Spirited Media’s partner awakening: We changed one word and our whole approach
We’ve spent a lot of time recently talking about what we’re not trying to build — specifically an ad-based model boosted by artificially inflated pageviews and too many ads that would put barriers between our readers and our journalism.
And while we’ve talked about our recent success in spreading our expertise through consulting and our excitement about how quickly we’ve grown our membership program, we haven’t yet talked about how we have turned around a critical piece of our business model: Partnerships.
We recognized early on that a single-minded focus on display advertising is not a path to a successful future. But we had taken an ad model approach to identifying and closing business, which had kept us from realizing our true potential.
Then it hit us: We’ve based our editorial philosophy on building deep relationships with our readers; why shouldn’t we do the same with the people we do business with? Why not focus on closing larger deals with a smaller number of clients, and on growing with those clients? And why wouldn’t we approach the client relationship with the goal of becoming better business partners?
We decided to start working that way and the results have been amazing. That shift in philosophy has not just resulted in a 94 percent increase in business partnership revenue, but also a 155 percent increase in revenue per partner and a 34 percent decrease in our average cost of sale.
So in less than a year, we’ve proven that the brands we have built are not only valuable to our readers but are also desirable to business partners. Why? They want to reach and engage our high concentration of young readers, more than 62 percent of whom are under the age of 44.
But don’t just take our word for it. Our partners can tell you themselves.
“The opportunity to partner with The Incline provides S&T [Bank] with a unique chance to reach an audience of dynamic young individuals who are making a difference in the communities we serve,” said Kelly Thomas, S&T Bank’s vice president and manager of digital and social media strategy.
1. We don’t serve fast food; we tailor a meal for you.
Previously, our sales efforts were offering a fast-food menu that basically communicated, “Here’s what we have, what are you hungry for?” And we were focused on the isolated sales tracks of advertising and event sponsorship.
Today, our success is built on creating deep and meaningful business partnerships that reflect our understanding of brands and how they can creatively intersect with our audience.
“Denver is a unique community in so many ways.” said Vince Kadlubek, CEO of Denver partner Meow Wolf, a for-profit art collaborative. “As Meow Wolf becomes a part of this community, we think it important to support authentic publications telling the local stories of Denver. Our partnership with Denverite supports their efforts while allowing us to reach their highly engaged audience.”
While we don’t say no to straight ad buys, the majority of our partnerships are based on thoughtful blends of editorial adjacency, social media and events. Display advertising serves as icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself.
The Philadelphia Contributionship is a great example of how this all comes together. As the oldest insurance company in the country, the Contributionship wanted to reach a younger audience. And they recognized the value in breaking with traditional means to do so.
We developed a multi-city partnership that included Billy Penn in Philadelphia and The Incline in Pittsburgh. Our strategy was grounded in the desire to present the Contributionship’s brand in ways that were both traditional and unexpected, delivering a valuable presence over time.
The centerpiece of our strategy was our March Madness-style brackets, where readers nominate and vote on their favorites in different categories. The concept appealed to the Contributionship because of the combination of multi-month brand exposure on our sites, in our newsletters and on social media. Further, the Contributionship was able to craft a display campaign that changed based on real-time events like summer flooding and a surge in identity theft.
2. We publicly reframed the relationship with our clients with a department name change: Partnerships and Events.
I know some of you may be cringing over the term “partner.” In journalism, we traditionally call business partners “advertisers” or “sponsors.”
We got that same pushback internally on changing the department name. And I’d be lying if I said our editorial teams are all the way there. To be clear, our business partners do not dictate anything we do journalistically any more than they did when we referred to them as “advertisers” or “sponsors.” But changing the department name did signal to clients and potential clients how we see the relationship.
And the partnership approach has led to our building an impressive current client list that includes S&T Bank, Independence Blue Cross/IBX, The Philadelphia Contributionship, Lyft, Convene, Washington & Jefferson College, Meow Wolf, the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute, the Colorado Trust, the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House, The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh, Red Bull, the YMCA of Pittsburgh, and Live Nation.
3. We got smarter in how we used limited resources.
Last fall — before we applied the lessons noted in this article, and when we were undergoing some tough economic times — we reduced our sales staff. That left us with a single person in each city responsible for sales, events and client management. So we had to be smarter about balancing the workload. Approaching clients as partners allowed us to more quickly identify business opportunities with the largest ROI.
The next logical step in the partnership model was to create longer-term opportunities. If the partnership model is like dating, the premium partnership model is like getting engaged. These longer-term relationships come with predictable exposure to — and engagement with — our audiences. And for us, they provide predictable income and a strong working relationship with a valued client.
The incremental time it takes to sell premium partnerships is far exceeded by the increased cash value of those deals, leaving more time for partner management and the creation and production of unique events.
Change is never easy and these fundamental shifts have been made with varying degrees of pain and frustration from every department in the company. But, we are reaping the rewards.
We recently closed our first premium partnership deal in Denver with a two-year commitment from Meow Wolf. We are also now closing multi-city deals, renewing and bringing on new partners each month with strategies that include combinations of the traditional (display and sponsored content) as well as the unexpected (editorial adjacency and IRL engagement).
Our Partnerships and Events team approaches each partner with a brand focus, a fresh eye and the knowledge that successful partnerships are those where everyone benefits.
“Billy Penn is an organization of unique, ambitious, and modern journalists who have vision when it comes the future of news,” said Josh Power of the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Institute. “On one hand they’re highly practical and understand the need to build media around mobile. On the other hand, they strive for an ideal by helping people connect to their local communities in spite of our collective addiction to sweeping, national narratives. Fels has always sought to find balance between practical and theoretical, local and global, and working with Billy Penn gives us the opportunity to engage civically-minded individuals who want to understand issues and devote their talents toward solutions.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
If you are interested in partnering with us, please contact, Joan Brady at partnerships@spiritedmedia.com. This post is the latest in a series of updates about Spirited Media, from why we’re raising money to our launch strategy in new cities to the reasons our readers are funding our journalism through membership.
