High quality content, and more and more of it, is your social media strategy. People share content, and comment on content via social media. No content, no sharing. Build your content first. Readers will share on their social media of choice. When Facebook declines they’ll share it on the next platform, be it Snapchat or Instagram or one we haven’t heard of yet.
Did it really take research at Stanford to prove Calvin Coolidge right? “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full […]
Too often media companies feel pressed to ad in free pages or free digital impressions when that is really not different from lowering the price. Media companies would be far more successful with breaking those ties, assuming they have their media priced appropriately, by offering research.
It is easy to let your eye stray from the ball that is the customer-relationship. So it was amusing to read about new research conducted by McKinsey, the famous consulting firm, demonstrating the value of emails as a marketing tool. The conclusion is that email is 40 times more valuable than social media!
Today, advertisers want and need a complete solution. And advertising sales people need ad sales training on how to sell hybrid advertising packages where the value is greater than the sum of the parts. Like a hybrid car with two engines that work separately and together to provide higher mileage, a hybrid ad sales proposal provides the advertiser with coordinated media elements that may include premium display to build interest and brand trust and programmatic impressions to reach that same customer as they move through the purchase decision process.
You don’t have to be a television company to synchronize a campaign with a TV media-buy. Will your sales team know how to propose how to tie-in ads on the tablet-delivered site tie in with the TV ads on the screen across the room? If not you’ll be missing an opportunity.
Recent increases in print sales for Men’s magazines show why selling print and digital through the same “hybrid” sales force can be an advantage for print publishers. We have observed that when a print campaign is won, the timing on that will be well before the digital campaign is decided. Long-ago we wrote this ad-sales tip on how to leverage that print win into digital revenue.
In the marketing world of 2013, creative that works in one medium may not reach enough of the target audience effectively. With shorter attention-spans, and so many attention-demanding media, achieving engagement with the creative is tougher than ever.
Clients are finding that an industrialized – assembly line – approach may make more creative but not more effectiveness. Just like more movies from a studio doesn’t mean more movies that are successful, there is a limited about of great creative talent to make great advertising.
Publishers can help by executing creative because they know what works in their market better than anyone.
RTB will not kill all the advertising sales people, just change their job. The old role of advertising sales people, to provide the price to the buyer, will be ceded to the RTB media exchange. Sales people will, instead deliver value with understanding of the market and how it is changing, and help their clients by showing them how to configure packages of media for the best results much like a former stock broker, now called a financial planner, makes recommendations for investments but no longer sets or communicates the price.
As a publisher, should you be selling a “content marketing” service? Yes you should. Despite the fact that content marketing will ebb like so many other tides, it has its place, and we publishers must be nimble enough to profit from a fad. But you should not be dropping your emphasis on your core service.
