How to build a thriving ad-supported digital business

Ryan Willumson

Co-Founder & CRO, Industry Dive

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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