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How media companies_can_engage_audiences_and_increase_advertiser_revenue

Aug 31, 2014

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Magazines, newspapers, TV stations, radio stations and online publishers – let’s call
them media companies – have been producing news content to attract an audience for
years.
Some might say that media companies were the original content marketers.
And no matter if that content was published on paper or broadcast over a signal;
people are attracted to that content to learn about the day’s breaking news and to stay
in the know.
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Page 1: How media companies_can_engage_audiences_and_increase_advertiser_revenue

A Publication of

MEDIA COMPANIES

LEVERAGE INBOUND TO ENGAGE AUDIENCES AND INCREASE ADVERTISER REVENUE

MEDIA COMPANIESMEDIA COMPANIES

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WWW.HUBSPOT.COM

... brings your whole marketing world together in one, powerful, integrated system.

HUBSPOT’S ALL-IN-ONE MARKETING SOFTWARE.

Marketing analytics

Y

Free Assessment

Video Overview

Analyze your web traffic and see which sources are generating the most leads.

NBloggingCreate blog content quickly while getting SEO tips and best practice pointers as you type.

M EmailSend personalized, segmented emails based on any information in your contact database.

Search optimization

s Improve your rank in search engines by finding and tracking your most effective keywords.

ULead managementTrack leads with a complete timeline-view of their interactions with your company.

q Social mediaPublish content to your social accounts, then nurture leads based on their social engagement.

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MEDIA COMPANIES: LEVERAGE INBOUND TO ENGAGE AUDIENCE AND INCREASE ADVERTISER REVENUE.

Written byMelanie Collinsis HubSpot’s media program sales manager. Melanie, a radio and digital media sales veteran, is passionate about helping local media and publishing companies turn their businesses around with inbound marketing. Read more about how Melanie’s program is helping media companies.

Designed byDesmond Wongis a design and marketing specialist on the Creative and Design Team at HubSpot. He is responsible for designing a variety of content including ebooks, infographics, and visual assets for social networks. Desmond is also one of HubSpot’s Marketing Internship Program coordinators and manages the creative and design freelance network.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER@MELANIECOLLINS1

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER@DETECTIVEDDUBS

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CONTENTS

PG. 5

PG. 12

PG. 26

Introduction

Inbound Panel

Final Thoughts

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Introduction

Magazines, newspapers, TV stations, radio stations and online publishers – let’s call them media companies – have been producing news content to attract an audience for years.

Some might say that media companies were the original content marketers.

And no matter if that content was published on paper or broadcast over a signal; people are attracted to that content to learn about the day’s breaking news and to stay in the know.

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Not only did media outlets become a trusted source for news, they also became a trusted outlet for consumers to learn about new products.

If you think about it, the media industry is actually what created the advertising industry.

As readers flipped through pages of a newspaper it made sense that they’d be able to learn about new products via advertising.

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The same goes for radio programs and TV programs. With such captive audiences advertisers had great influence over what people would buy.

However, modern life has changed everything.

The internet, tablets and smartphones have changed the way audiences consume media and the way advertisers engage with consumers.

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Since 2012 there has been up to a 15.4% decline in time spent radio and print.

Sure, while time spent with mobile, online and TV show growth, the time spent with these mediums is all highly fragmented.

According to eMarketer, 57% of people use smartphones, 67% use PC’s, 75% use tablets and 77% use TV’s all while also using another device.

How are media companies supposed to engage our audience and satisfy our advertisers when consumption is so fragmented?

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On top of this Borrell Associates 2013 Local Advertising Outlook report states that newspapers, local radio and TV stations, direct mail companies and even directories have experienced a decline in revenue up to $1.7b from 2012 – 2013.

All of these factors are taking a big toll on media companies - forcing their leaders to face their challenges head on. As I speak with leaders at media companies around the country they tell me that if they don’t adapt and change the way they connect audience with their advertisers they’re going to fall behind.

Leaders at some companies like The Washington Post and The Boston Globe have recently are thrown in the towel altogether and turned their businesses over to new management. The fact is Jeff Bezos and John Henry see an opportunity in the industry and so do I.

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I believe that through inbound marketing media companies can overcome their challenges and create a business that their audience and their advertisers actually love.

So what are the problems and how do we fix them?

1. Lack of Warm Leads for Sales - Trends indicate that ad growth will come from brand new business, not existing customers. But sales reps spend too much time cold calling and not speaking with qualified prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy. This traditional prospecting isn’t driving demand.

2. No Differentiation from Other Media Companies - As content and advertising have gone digital, it’s hard for readers to differentiate one media company from the next. The TV station website, looks like the radio station site, which looks like the newspaper site and with very similar content. So if your audience is the same and your content is the same, what would make an advertiser buy from you over your competitor?

3. Fragmentation of Consumption - Media companies are challenged with turning fly by website visitors into engaged loyalists. Most media companies don’t have the staff or technology to help them learn about their audience demographics, interests and on-site behavior to serve them with smart content and engage them.

4. Traditional Dollars = Digital Dimes - 15 print dollars are lost for every digital dollar gained. Even though circulation is stable, many newspaper companies are scrambling for solutions to help them replace large gaps on their balance sheets.

How can Inbound Marketing Help?

1. Sales people should no longer be expected to find the prospects, secure the appointments, solve the problems, close the deal, and do it over and over again. It’s time for media companies to hire a marketer responsible for generating leads for sales people so sales people can spend time with qualified prospects who are ready, willing and able to buy.

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2. Let’s face it if your advertiser sells cars, they want you to help them sell more cars. If they sell insurance, they want you to help them sell more insurance. If they sell software, same thing. Inbound can help you stop selling them impressions and help them generate real leads from people in your audience who are ready, willing, and able to buy.

3. Many media companies overlook is the power of understanding their audience. The more you know about your audience beyond demographics and interaction with ads, the more you can keep your audience engaged with your content. The more you can keep them engaged with your content, the more you can motivate them to take actions based on their preferences and interests.

4. 72% of a local advertiser marketing budgets go towards online marketing services. Only 12.4% of their budget goes to online advertising. If media companies are looking to replace lost revenue streams, marketing services is a great place to start.

Media companies dabbling in reselling SEO and PPC campaigns or managing email marketing programs are certainly on the right path but they may not be helping advertisers fill their sales pipeline to its maximum potential.

By offering inbound marketing service retainers, media companies can introduce new revenue streams to help replace lost revenue, secure their fair share of the 75% of digital dollars spent on marketing services, and offer great results for advertisers.

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INBOUND PANEL

Matt SunshineExecutive Vice President

The Center for Sales Strategy

Andrew McFaddenDirector, Innovatoin and Business DevelopmentThe Press Enterprise

Shawn FitzgeraldVice President, Digital MediaThomasNet

Chase GarbarinoCo-founder and CEOStreetwise Media Network

Seth NicholsCEOLongitude Media, LLC

Moderator

Panelists

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Andrew is the Director of Innovation & Business Development at Press Enterprises in Riverside, CA. He helps move the business forward by working across the publication and in all departments. He advocates and evangelizes staffs and managers on how technology can accelerate organizational change, grow advertising revenue, and improve audience retention.

Shawn is the Vice President of ThomasNet’s digital media group, and founder of the Results Powered Marketing (RPM) team. RPM works with industrial businesses to target financial and market penetration goals. By serving as the marketing arm for these manufacturers and distributors, the team utilizes their expertise in web development and SEO. Shawn and his team were awarded the new partner of the year, and generated the most partner opportunities over the past 12 months.

Chase is an entrepreneur and media professional, he founded Streetwise Media in 2008, a community-driven news platform which was acquired by American City Business Journals in 2012.

Andrew McFaddenDirector, Innovatoin and Business

DevelopmentThe Press Enterprise

Shawn FitzgeraldVice President, Digital Media

ThomasNet

Chase GarbarinoCo-founder and CEO

Streetwise Media Network

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Seth has nearly 20 years’ experience in the B2B and B2C media industry. He is currently the owner and CEO of Longitude Media, a B2B trade magazine publisher in Boston. Seth has driven digital strategies and managed organizational challenges within traditional magazine publishing organizations since the earliest launches of B2B trade websites. He continues to learn from experimentation with new business models for media properties. Previously, Seth led the digital media group of B2B publishers at Questex Media.

All of the questions are formed around the 4 challenges that Melanie articulated; lack of warm sales leads, no differentiation from other media companies, fragmentation of consumption, and traditional dollars being traded for digital dimes.

Seth NicholsCEO

Longitude Media, LLC

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Matt

Panel Question 1

Fragmentation of media consumption is negatively impacting my business.

“Chase, you found yourself over in the not really, explain.”

“Streetwise was started after the fragmentation happened, so we had the benefit of being born into it. We started the company because people do not wake up, read their daily and afternoon papers, particularly the audience we reach. We can reach them 24/7 in their pocket, any time we want. Compared to some of our peers in the industry, we see significantly more opportunity in delivering an audience for our clients. It’s probably pure luck that we started when we did, that it’s not negatively impacting us.”

Chase

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Shawn

Andrew

“ThomasNet is a 115 year old company, it was awesome. We were the only game in town printing these books that everybody wanted, but that is no more. If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have been in the strongly agree pile, but we have made a lot of changes over that time to diversify and align ourselves with the digital media side of things, whether it be databases, websites, SEO, social media, or e-mail marketing. So it’s not impacting how we work with customers as much now. On the advertising side of the business there is an impact that we continue to adjust to.”

“Before the fragmentation, it was about 15 years of mass consolidation of the major retailers. If there was a 4-legged stool, we got the first leg kicked out when Macy’s and Federated, and Best Buy, and all of those retailers utilizing those wonderful 20 page inserts that make us a lot of money, became 2 or 3 companies, and we started losing all of our major advertisers. Then came the fragmentation, which forced companies to look at their budgets to see what was really working, and it became hard to justify print just because it’s what they had always done.”

Matt

Matt

“Andrew, why did you answer ‘strongly agree’?”

“I think it’s safe to say, companies born more recently have a big advantage.”

Matt

“You probably could have replied with ‘Not Applicable’ because it doesn’t affect us. Shawn you saw it a little bit differently. You run an agency that provides marketing services, how are you negatively impacted by this?”

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Panel Question 2

Media companies will move towards ad free content - and generate revenue from their audience instead.

Seth

“For our market-space, I am going to drive much more revenue out of information about our audience. We are highly focused on the sales funnel that our advertisers are marketing to. So for us to charge through paywalls, etc. would not make sense. The relatively small amount of revenue we would generate from that activity is far overshadowed by the revenue we get by learning more about our audience, and frankly delivering higher quality prospects to our advertisers. ”

“We are also not a paywall publication, and when looking at this question, media is a very ambiguous term, companies like Netflix, with no ads, are doing alright for themselves. Hulu, and companies like that moving towards charging and keeping the ads. In the last year, we’ve seen media companies making it very frictionless for people to buy content through tablets, their phones, etc. You look at the success of the New York Times, and some of these other guys charging their consumers who are gaining traction. For our business, we believe in keeping the news open and free, but we’ve seen certain types of content, heavy on research and data, are things that people are willing to pay for. How much revenue will be gained by it, I’m not sure, but four years ago, where we thought no one would pay for content ever again, I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”

Chase

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Shawn

“If you look at it from our business, we have multiple angles. We have a freemium model, on the advertising side of the business. We also have people that pay us on the advertising side as well. If you look at it from the user side, I think we would be hard-pressed to have these folks paying to find out about this information. We don’t really do anything sexy and fun, and really users visit us because someone has a problem, and needs to fix it because their boss is yelling at them and something is leaking or something. So, for us, we do have the freemium model, and the paid model at the same time, but I don’t see a place in the future where we will not be able to offer that content to those folks.”

Panel Question 3

The best way to replace lost revenue streams is through marketing services.

Matt

“Andrew, what kind of future do you see in marketing services?”

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Matt

“Chase are there differences between how consumer publications and online publishers tackle this challenge?”

“Probably, one thing we talk a lot about is the scale of how the sophistication of marketing technologies has grown is not in correlation to the sophistication of the local advertiser. It is something you see a lot because a lot of B2B people have started to pick up on these marketing techniques and tools. Whereas with consumers we have found they are behind the eight-ball on it. We are trying to get ahead of that, but it’s an educational curve that depends on which clients we’re talking about.”

Chase

Seth

“At the end of the day, I think what we’re all dealing with in any kind of media is that we used to do really well selling awareness kinds of campaigns. When you look at a sales funnel for our advertisers, the only reason they deal with any of us is to sell a product or service. I think marketing services are a piece of it, but it’s really all about the sales funnel. At the end of the day, we need to get a lot smarter about what we’re delivering closer to the sale. Deliver high quality and less quantity leads to our advertisers that they can monetize. Marketing services is a piece of it because it allows you to say, if you’re struggling with lead nurturing, and moving people through the funnel, that’s where we can say, we can help you, we’re the marketing experts, and we can help you go from awareness to close, or at least to your sales rep. ”

Matt

“The closer we can bring people to the sale, the more valuable.”

Andrew

“For a local media company, we’re regional, I see a huge opportunity. We have longstanding relationships with people who need the most help. We started doing marketing services and social media in 2009, we actually looked at HubSpot a few years later. We found that 20% of the businesses of our visitors did not have a website at all, they were just free listings on the yellow pages. For us, that was a good entry point. Longer term, I think marketing services are definitely viable for what we need.”

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Seth

“It was such an easy model, it was like the real estate business; depending on the product or services, there were only a few places where people can find information, center your real estate around that, and you’re done. ”

Andrew

“The reason it worked is because people walked in with the ad, it’s physical. ”

Panel Question 4

Leads generated by sales reps via cold calling are more valuable than any other lead.

Matt

“We all weighed in on this in the same area. This one to me is a no-brainer, why would you want your best sales people, that do your best work in front of a customer or prospect, why would you want them spending 10-20 percent of their time, banging the phones to make an appointment with someone who could be unqualified. To me, seeing leads coming in that are more qualified, I think of these leads as gold, I think that’s where you get the best ROI. ”

Andrew

“In the newspaper business, we have an inverted model, where the sales-people move away from being marketing consultants, and are forced to call in on print and online agencies to generate business. We are really upside down.

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Shawn

Shawn

“I couldn’t agree with you more. We have over 200 sales people, and to have them making cold calls instead of sitting in front of opportunities that could come home with over $100k doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“On a lot of the sales calls I go on, I refer to myself as a double nerd in there, I’m a mechanical engineer, and also know about this stuff too on the marketing side. There’s no way we would be able to close any deals or form any type of a partnership without a deeply consultative selling process. We have to dig into the different areas of the business including sales cycles, customer types, etc. It’s not the type of thing you can go in and say, here’s my fast package for $75k, and actually make a sale, we need to be consultative.”

Panel Question 5

Is there a future for a consultative sales process within the media industry?

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Seth

“I think culturally, for media companies, we have to be the best marketers in our space. We need to be better than our advertisers. Our customers, are absolutely our competitors, they are publishing content, hosting webinars, from a cultural standpoint, the whole team needs to be in on it.”

Andrew

“We actually had a lead come in, never done advertising before, and they closed in 5 weeks, and our management was upset that it took 4 calls. There’s pressure from the top to close faster, and with less qualification and consultation.”

Panel Question 6

My advertisers are asking for better ROI.

“Again, because we’re a new company, I never had 100 people calling to buy something. We had the benefit of being born into fragmentation, but we never had the benefit of obtaining easy clients. From the beginning, compared to some of our competitors, we have been hell bent on being data driven, providing analytics and showing ROI. We’re doing pretty well at that, we sell different products than our competitors. You’re always going to have people that want better ROI now that they can measure everything, the marketing people I talk to are always focused on how to get price down on the next buy.”

Chase

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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Andrew

“We did do the consultative stuff, it was horrible, it was online display. There was no real ROI there, I think lead generation and marketing services do demonstrate ROI, but for us, it was about impressions, and how many impressions I’m getting on my site, and you just don’t see the ROI on that.”

Shawn

“To that point, our customer base got hung up on deliverables and executables, and less about where they were actually trying to get to. We would have discussions around volume of tweeting and blogging, instead of what they’re really trying to do. That’s when we started talking with Melanie and Mark Greco, and transformed our business to have these deeper discussions to talk about growth, penetration, and product launches, opposed to I will blog for you, provide this data for you, and when it’s done, contract completed.”

Panel Question 7

According to Solve Media you are more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad.

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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“I took this personally, because I do click on banner ads, but I know I’m biased. If you look at the numbers, there are a lot of smart people pouring money into display advertising. I think the prediction is sometime around 2016, display will be bigger than search. It has to have some impact, retargeting and things flat out work. We don’t sell display advertising, our parent company does, none of our sales people do. It’s a little bit of a whipping boy when I don’t think it needs to be. When used correctly, it can be effective.”

Chase

Shawn

“To that point, I think people get confused to what the benefit of those banner ads can be. If you’re looking at it as a branding play and you’re going to go strong on that side, that’s really where you can succeed. If you’re looking at it to generate warm leads, you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

Seth

“I think display, is hugely important. I read a study from the Journal of Advertising Research, they had veritable data on display advertising, and how effective it is when moving toward an effective close. I think the problem for us media companies, is most of our clients don’t value it the way they did 5-10-15-20 years ago. The challenge isn’t is display valuable moving people through the funnel, the challenge is our clients are not seeing it this way.”

Matt

“This next statistic kind of creeps me out, but you are 475 times more likely to survive a plane crash than you are to click on a banner ad. With stats like that up against you, what are you guys thinking?”

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Andrew

“We’ve had clients that we’ve been doing lead gen for, we also use HubSpot to manage our own subscription program, and get people to sign up for the newsletter. We generate 30-50 leads a week that are people that want to advertise. We also have clients we’re generating leads for as well. ”

Seth

“With traditional lead generation we’re making much more money using HubSpot. One thing that’s been interesting with HubSpot for us, is because been able to segment our list much more effectively, and determine where people are in the sales cycle for a particular product, we take a traditional display product like a newsletter, and we may sell a banner for $2k for an issue, with HubSpot, we are now able to sell this for $2k, and also tell the client by the way, I know out of 25k people that received this newsletter, 1500 of them are at least in the stage where they’re evaluating vendors. If you want, we can deliver a different banner with a much more targeted offer, and by the way, that will be another $1k. So, we’re taking the exact same product we’ve been delivering and generating more revenue.”

1 2 3 4 5Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

Panel Question 8

My company is gaining digital ad revenue due to lead generation programs.

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Panel Question 10

As a publisher you provide more value to your advertisers by knowing information about your audience.

Shawn

“We’re fortunate we have a robust data collection team at Thomas, we do see a lot of users coming in, and we can see what the trends are, and look at trends across different markets. We can begin to know who to target.”

1 2 3 4 5

No comments. Everyone agrees.

Panel Question 9

Inbound marketing and outbound marketing combined is better than either alone.

Totally Disagree Not Really Maybe Somewhat Agree Strongly Agree

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product or services. The better we can identify where our audiences are in the sales funnel to try a new product is critical. HubSpot has been transformative in that regard, because it’s allowed us to do that in a very easy way. We have not changed editorial direction, we are completely independent, I hate native advertising, we deliver an excellent product for our audience, and underneath that, HubSpot is watching the triggers, the actions, and interactions, and we are taking that to figure out where they are in the sales cycle, and then we’re monetizing that. Content marketing, not content production, everyone agrees is the most important thing. Our customers are our number one competitors, who’s better at producting excellent content than media companies? That’s what we do.

Melanie’s Final Thoughts

The more you know about your audience, their demographics, personal and professional interests as well as their behavorial information and interactions with your property, the better you can serve them content they want to consume.

The more you do that, their time spent with you will become less fragmented and you’ll be able to provide more meaningful connections between your audience and your advertisers.

At HubSpot in every meeting we have, we always end in a final thought. I’ve solicited Seth for my final thought because this is something he and I discuss at length every time we speak.

Seth’s Final Thoughts

I look at everything we do through the lenses of content marketer, and not content producer. That’s a subtle distinction, but I mentioned the culture earlier, about being the best marketers we can be. We all agree that day to day our customers work with us just so they can sell some