If you’re not packaging and pricing digital advertising the right way in 2021, you’re not delivering on the multi in multimedia. And according to sales coach and January Spring CEO Charity Huff, multimedia is what advertisers need from publishers right now.
In this article, we’ll discuss hot tips to implement a variety of digital advertising products into your magazine or newspaper ad sales strategy. We’ll also provide you with a handy method to show advertisers what they should be spending per channel.
Advertisers Need More From Publishers
To say that the advertising field is crowded in 2021 is an understatement. Charity Huff works with magazines and newspapers throughout the United States. She believes a multimedia sales approach is necessary for survival:
“You need to do right by your advertiser. You need to do more than print. They’re on Google, Facebook, websites, in your magazine...Options have exploded for small-to-medium sized businesses. [Publishers need to say], ‘You need more from us.’”
So, advertisers need more from you to see value. And you need more from your advertisers to get a bigger share of their marketing budgets. How do you connect the dots? First, you need to know the budget you’re working with. Charity fills in the blanks:
“We say, ‘Here’s your total budget, $5000 monthly, for example. Within that budget, here are all the channels that we will use to reach your customer. Here are the tactics we’ll use to deliver a multimedia program. This is your spend, and this is your budget.’”
“Then, we plug the advertiser’s monthly or annualized budget into our spreadsheet. We type in what channels they want to use to distribute the message...Not traditional media. Social. Search. OTT streaming.”
Using a consultative approach like this begins a discussion that can unlock more of an advertiser’s marketing budget. Rather than seeing a big check go out the door to a “magazine publisher” each month, they’re now thinking about how their total spend is allocated into a multimedia campaign with trackable results.
Click here to download January Spring’s Multimedia Calculator spreadsheet!
How to Unlock a Bigger Share of Marketing Budgets
Here’s another factor to think about when you’re working with an advertiser: their total advertising budget. While a $5000 monthly contract for digital may seem like a big win at the sales rep level, it may be leaving a lot of money on the table!
Let’s take a look at the HVAC industry, for example. Average cost per job is high—often more than $5,000—and competition is fierce in most markets. Businesses are willing to seek out business via outdoor, paid search, broadcast, and other channels because a higher acquisition cost is warranted.
Now, you may have a piece of their budget with print. And you may even have a share of their digital in the form of native or display advertising. But what about their other channels? With a true consultative approach, a sales rep can unlock thousands of dollars more per month if they can demonstrate ROI.
Charity adds, “Sometimes I get on a four-legged Zoom call—publishing partners, sales rep, advertising business stakeholder, and myself. Once we talk through channels, reach, goals, et cetera, the advertiser always throws out a much larger budget number than sales would assume. Think BIG!”
Combine Your Approach to Deliver the Goods
This is where “thinking like a publisher” is a huge advantage. In our video series with Mitchell Olszewski, he spoke to his needs as a Marketing Director buying media with a multimillion dollar budget. One of the biggest challenges for him? Content creation. Bundling video creation with digital channels is a win-win for his team. Especially when they keep the assets to run on their owned media and during events!
According to publisher Mike Dragosavich, video production is a highly profitable way for publishers to break into marketing services. When you bundle that approach with January Spring’s spreadsheet, you can run those videos on paid digital for an even larger share of the budget!
Speak to the Metrics When Pricing Digital Advertising
It’s vital to speak to the metrics when you’re pricing your digital advertising. These are the numbers that matter to business stakeholders and marketing teams. (In fact, in our series with B2B Marketing Director Mitchell Olszewski, he mentioned that he would buy more media from publishers if they spoke directly to the metrics!)
So, where do you start? Charity says that it all comes down to working through the averages. You know, for example, that a well-run programmatic campaign would have at least a .10% clickthrough rate, for example. A search campaign is 3-5% clickthrough rate, and social is 1-4%. This adds depth to your proposed spend versus talking straight impressions.
It all boils down to this: marketers know (or want to know, depending on their level of knowledge) they need x digital touchpoints to net y amount of leads, to get z amount of business. When you can provide the metrics they can expect and the channels that define your touchpoints, they can work the numbers to calculate the value.
Example: Your package may include retargeting pixels for Facebook and programmatic, a run-of-site banner on your website, and Facebook/programmatic off-site. This combined approach will hit the same audience with multiple touchpoints, and the CTR will depend on where the ad is shown.
There’s No Going Back!
The industry is changing, and the shift to a multimedia advertising strategy is unavoidable. So, will you embrace it? If your answer is yes, you need to think about your audience and speak to them in a language that communicates value.
You also have to think about your sales goals by examining:
- KPIs and metrics to which you are holding your sale reps.
- The makeup of each contract sold.
- Profitability of each contract sold.
It’s about more than special sections, newsletters, and line items now. You need to dig into the numbers and use your skills as a publisher to put together multimedia strategies that provide value!