The media publisher business presents massive opportunities for publishers to reach audiences, for advertisers to reach consumers, and for entrepreneurs to define the future of advertising with incredible new ad tech solutions.
Brill Media gets asked to consult with both the demand and supply sides. Sometimes this work is about selling, and when selling comes into question I find that selling is two jobs in one. It’s a way to communicate messaging about the product. Sharing the value proposition and help customers overcome challenges.
The focus of this post is about feedback and refining your product for media publishers. This element is equally viable for small businesses and large; publishers and ad agencies; and the wider slew of businesses across the world.
It’s clear that before maximizing revenue, sales organizations (and entrepreneurs of all stripes) need to define exactly what they are and what the market opportunity actually is.
A big part of that process is about letting the sales channel influence exactly what you sell. Selling is an incredibly important feedback loop that defines first hand exactly how you are perceived in the marketplace. Anecdotal evidence should be treated as such, but repeating trends, especially when told from prospective customers are so valuable.
This process of defining a business opportunity for media publishers and crafting a marketing plan comes down to two main parts: setting a hypothesis and testing that hypothesis.
Crafting A Hypothesis
- Analysis of competitive offerings
- Who are your competitors and how are the defining success in the marketplace.
- How are you different?
- Understanding Publisher economics
- What’s your profitability?
- How does the programmatic marketplace help or hurt you?
- Defining a pricing structure and strategy –
- Are you the premium opportunity, or the value opportunity? Or something between?
- Defining a unique and defensible position
- What can I only get from this publisher, and how does that offering play into the larger business opportunity?
- Looking at how these factors play into the larger advertising ecosystem and how the affect media publishers
- What are the major advertising trends around publisher economics, viewability, influencers and real time bidding
- Do these elements help you or hurt you?
Testing Your Hypothesis
- Getting feedback from buyers
- Is your offer interesting or easily brushed aside?
- Do you have buyers asking you for something specific that isn’t part of your primary sales pitch?
- Refining the strategy
- Listen to the marketplace and focus your energy speaking to the market’s needs as told by prospective buyers and current customers
In listening to your customers you may find that it’s not just your ad inventory that’s interesting. You may find the following elements are surprisingly valuable
- Social channels
- Influencer content creation
- Video production capabilities
It’s with these additional elements that publishers competing in a programmatic world maintain an advantage.
The publisher media business is challenging, but with the right efforts to listen to the marketplace, hear your prospects feedback and refining your approach it’s possible to stay competitive in the current programmatic environment.
