local media insider

Ten things publishers and general managers can - and should - be doing now

Alisa Cromer
Posted

1. Define, articulate and integrate the new vision
Be clear about the need for change and support efforts, even if they sometimes fail. Help managers negotiate issues like where to publish content first, second and third, or whether sales will conduct a longer needs analysis or focus on selling 42 special issues a year. The need for "integrating" new intitiatives and supporting new teams has never been greater. 

2. Look for new internal leaders - and adapt reporting structures

Part of your role is to unleash talent hidden within your organization. We've talked a lot on this site about freeing the best creative people from volume production into creative services reporting to the revenue side. Who else is under-employed? We've found production managers able to become niche site developers, and circulation managers who understand user-generated transactions better than anybody else. Someone on the sales team who "gets" social media may be able to guide the launch of a new initiative. The Palm Beach Post "discovered" their new leaders when many employees were required to reapply for a more varied set of jobs.

If you are a small company, decide who will look "over the horizon" at new technologies and busines opportunities. If it's you, free yourself up by shifting your role! If not, create the scout and the team to do this important work. 

3. Create hiring requirements
In every department create hiring requirements for new people brought into the company. Don't let your sales manager decide whether or not they need a digital specialist instead of an extra rep or whether the marketing director needs to also be a social media expert. Require it! As an industry, local media desperately needs to hire the best people with technical expertise at all levels. One interactive regional manager is frustrated at how new hires supposed to be focused on digital merely keep getting "sucked into" selling print; don't be this publisher! Small markets are no excuse for lack of adequate hiring strategies. As someone who coached a small market publisher through complete turnover of a sales team four times in one small market before getting it right, I know that finding the right people is difficult. It was brutal at the time, but not impossible. You will get better people the more articulate your vision is fully articulated as the dominant local media in a new digital environment.

4. Invest in on-going training
Make sure your company has adequate resources deployed for digital  training. Innovative companies like Source Media Group don't think twice about hiring sales consultants; Gannett has its own digital university. The Palm Beach Post has  a full time digital sales trainer. If you are not sure where to go for outside talent, Center For Sales Strategies has a number of good digital programs, as does Blinder Group and Leslie Laredo.  

If I had one simple "to do" for publishers it would be to coordinate the production of one sheets on top performing digital ad campaigns between online (who has the statistics), designers (who traffic the images) and sales people or managers (who know the account history). These one sheets should be shared at sales meetings and be part of a new accumulating institutional knowledge bank (see Winning Ads on this site for the format). 

5. Create and update new working business models
Instead of a detailed three year plan, every year the company should continually review and reshape its "future" business model. Keep this model in broadbrush strokes at first. I like to over-simplify and deploy a game of $100, first in general revenues, then in profits. That is, if 70% of your revenues comes from print display and 20% from classifieds, you are pulling in $70 and $20 from your $100. Next year, if its $60 and $10 where is the next $10 coming from. How will you get another $10? Don't forget to include user-generated revenues, mobile campaigns, the 20% of companies you will pitch on great ad campaigns and whose revenue may, collectively, almost double as a results, search products, site wraps and other exotic ads, plus niche sites and channels.

6. Research what your community wants today
No one can figure out what consumers and advertisers want right now in your market without constant feedback. You must survey. The most progressive companies are actively using tools like RAM and Survey Monkey to find out what advertisers and consumers want on a constant basis. This initiative should come from the publisher! Do this. There are a hundred ideas for niche sites and a thousand digital ideas in the naked city, use feedback to make your choices.

7. Participate on the team, sometimes
When you stop in a sales meeting that speaks volumes about what you, the leader are going to invest the collected karma of your power position into and what those who participate will acquire in terms of your good will. Part of the honored role of publisher, it's specialness, is the ability to negotiate between the objectives of sales and the community with great integrity. Bring this into your team meetings.

8. Represent and articulate the new vision - and forge new partnerships in the community
Your community needs to know how your organization is changing and how it will benefit them. So go ahead and talk to the Rotary club. Be present for digital ad workshops given by your teams at the Chamber of Commerce. Another role for publishers and general managers is to go to lunch with the heads of numerous local associations and talk about their internet strategies; include the Shop Local associations, large medical companies that could support niche sites and channels.

9. Get out of the way, sometimes
In many larger corporations alternative structures have been set up to ensure digital distribution channels are developed and digital sales targets met. Instead of trying to answer every question by relying on years of experience, hire the smartest people you can and train others to  become experts in formal brainstorming techniques that deploy the collective intelligence of your team ("Murder Board" in which the team collects then slowly kills off ideas is a great new technique). 

10. Inspire people
As an industry the publishing business is experiencing organizational exhaustion (so before summer is over, take a long vacation).

Most publishers are "converted introverts" anyway, according to numerous Myer Briggs studies, so after a few months of studying the spread sheets and laying off people they feel responsible for... well, publishers are not always full of the same youthful pep and optimism. And neither is the staff. Broadcast teams are not in much better shape; chat threads depict cynical sales representatives who feel pressured to meet high numbers for megaphone style high priced media while also converting to a "consultative model."  

So get some "turned on" people back into the company, and use a few simple tools here to create excitement without a pep rally.

The fastest way we know of is to show people nearly "real time" direct stats on how what they is connecting people in the marketplace. Editors and writers need direct access to analytics; set up a system for the editorial team to see individual story "stats" every morning. I look at Google analytics before my first cup of coffee, I want to know - and so do they - who and how many and where they came from. It's personal! Set this up tomorrow.

Review results from sales campaigns in sales meetings; not .02% click through (yawn) but 200 inquiries generated! Local media companies have exciting products pureplays would kill for and we are not (or our teams are not) even excited about this. Share great campaigns - inquiries, not clicks, generated - and the potential ROI for clients with sales and creative on a regular basis. Show how these clients support converting campaigns with legacy media buys, renew and give referrals.

Most of all, remember people are reading about the death of media in the news; you can personally counteract this phenomenon by communicating directly with your company as it scores more wins (it will!) and hits important benchmarks.  Many new leaders are using blogs; but quickie verbal staff meetings are useful if you prefer to keep you progress "under wraps" from competitors.

Conclusion

As I used to tell managers concerned about the future: You already have the job. Make it what you need it to be for your company to succeed. 

Alisa Cromer

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.