how to build a thriving ad-supported digital business ryan willumson co-founder & cro, industry...
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How to build a thriving ad-supported digital business
Ryan Willumson
Co-Founder & CRO, Industry Dive
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What are we covering today?
Product•Editorial approach•Technology investment•Positioning – advertising vs. marketing
Revenue•Building a healthy sales culture•Hiring•Selling your product
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Product
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Product Approach
Understand today’s digital user habits
– Laptop – lean forward– Tablet/Phablet – lean back– Phone – quick glances and multi-tasking, though
increasingly getting deeper lean back engagement
Content is king, but add your value
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Charging comes with a cost…
To me, it feels like ad-supported is out of favor, but…
•Going from $0 to $1 the hardest•Quality: Low barrier to entry for high level readers•Quantity: Wider network of readers
…Ryan ’s ad-supported businesses
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Product Identity
What is your product’s identity?
•Honda or Acura? VW or Audi?
•Engaged audience + higher end products = premium perception & pricing
I would rather be viewed as the Acura or Audi
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Ad-Supported Digital Organization
Where you invest
EditorialTechnologySales
These departments dominate head count and are the lifeblood of ad-supported digital organization
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Editorial Investment
• Myth: Digital can only support lower quality editorial
• Myth: Ad-supported media have worse editorial teams.
• Fact: The best digital and ad-supported organizations support a healthy, robust editorial operation.
• Fact: You can have the best sales team in the world, if they don’t have a good product, they can’t be successful.
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Technology Investment
• Digital requires investment in technology department
– At Industry Dive: ~25% of workforce
• Tech workforce
– Leaders: CTO, Creative Director, Data Scientist (all coders)
– Developers are builders, products improve quickly– Designers make stuff pretty & easy, readers love
them– Data Science is foundational, cuts across entire
business: editorial, sales, audience dev. Increases enterprise value.
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Drive Revenue from…Marketing
• Buyer: “I don’t do advertising”• Buyer: “We haven’t seen great returns from banner
ads”
• Avoid loaded words, they are potentially narrowing:– Advertising– Native advertising– Budgets
Marketing broadens the conversation, strategy
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Build Product for Digital Budgets
Common digital marketing budgets
•Lead Generation
•Content Marketing
•Thought Leadership
•Branding/Corporate
•PR
…Always tie your digital strengths back to products
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Selling the Product
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Build A Healthy Sales Culture
1.Seek out talent – experience not necessary
2.Digital organizations require energy
3.Recognize your team controls the culture, not you
“Culture is like a sculpture revealed by what you chip away. Unlike a block of stone, though, you can add and chip iteratively, which means you don’t necessarily have to be Michelangelo.”
- Andy Dunn, CEO of Bonobos
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Build A Healthy Sales Culture
Build team atmosphere– Help your fellow man/woman– Comparing against teammates fosters
bitterness– Don’t bring a high performer into problem
situation
In practice:Celebrate team wins and losses publiclyCelebrate individual wins publicly, losses privately
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Hiring & Training is like Investing
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Hiring
Find people that are about to do it
•In most cases, raw talent is better than experience•Something to prove = good•Time investment up front, but long tail of returns•Evaluation period: 3 months and be decisive
Good vs. bad hires can swing millions in revenue
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The Salesperson Archetype
Many think: “Sales is for a very specific type of person”
1.Smooth talker, great at verbal communication2.Motivated by money3.Extrovert4.Good at “convincing”
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Who is good at selling digital?
Great news! Lots of different kinds of people can be good at and enjoy selling marketing solutions. My check list:
1.Intelligent and thoughtful2.Very, very good writer (do a writing test during hiring!)3.Motivation: Success (not money)4.Hard worker5.Verbal communication skills6.Think on their feet
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Selling digital marketing
Mindset: consultant Ask open ended questions Sell the high level, not the details Think big Think ahead Cut bad deals off at the legs Own your products strengths & weaknesses Find the right customer
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Mindset: Consultant
“I don’t care if I get the deal,
I just want to help.”
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Ask Open Ended Questions
Typical call:
Intro – Questions – About Us – Questions – Next Steps
Ask Wide open questions:
What do you do?Tell me about your digital marketing?Tell me about your team?What do you think?Where do we go from here?
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Sell the high level
You never hear:
“Yes, I’d like to buy any car that gets over 30 MPG please”“Yes, I’d like to buy anything that gets 1% click rate please”
Sell the high level first:-Your audience story-Organizational expertise-Market trends-Tie back to client’s digital strategy
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No Bad Deals!
Resist temptation to overvalue revenue
“Just this once” bad deals have organizational tax:Trains client Trains sales repAnnoys execution teamTakes time away from better deals
“Just say no.” Explain the business reason, they usually understand. The majority of the time, they still buy.
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Own Product Strengths & Weaknesses
Phrases that are ok to say:
•“This product won’t be great for lead generation.”•“This product will require a good deal of work from your end, so I just want to make sure you’re ok with that.”•“I’m not sure this product is the right fit for your goals.”
Clients crave expectation setting. You have a variety of products that serve different client goals. Pair them.
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Find the Right Customer
Marketer: “The execs in my industry still read print.”
Ryan: “OK bye!”(Um…prior situation contains gross exaggeration for narrative purposes)
Seek out customers that:Believe in digitalAre currently spending or want toHave a budget for your products
…Then work on renewal/upsell
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Execution / Client Success
Usually ad operations and branded content execution
•Sales needs to set up for successful execution•Specs, due dates, and reminders – over communicate•Help clients avoid common pitfalls – bad subject lines, broken code, weak copy, and more.•If there is a problem, empathize and (usually) make good even if it wasn’t your fault
…Top notch execution is key to renewal
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Find Balance in your KPIs
Build KPIs around the buying journey
•Early – New contact calls/emails (micro-marketing)•Investigation – Initial Meetings•Consideration Set - Proposals•No KPI for contracts
Tip: If you’re pressing late in the sales cycle, fix earlier issuesTip: Limit what you measure, complexity kills productivity
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