Insight for Small Businesses from Mega-Conference 2014
Otherwise, personalization is an imperative. The tablet will continue to play a big role because it is visual and supports longer articles. Mobile and responsive design are critical for websites.
The technology is out there to help transform business models. Reach out to providers to get support.
Session: Town Hall/Idea Exchange for Small Dailies and Weeklies
Businesses think too much in terms of products. For publishers, an example of this practice is their tendency to focus on selling individual ad types versus marketing platforms (e.g., mobile or social). There are few platforms but many products within each. Overall, it is important to sell what customers want to buy.
These are tips from Adam Burnham, vice president of interactive sales and service for Affinity Express and the moderator of this session. The comments apply as much to a range of small businesses as to publishers.
- Focus on what you can do—stop talking about what you can’t do.
- Build the strategy—base it on revenue growth.
- Create value for customers—move away from product-based selling and heaving discounting.
- Hone your effort—target categories with the biggest potential.
- Enable sales—give your sales people more time to sell.
- Monetize 100% of available inventory—sell like broadcast TV does—when was the last time you watched something on TV and 50% of the ad spots were not sold?
- Conduct local business focus groups—accept that you don’t know what you don’t know and stop assuming.
- Partner, partner, partner—focus on customer service and sales and leverage relationships for everything in which you are not an expert.
The final takeaway of the Key Executives Mega-Conference applies to all of us: change is the new mantra. Regardless of our businesses, we all have to 1) grow revenue, 2) operate efficiently and 3) innovate.
Which of these points resonated with you and what would you add to help small businesses improve their success?
