Helping publishers sell, deliver, & bill for advertising revenue | Contract to Cash Solutions
Last week I attended the Niche Media summit and one topic really stood out to me. It's a theme I hear at nearly every #publishing event we attend. Because of that I almost didn't write this post... but here it goes. "How can we continue to sell the value of print advertising?" 80%+ of the publishers using Ad Orbit have some print component, so I have some data around this. Not to mention my own, possibly contrarian perspective. 1. Don't be so married to the channel that you miss the bigger picture. Your advertisers are buying your audiences attention. Get an advertising audit from our good friends at Baxter Research Center, Inc. to prove your hypothesis that your audience loves print. 2. Print isn't dead. It's different. Take a page from IKEA's book and look at the "Job to be Done". Most folks get their breaking news on twitter or another digital channel. At best your breaking news is 8-12 hours out of date if you're doing this daily. Ask yourself the question "What job does my print product do for my readers?". Communicate this internally and it will change the way your team sells ads into this channel. 3. Print ad spend is declining by price and by units sold. Overall, print revenue (among a sampling of our customers) is down 5.87% YOY. Print ad units sold is down about 3%. If you're set on maintaining a print presence, consider monetizing print via subscriptions or memberships rather than through advertising. 4. Combine print with other offerings. Consider bundling certain products and only selling them with a print component. We've seen a push towards packaging and grouping. Advise your reps to avoid being order takers. Help them guide the customer to the campaign that will deliver the biggest impact. 5. Look at the numbers. Maybe print is no longer a valid channel for your audience. Only you can make that call. It's renewal season for many #advertisingsales reps. What's been working for you? #advertising #magazine #newspaper #printads
Good one Nick. Liked Darryl’s comment back… in my experience before a good strat. planning cycle, marketer insights that come out of survey work internally, are critical to shaping the big picture. To take this a bit further here because hybrid approaches like this are new in the space and silos will only slow down progress. Has anyone in this thread successfully combined tactile print with digital offerings to drive results? Would love to hear how it worked in your niche!
Josh Carlson
1w
We got an killer testimonial a couple weeks ago, buried in an RFP ~ “Beyond standard media metrics, we've been able to derive statistically significant Brand Awareness results via Insurance Journal within our 2024 DISQO study! Given these successes, we’d like to consider expanding our partnership in 2025.” This is a big company but working with a mid-size budget, doable by all of our customers. Exciting to me is 50% of their budget is print and their 3rd party study picked up signal. We invest a lot in print reader quality so these stories are encouraging.
Paul Sammon
1w
Great share Nick Pataro 🧑🚀 ... the various channels are totally the key. With our research work at All In One Insights we're very much seeing the same phenomenon ... and key among them is engaging readers/users across multiple channels ... those folks' engagement metrics are the highest we see.
Advit Sahdev
1w
- 📈 Leverage "social proof" by showcasing successful print campaigns from top advertisers. This boosts perceived value and builds confidence around print advertising. - 💡 Embrace the principle of "anchoring." Present print as a stable medium amidst the digital shift, emphasizing its lasting impact on committed audience segments. - 🤝 Playing on the principle of “reciprocity,” offer exclusive insights or analytics to build trust and foster collaborative innovation in print and multi-channel strategies. An inspiring discussion! Looking forward to more insights from everyone!
Ken Campbell
1w
Good stuff here, Nick! I think this is why our companies align so well in our values and how we advise our partners... because this is often the conversation WE at #adcellerant have with our partner media companies, especially on the print side. Print is most certainly NOT dead... but the numbers are declining marginally at worst... or staying flat at best. So retaining that revenue is certainly important -- but to drive revenue GROWTH -- we need to get deeper into advertisers budgets. Adding digital products that AdCellerant sells and AdOrbit is set up to track and bill within your platform is certainly a strategy that is working for hundreds of our shared customers! 🤓 🤑 🤓 🤑
Niche Media
1w
Loved seeing you last week Nick Pataro 🧑🚀, and this post is spot on. We continue to revisit this in our conference topics because publishers still struggle with it - let's talk about it! Print is just another product - monetize it or move it aside to focus on the channels that make money for you.
Careful with sharing general industry stats as gospel. They don’t tell the whole picture. If print revenue is on the decline for a publisher, they need to take a hard look at product improvements that can be made…. In particular reach, and the sales team needs more training.
Thanks, Nick! It’s always good to see you and learn from you. As you know, I do love sharing how Baxter Research Center, Inc. can help prove the value of print and keep it as a viable revenue stream!
Paid subscriptions in the B2B realm should become the norm as opposed to the exception. That is the only way publishers can track who actually wants print and those who discard it. The new generation of readers, and even us a "bit" older, have become accustomed to paying a premium for what we want. Call them subscriptions or membership packages or whatever, but that is the only way to print profitably. If B2B publishers worked in concert we might find it a lot easier to move in this direction. Working in silos will take a lot longer.
Chief Executive Officer at Annex Business Media
1wOptimizing your print footprint in terms of frequency and circulation vis-a-vis the ad spend is crucial, but it depends on market. Last year print revenue declined by almost 4% at Annex, but some markets grew print revenue by double digits, some by a bit and others declined. It makes for an interesting dance.