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Pivoting with Purpose: How Crisis Brings Clarity

by Uncategorized

Re-imagine what’s possible. Be unafraid to take risks. In a year of “certain uncertainty,” Turnaround Management Association, led by Scott Stuart, leans all-in on the pivot to virtual. Hear from Stuart on the many ways that TMA found success and lessons learned along the way. Stuart’s unique perspective leading a global organization of members who deal in crisis everyday informs how we as association media professionals can reinvent ourselves and our organizations in a way that strengthens brands, proves member value, and offer new programs that engage members that wouldn’t normally engage a year ago.

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ArizentAccessDenied

Podcasts Can Bring in Revenue, Boost Subscriptions and Simply Stand Out

by Media

When podcasts come up, a common refrain is, “Can they produce revenue?” They can and they do—some tips are below—but there are other reasons to deploy a good podcast: attract subscriptions (see Arizent below); promote other revenue-producing initiatives; add diverse voices to your content; give your site a different feel (see Overdrive’s Over the Road below); and amplify your own editorial voices.

Last week, Arizent’s American Banker won the Neal Award for Best Podcast for its amazing 5-part series, Access Denied: Systemic Racism in Financial Services. I listened to an episode on “The Financial Media” this morning, and it is eye-opening. It was so engrossing that, of course, I then moved on to a second one and encountered a paywall. It flashed very tempting “special introductory pricing” for subscriptions where you can choose from $41 a week for a month, $29 a week if you subscribe annually—highlighted on the page—and $35 a week if you subscribe for 6 months.

(I wrote last week that Piano’s recently published Subscription Performance Benchmark Report found that 74% of annual subscribers remain loyal to a brand after one year, vs. 46% of readers who pay monthly.)

Of course, many podcasts also weave ads seamlessly into their broadcasts. In an interview on the ASBPE site, John Heltman, editor-in-chief of American Banker Magazine and winner of the Grand Neal in 2019 for his narrative podcast series Nobody’s Home, was asked: What kind of sponsorship opportunities do you offer to clients? How do you seamlessly weave sponsorships and maintain editorial integrity?

“Our sponsorships run through the sales department… but last year we started what is known as pre-roll and mid-roll ads in the podcast. That just means that we run an ad before the episode begins and in the middle. For the mid-roll ad, we just lead up to it by saying ‘And we’ll find out more about that after this quick break.’ And the ad rolls. Sometimes I read it, sometimes it’s read for us, but if I read it there’s music in the background so it’s easily distinguishable from the program. I’d say ours is a pretty typical approach for this kind of podcast.

“As for maintaining editorial integrity, I don’t think it’s different from other advertising. And advertising has pretty clear rules: don’t give preferential treatment to sponsors or represent something as editorial when it’s advertising. Some podcasts have the hosts kind of ad-lib a pitch for the thing they’re selling, but that hasn’t come up for us.”

Speaking of pre-roll and mid-roll, an article on the site Lower Street says that, before approaching a sponsor for your podcast, you should know these things:

What is your inventory? “Podcast ads are often broken up into pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads. It’s a familiar format. The mid-roll is the most valuable, since people are already engaged in the podcast by that point… Pre-roll ads are often the shortest, in order to keep listeners on board. Post-roll is often less valuable.”

What’s your pitch? “Simply put: why should a brand advertise with you?” They recommend creating a media kit and a podcast trailer. (There’s a link below to the trailer that Overdrive did.)

What are the demographics of your audience? Who listens to your podcast? “Knowing this is very helpful in determining how to get sponsors for your podcast.”

What’s your advertising rate? “Even if the prospect of earning anything at all from your podcast is exciting, you don’t want to undervalue your show… Rates are typically calculated as a CPM (cost per mille). It’s not all that rare to see CPMs reaching as high as $40 or even $50. Somewhere in the $20-$25 range is fairly average per Midroll and AdvertiseCast.”

Another Neals finalist for Best Podcast, Crain Communications’ Automotive News Daily Drive, features sponsorships—during the podcast itself (the brief intro of the sponsor sounds warm and friendly)—and also ads on the website. And another finalist, Bobit’s Heavy Duty Trucking HDT Talks Trucking, has a sponsor, Fleet Management, and talks up their own events during the podcast.

The other Neals finalist was Randall-Reilly Overdrive’s Over the Road, an eight-part series that gave “voice to the trials and triumphs of America’s long haul truckers.” One thing they do that an expert once recommended to me is to have a separate website and url for your podcast. Here’s a link to the trailer that Overdrive did for Over the Road.

Let’s hope that your podcast gets nominated as a Neals finalist next year—and accomplishes some of these goals.

outside

‘Perk Benefits’ and ‘Hyper-Personalized’ Strategy Give Subscriptions a Boost

by Media

Subscriptions are in vogue. Crain Communications CEO KC Crain said that, “For the first time, our audience revenue—print and digital subscriptions—in 2021 will be greater than our print advertising revenue.” And Financial Times chief executive John Ridding said recently that FT’s digital content revenues are now bigger than all of its other revenue streams combined.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more businesses that are what I would call fully integrated within their category – [i.e.] they bring everything from commerce to utility to experience to content together in a way that is hyper-personalized,” said Robin Thurston, CEO of Outside, one of America’s largest digital journalism subscription businesses, in an article in UK’s PressGazette last week.

Outside announced the launch of Outside+, a subscription that gives customers access to online editorial content across all of their websites—including titles such as Outside, SKI, Yoga Journal and Women’s Running—plus other benefits (pictured above). Membership is $99 annually.

Looking at the strategy for Outside+, some elements jump out—numbers 1-3 below—that could help B2B publishers attract and retain subscribers. Numbers 4-7 are other vital subscription strategies.

Add perks that either don’t cost you much or you couldn’t sell for much. If we learned anything from 2020, it’s that virtual events are hard to charge much for. But they can still sound impressive. A subscription for Outside+ includes Zoom Q&A sessions with Olympians, “access to world-renowned film tours [and] behind-the-scenes coverage on world events like the Tour de France,” usage of their GPS software, training plans and discounts on gear and apparel. Although Thurston talks about the “experience” factor—“Even Disney now is adding perk benefits to Disney+ because they know you have to integrate the experience layer with the content layer”—they’re not including access to any in-person events.

Make it simple. With Outside+, Thurston wants to create “one unified platform. We have a single sign-on—you’re creating an Outside account, you can use that in every place on the platform.” I think it’s The Washington Post that will let you in with a special click if you forget your password. I’m always appreciative of that.

Charge by the year. Piano’s recently published Subscription Performance Benchmark Report found that 74% of annual subscribers remain loyal to the website after one year, vs. 46% of readers who pay monthly. “Historically, around two-thirds of new subscriptions acquired during any given month on Piano’s platform have been monthly,” said the report. “However, because annual subscriptions retain so much better with higher lifetime value, there is an obvious strategic rationale for encouraging annual commitments.” There’s less room for error with annual billing.

Onboard. Onboard. Onboard. Adding more benefits is all good and well, but it only amplifies the need for strong onboarding. “If subscribers don’t engage early, they often cancel quickly, or become a doomed ‘sleeper’ and stop visiting the site, even if they’re still subscribed,” the Piano report said. “While a sleeper might take many months to get around to cancelling, about half of them on annual subscriptions and two-thirds on monthly subscriptions are gone within a year of going inactive.” Keys to successful onboarding include: smooth log-ins, a clear website, personalization (find out their interests and preferences early) and usage reports.

Empower your journalists. Last year the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel put some responsibilities for getting subscribers on their reporters. It paid off. Rachel Piper, digital news director, said that leaders there “asked our individual journalists to be ambassadors for digital subscriptions on social media. Over time, [they] built a strong sense of ownership. Advocating for the [our] brand and asking people to subscribe no longer seems like the responsibility of someone else in a different department. And when these reporters ask their followers and fans to subscribe, it has a different power than our other asks and offers.” The Journal Sentinel even ran subscription contests for their newsrooms with prizes ranging from cash to ice cream socials. Dozens of new subscriptions were tracked to individual pleas from reporters.

Emphasize the content. Consultant Jim Sinkinson has always preached that subscribers need to be reminded and led to the great content you do sometimes. It was similar at the Journal Sentinel. “When encouraging those in the newsroom to share subscription callouts, we’ve made sure to tie it to our journalists’ excellent, important work,” Piper said. “Rather than telling reporters just to hawk the cheapest deal, we’ve asked reporters to share journalism they are proud of… and note that people can ‘support work like this by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.'” Here was a typical tweet: “By the way, if you’re happy that the @journalsentinel has a reporter here covering this floor debate, another in the Senate, and two covering tonight’s State of the State, please subscribe!”

Eschew free trials. The Piano report also noted that many publishers started to give up on free trials through 2020, going from 17% to 5%. “This indicates that publishers are getting more confident in their pricing and smarter about promotional strategies, since free trials often don’t make financial sense when carefully analyzed… Paid trials, even at a relatively low price like $1, retain 82.1% when the trial period is over,” 33% better than free trials.

ABAecon

Use Real Faces and Address Underserved Groups; EXCEL Award Finalists Offer Replicable Examples

by Media

Awards season has definitively kicked in at the Associations, Media & Publishing Network . We had our Neal Awards celebration for B2B journalism on Wednesday and this coming Wednesday, June 16, our EXCEL Awards celebration takes center stage. (And then on June 22 and 23 we will showcase our CODiE Awards.)

As I wrote last week, much of the impetus to launch our AM&P Network was the idea that each group—B2B media companies, niche publishers and association publishing professionals—can all learn from each other. There’s no better example of this than the awards.  Last week I highlighted several of the EXCEL finalists and the lessons they imparted, and I said this should be a series.

Welcome to Part 2. Today I spotlight more of the EXCEL Award finalists and what they’re doing right that others can emulate.

It also will be worth your valuable while to attend the EXCELS presentation. There will be myriad ways to connect there, be it networking, staff gatherings or just to cheer on your favorite finalists. Register for the overall event—Reset, Reinvention and Revenue—here, the EXCELS celebration here (it’s free) and see all the EXCEL finalists here.

Use real faces. American Bankers Association’s Banking Journal Magazine is a finalist for Dedicated Issue for their August 2020 issue titled, We Were Economic First Responders. The cover art (pictured here) shows La Fonda Williams working on PPP loan applications at her desk at First Sound Bank in Seattle. The photo is so good that, at first, I was looking for the Getty credit. Marketing consultant Amy Africa once pleaded with us to use real faces from our businesses instead of canned ones, and you can see why. We respond to emotion, she said. “We have bartenders in our brain and they’re constantly mixing cocktails to become faster and smarter and more involved. We are not thinking machines that feel; we are feeling machines that think.”

Make it easy for your members to amplify. The National Association of Realtors is a finalist for the category of Best Campaign – Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives. Their project was called the NAR Fair Housing Consumer Ad Campaign. On their website they have a page titled Fair Housing Assets that includes a very well-done 30-second video—“We are Realtors, experts at what we do, advocates for what we believe”—print ads of all sizes, animated socials ads—“This Post Won’t End Discrimination in Real Estate. People Will.” and “We All Share the Same Home”—Zoom backgrounds, a billboard and a poster.

Address an underserved niche. The Credit Union Executive Society (CUES) is a finalist for General Excellence in Newsletters for its quarterly publication, Advancing Women. “Information and inspiration for current and aspiring female credit union executives and those who support them.” There are articles—10 Strategies for Overcoming Impostor Syndrome; NextGen Know-How: Beware of Compare—videos—Solid Salary Negotiation Strategies for Female Leaders at All Levels; Making Space for Women on Boards—and podcasts—The Evolution to Modern Leadership.

Use your website to engage and maybe even thrill. The Society of Actuaries & GLC is a finalist in the Best Magazine Website for The Actuary Magazine. This proves that no matter your subject, you can show exciting—and valuable—content. One of the features is Climbing Koko: Meditations on Life, Career and Mountain Climbing. “When I look back on my life since college, I can broadly divide it into four phases/focuses with four clear goals,” writes Jing Lang. “1) Writing actuarial exams (obtaining fellowship); 2) Career advancement (promotions); 3) Diverse learning (becoming a polymath); and 4) Introspection (a variety of creative endeavors).” We also get “Actuary Out of the Box”; “Digital Nomad”; “An Actuary Looks at Climate Change”; and “Thriving in a Changing Environment.” Seek out members who can provide a different perspective. Diversity has so many meanings these days.

Go “beyond” with your podcast. The Association of American Medical Colleges is a finalist for their Beyond the White Coat podcast. A podcast can be a good place to explore, play against or yes, go beyond any stereotypes that may exist about people in your industry. “Times are changing, and along with it, academic medicine must change, too,” they write. Titles for the AAMC podcast series include: Persevering During a Pandemic: Connecting With So Others Might Eat; Black Men in Medicine: Meeting the Challenge; and Vaccine Voices: Promoting Equity in Vaccine Access. Karey Sutton hosts one of the episodes which is good to hear—we need more women podcast hosts.

Find the social media that your audience engages most with. For Best Social Media Feed, the Project Management Institute is a finalist for their PMI Social Media Program: Imagination. Its Imagination Content Instagram page has 558 followers and 584 posts. (In a Sidebar poll last week, Instagram was named by the most respondents as the platform that the biggest majority of their audience engages with them on.) In one post, there’s a picture of a book and these words: “Poets use words the way analysts use data: to describe the world around them. Head to the link in our bio to discover why reading poetry can make you better at reading data.”

Again, register here for the June 16 EXCEL Awards celebration to see more innovation and ideas.

CODIE 2021

SIIA CODiE Awards Celebrates Companies that Met the Moment During COVID-19

by COVID 19

With more than half of the US population vaccinated and office openings on the horizon, it’s starting to feel like we’re nearing the end of the pandemic. But 15 months ago, as people around the world quarantined in fear, several businesses stepped up to the plate, pivoted operations, and responded to COVID-19, determined to help.

In recognition of the businesses who met the moment, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), did a little pivot of our own and created five new categories for the 36th annual CODiE Awards centered around companies’ response to COVID-19. With 37 finalists, we wanted to highlight some of the powerful stories behind the Best Customer Experience in Business Technology category, before winners are announced at our virtual celebrations later this month.

 

Accenture’s Conversational AI Platform (CAIP)

In the face of the pandemic’s challenges, it was innovative solutions like Accenture’s conversational AI platform that came to the rescue, akin to discovering a meilleur casino en ligne for the digital realm. A close friend, deeply involved in tech development, shared how these virtual assistants were rapidly deployed to ease the overwhelming influx of queries, much like the sophisticated systems used in online casinos to ensure seamless customer service. Bright Horizons’ initiative is particularly close to my heart, as it parallels the way these top-notch platforms prioritize direct, supportive communication, ensuring every user, or in this case, every concerned parent, has their questions addressed efficiently and effectively.

 

MobyMax

As quickly as schools began shutting down in March 2020, MobyMax ramped up. On March 6, 2020, MobyMax became the first edtech provider to make its award winning educational software available for free to all schools closed by COVID-19. By November, more than 5,500 schools had taken advantage. MobyMax also offered free live training webinars to teachers and issued an “Emergency e-Learning Rescue” game plan for educators facing unexpected shutdowns. 

 

LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ Desk Officer Reporting System (DORS) 

A community online reporting system that allows law enforcement agencies to electronically collect minor incident and accident reports from community members, DORS became a pandemic necessity for officers trying to maintain social distance. DORS allowed officers to minimize face-to-face exposure while empowering community members to take part in the process from the safety of their own homes.These are just three of the 37 companies that went above and beyond to help our communities and businesses survive a  global pandemic.  As our nation slowly recovers, we’re expressing our gratitude by celebrating those that helped make it possible. I hope you’ll join us in the virtual celebration on June 22nd and 23rd where winners will be announced.