing, distribution, and follow-up planning in one editorial program. Here’s how the first six months run.
Month 1 / Build
Build the publication.
Agree on priority accounts, roles, existing relationships, and exclusions. Build the site and sponsor disclosures, then create an opening archive by interviewing your experts and existing customers first.
The checkpoint: a clear audience, opening stories, and an agreed account plan.
By month 3 / Interview
Interview the right people.
Invite people at your target accounts, run the interviews, and publish their perspectives. Each contributor gets a share kit for LinkedIn, and every story goes out through the publication, the newsletter, and your agreed channels.
The checkpoint: target-account interviews, reported separately from employees, customers, and other sources.
By month 6 / If you continue
Develop the relationships.
Each target-account story gets a follow-up brief: the shared topic, who on your team can add something, what the source has agreed to, and a sensible next step. Conversations start whenever there’s a good opening, well before month six.
The checkpoint: completed exchanges, agreed next steps, and continued engagement.
First Article runs
The editorial operation, source research, scheduling, production, distribution, follow-up briefs, and reporting. We lead editorial strategy and the technical reporting.
Your team contributes
Account priorities, introductions to opening sources, subject expertise, quick fact checks, and a named relationship owner.
Search and AI answers
Built to be found when buyers search or ask AI.
Original interviews give search engines and AI assistants something worth citing. Stories start from the questions your buyers ask.
- Real buyer questions.Story angles come from what your audience searches for and asks AI tools.
- Experts worth citing.Named practitioners, specific numbers, and clear attribution give AI answers a reason to quote the publication.
- Pages machines can read.Fast pages, structured data, a sitemap, and an About page that names the sponsor plainly.
About 700%
more leads from ChatGPT and Claude for one B2B client after nine months of our AI search work, tracked with first-touch attribution in the client’s CRM.
112 → 500
average weekday organic clicks for a B2B software client after our SEO work, as its average search position moved from 33 to 8.
Account-level reporting
Every report answers three questions.
Did the right people take part?
Accounts approached, roles reached, completed interviews, published stories, readership, and repeat contributors. Target accounts get reported separately from other sources.
Did a useful exchange happen?
Approved introductions, completed conversations with your experts, agreed next steps, and repeat exchanges. Your team’s relationship gets tracked separately from the editor’s.
Did the account move forward?
Sales conversations, expansion activity, and opportunity progress that your team confirms, measured against where the account started.
Nothing counts as pipeline until your team confirms it.
Where we fit
Built for B2B companies whose next few account relationships matter.
We work with B2B companies selling into complex accounts, including enterprise AI, software, industrial technology, and medical technology businesses. What they share is a defined audience, a short list of relationships to build, and people with expertise to offer.
- A focused account list.Specific people and relationship gaps you want to close.
- Expertise worth contributing.People on your team have experience other practitioners want to hear about.
- An audience that can participate.Practitioners in your market can speak publicly, with their employer’s approval where needed.
- Someone to follow through.A named owner on your side, a realistic budget, and time for the publication to grow.
- Deal sizes that justify it.A single new account is worth more than the program costs.
The Account Relationship Program
Start with 90 days, then build from what works.
The monthly fee covers the publication, the account research and interviews, and the follow-through.
What the monthly fee covers.
A publication your audience can inspect.
The site, editorial plan, reported stories, newsletter, and distribution through agreed channels. We run the work from source research to finished publication.
The right roles at the right accounts.
A focused account cohort, role research, specific story angles, personal invitations, and substantive interviews.
A useful next step, with an owner.
Account follow-up briefs, shared topics, the right client experts, and permission-based introductions. Reporting keeps editorial participation, client relationships, and commercial progress separate.
How a typical month works
After launch, a typical month includes interview-led features and Q&As, a few industry news briefs, a follow-up brief for each target-account story, a newsletter, and a monthly report. Your proposal sets the exact volume, and the first 90 days include a ramp-up while the site gets built.
About a third of sources come from your approved target accounts. Customers, practitioners, partners, researchers, and association leaders make up the rest, which keeps the publication worth reading for the whole market.
Interviews can be live or asynchronous, and taking part is always voluntary. Before kickoff, we agree on target-account objectives, eligible roles, launch output, and how much coordination the program includes. We lead strategy and the technical reporting, with production support in place before the full monthly cadence starts.
Your company owns the publication.
The domain, site, published content, subscriber list, analytics, and permitted account-insight records stay with you under the engagement terms. Source permissions still govern personal information, recordings, transcripts, and clips.
Additional formats have their own scope.
Facilitated peer discussions are a format we’re testing in selected engagements. Roundtables, events, print, and heavier relationship coordination get scoped separately.
Editorial standards
Sources know who’s paying before they say yes.
Clear from the invitation.
The sponsor is named before anyone agrees to take part and stays visible on every publication page.
Coverage never depends on a sales meeting.
Sources check their quotes for accuracy. Nobody has to endorse the sponsor or take a sales call to be covered.
Each next use is a choice.
Introductions, recordings, clips, and other uses each need their own permission. Accounts in an active deal get a conflict review before outreach.
Invited to an interview?
Your invitation names the sponsor, the topic, the time it takes, and whether we record. You check your quotes before anything runs, and nobody pitches you during the interview. Saying no to any follow-up never affects your story.
Read the full editorial standards
FA-PUB-200 / Rev D / Effective October 21, 2026
First Article builds and operates company-sponsored industry publications. The sponsor stays visible on every page and in every invitation. Sources receive a clear explanation of ownership, sponsorship, recording, publication, and optional follow-up before they agree to participate.
An interview grants permission for the agreed editorial use. It does not grant permission to add a source to a sales sequence, transfer a raw recording, publish clips, or make a commercial introduction.
Each later use has its own permission state. A source can decline every optional step and keep the editorial relationship intact.
01. Ownership and sponsorship
The publication names its owner, sponsor, operator, and editor on the About page. A persistent site label identifies the sponsor on every page. Every invitation also names the sponsor before the source agrees to participate.
A reader who reaches any story directly should understand the commercial relationship without returning to the homepage. Stories that focus on the sponsor, its products, or its point of view receive an additional commercial label close to the headline.
Working site labels: Presented by [Company], Sponsored by [Company], or Published with support from [Company]. Product-focused stories may require a stronger label such as Paid editorial series from [Company]. The label must be clear in context.
02. The invitation
Every source receives the following information before scheduling:
- Publication name, owner, and sponsor relationship
- Story topic and expected publication window
- Why the source fits the story
- Time commitment and live or asynchronous options
- Whether audio or video will be recorded
- Quote-accuracy review policy
- Link to this standards page
- Notice that clips, raw-file access, and commercial contact require separate permission
The invitation never suggests independent ownership when a sponsor funds the series.
03. Recording and consent
First Article records only after consent is documented in writing or on the recording. The procedure follows the stricter applicable jurisdictional requirement for the participants and the engagement.
Sources may choose an unrecorded interview, written answers, or a voice response when the story format allows it. Refusing a recording does not disqualify an otherwise useful source.
Recording law varies by state and circumstance. Engagement-specific language requires legal review. This page states operating policy and does not replace counsel.
04. Permission matrix
Permissions are captured separately and stored with the source record.
| Use | Default | Client access |
|---|---|---|
| Name, title, and approved quotes in the agreed story | Asked during invitation and interview | Within the approved published use |
| Full audio or video publication | Off | Only when granted |
| Short audio or video clips | Off | Only when clip permission includes client use |
| Raw transcript | Internal editorial working file | Only when the source grants access |
| Raw recording | Internal editorial working file | Only when the source grants access |
| Commercial introduction | Off | Only after explicit opt-in |
05. Quote accuracy
Sources review their own attributed quotes for factual accuracy. They may correct technical facts, titles, dates, numbers, and wording that misstates what they said.
Quote review does not create copy approval. Sources and sponsors do not rewrite the article, remove accurate material because it feels inconvenient, select the headline, or control the editorial conclusion.
06. Editorial independence
Coverage is not sold by placement or favorable angle. A sponsor can propose topics and provide context. First Article decides whether the story serves the publication and controls the final questions, framing, and edit.
Commercial exclusivity can prevent First Article from operating the same sponsored program for a direct competitor during a defined term. It cannot buy silence about a competitor or remove a relevant story from the editorial calendar.
07. Coverage mix
The publication covers the market rather than a private pipeline. Sponsor accounts remain one part of the source mix alongside active industry voices, customers, suppliers, researchers, and operators selected for editorial value.
The working coverage mix is reviewed monthly. First Article adjusts the mix when target-account coverage starts to make the publication predictable or narrow.
Starting point: roughly one-third of sources come from approved target accounts.
08. Sales and active opportunities
No product pitch, budget qualification, sales-discovery sequence, or purchase-timing interrogation appears inside the editorial interview.
An account in an active sales cycle receives a conflict review before outreach. First Article declines or delays the editorial contact when it could interfere with the open opportunity, create confusion about the purpose of the call, or place the source between the client and the publication.
A commercial introduction happens only after the source says yes to a plain request made outside the interview.
09. Source data and retention
First Article stores the minimum information required to schedule, publish, report, and document permissions. The client receives only the information allowed by the agreement and the source's choices.
- Contact details are not transferred as a lead list
- Raw files remain restricted
- Permission changes are logged
- Deletion and correction requests receive a documented response
- Retention periods appear in the engagement-specific privacy notice
10. AI use
AI may support transcription, research organization, formatting, and draft assistance. A human editor verifies the source material, facts, attribution, technical claims, and final copy.
First Article does not fabricate quotes, invent sources, generate synthetic testimonials, or submit confidential source material to a tool without an approved data-use basis.
11. Corrections and complaints
Material factual errors receive a visible correction. Minor spelling, formatting, or non-substantive edits may be corrected without a note. First Article keeps an internal correction log with the date, request, decision, and action.
Sources and readers may report a concern to bob@first-article.com. The editorial lead acknowledges the request, reviews the record, and gives a written decision.
Reference principles
First Article uses these public resources as reference points. Engagement-specific legal review remains necessary.
Editorial leadership
How we staff every publication.
Bob Hanes
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefBob founded First Article Publishing and leads its editorial work. He trained as a mechanical engineer, worked in military sales at Zodiac Aerospace, and co-founded a biotech startup that secured $1.2M in NIH funding.
Since 2017, he’s helped more than 200 technical companies explain complex products. He’s reported interview-led stories for B2B technology publications and leads First Article’s search and AI visibility work.
Bob Hanes on LinkedIn- Editor-in-chiefSets the editorial plan, holds every story to our published standards, and stays your team’s main contact.
- Industry reportersJournalists with hands-on experience in your market, added as each publication’s schedule grows.
- ProductionEditing, design, newsletter production, and a share kit for every contributor.
Before we begin
A few questions worth asking.
Does this replace our marketing team or ABM program?
No. First Article runs the publication alongside your in-house marketing team or agency. Your account strategy, sales process, and other channels stay in place. We add the editorial work, account-relevant material, and scoped follow-through.
How is this different from our company blog?
Your blog covers your company. The publication covers your market and the people in it, with your sponsorship labeled on every page. That’s what makes people at your target accounts willing to take part.
Can we see examples?
Yes. On a first call, we sketch a sample publication for your market: the audience, a few story angles, and the people we’d invite first.
Can our experts join the interviews?
The core format is an editorial interview led by First Article. A peer discussion that includes your expert is a separate format, and everyone agrees to the topic, participants, sponsorship, and intended use beforehand. Nobody gets added to an interview by surprise.
What happens when an account doesn’t respond?
We report the outreach, the responses, and what got in the way, then review the story angle, timing, and account fit with you. Employee and customer interviews don’t count toward new-prospect objectives. People choose whether to take part, and an interview never guarantees an introduction, a sales meeting, or revenue.
Who owns the site, stories, and audience?
Your company owns the domain, site, published content, subscriber list, and analytics, with an organized handoff. Taking part in an interview doesn’t turn a source into a lead on your list. Permissions still govern raw files, contact information, and optional uses.
Can you run an existing publication?
Yes. We can scope a program around a publication you already own. The archive, design, audience, and source permissions determine what needs to change. The account objectives and the day-90 review stay part of the plan.
Discuss your publication concept
Who do you want your company to know?
Tell us who you want to reach. We’ll talk through the audience, a few interview angles, and whether a publication fits your account strategy.
A useful first conversation
Bring the roles you want to reach and what your team knows. You don’t need an account list or a deck.
Prefer email?bob@first-article.com
Tell us a little about your audience.
A few sentences are enough. Required fields are marked .
Privacy notice
Last updated October 21, 2026
Who is responsible for this website?
First Article Publishing is operated by Bob Hanes. Questions about this notice can be sent to bob@first-article.com.
What you send us
The inquiry form asks for your name, work email, optional company website, and a description of the audience you want to reach. If you contact us by email instead, we receive the details you include in that message.
Please do not send passwords, confidential account lists, health information, or other sensitive personal or business information through this form.
How we use inquiry information
We use your details to understand and respond to your inquiry, discuss a potential engagement, and keep the related business correspondence. Sending an inquiry does not subscribe you to a newsletter or make your contact details part of a client lead list.
We do not sell information submitted through this inquiry form. We share it with service providers as needed to operate the website and respond, or where disclosure is required by law.
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Retention and your requests
We retain inquiry correspondence as needed for follow-up, administering a business relationship, and addressing recordkeeping or legal obligations. You can ask us to review, correct, or delete the information you submitted by emailing bob@first-article.com.
We may need to verify that a request concerns your information. We will explain any information that needs to be retained rather than deleted.
External publications and interview sources
Links to articles, LinkedIn, and other websites take you to services with their own privacy practices. This notice covers inquiries through the First Article Publishing website. Interviews, source recordings, client publications, and other engagements have separate participation terms, permissions, and notices. See our editorial standards.
Changes to this notice
We will update this notice when the website’s collection or use of information changes. The revision date appears above.