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

SHAREMEDIA COMPANIES: LEVERAGE INBOUND TO ENGAGE AUDIENCE AND INCREASE ADVERTISER REVENUE
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MEDIA COMPANIES: LEVERAGE INBOUND
TO ENGAGE AUDIENCE AND INCREASE
ADVERTISER REVENUE.
Written by
Melanie Collins
is 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 by
Desmond Wong
is 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
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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 Sunshine
Executive Vice President
The Center for Sales Strategy
Andrew McFadden
Director, Innovatoin and
Business Development
The Press Enterprise
Shawn Fitzgerald
Vice President, Digital Media
ThomasNet
Chase Garbarino
Co-founder and CEO
Streetwise Media Network
Seth Nichols
CEO
Longitude 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 McFadden
Director, Innovatoin and Business
Development
The Press Enterprise
Shawn Fitzgerald
Vice President, Digital Media
ThomasNet
Chase Garbarino
Co-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 Nichols
CEO
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 5
Totally 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 5

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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 5

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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 5

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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 5

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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 5

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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 5

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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 5
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.

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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

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