CLIENT: Financial magazine with related Web sites, custom research and conferences
CHALLENGE: Publisher (and parent company) with global reputation for journalistic excellence and C-level audience demographics anchored to print-based, brand-oriented sales model. As a result, its ad page rates were significantly higher than its nearest rival and roughly 10-times higher than its own digital and live event sponsorship fees. We were brought in at height of 2008-2009 financial crisis with company’s core advertiser base -– technology and financial services –- turning over at more than 30% year-over-year, and less than 10% of advertisers running in company’s non-print channels.
SOLUTION: Working closely with the sales, editorial, marketing and technology teams, we developed several cross-platform sponsored content offerings –- such as sponsored research, polls and landing pages, executive roundtables and thought leader profiles –- that gave the company competitive intermediate advertising price points.
In addition to training the sales force on cross-platform opportunities, we provided sponsors with creative direction that they wouldn’t normally have received from the agencies or in-house marketing teams.
RESULT: Publisher held on to half a dozen small and mid-size advertisers who otherwise would have gone “dark” during the 2008-09 economic downturn and enabled the sales force to get several new or smaller non-print-advertisers into the magazine for the first time who would have previously found it too expensive and too hard to demonstrate return on investment.