Ready to pump up your online revenue MEGA-fast? We have you MEGA-covered! Ryan Dohrn, Ad Sales Expert and speaker at the Niche Digital Conference this fall, will be leading the session: Mega Online Revenue Mania.
He will be teaching attendees new ways to maximize cash from your e-newsletter program, sell social media, use video to drive advertising dollars, apply new online pricing models based on user interaction, and ratchet up your enewsletter sign-ups. Today he shares some of his insights with us on how to maximize your online revenue.
Niche Media HQ: Can you give us 3-practical quick tips for developing high-revenue programs?
Ryan Dohrn: Start with the advertiser rather than just coming up with some programs and telling the sales reps to sell it. Getting buy-in from the advertiser from the get-go is mucho important.
Don’t create products that are hard to explain to an advertiser. If you can not explain the idea with a few simple bullets points then re-think the idea. Remember, confusion equals “No” in advertiser land.
Finally, get inspired from the good ideas already out there. The fondest form of flattery is when someone builds on a great idea. Plus creating new products and testing them can be expensive. So take a good idea you have seen and make it even better.
Niche Media HQ: How can publishers maximize online revenue—Can you give us a real world example of how to pump up an e-newsletter program? How to get more dollars out of a video strategy?
RD: The more specific you can be with the content of your newsletter the better. Editorial-based newsletters are becoming very old school and users are demanding a higher level of targeted content. Get specific. Plus this helps with SEO as Google rewards you for being specific. Look into doing a monthly theme or a product-specific blast.
On the video side of things, the fast money is in creating an “Ask the Expert” channel and populating it with advertisers as your experts. Of course, you want to create some sort of editorially balanced litmus test to be sure that the videos are not just a commercial. My thought is to tell and not sell.
Niche Media HQ: Selling Social Media can be all over the map. Can you share with us some solid techniques that lead to high revenue sales?
RD: The benefit to the Facebook user of an offer being placed into your Facebook feed is critical. If you are simply loading deals like buy-one-get-one –(BOGO)–then I would stop. You want to have some editorial balance in what you are posting within your FB feed. Have the editorial team construct some simple guidelines for posts. Most companies charge between $100-$175/CPM based on the fans they can reach. You can also promote these posts to boost the reach, which is an affordable bonus to the advertiser.
Niche Media HQ: What’s coming in the near future that publishers should be ready for?
RD: All publishers need a digital transition plan. This should be a 5-year plan for what they are going to do to maintain great content and solid revenue when the publishing space goes more digital. If there is no plan, then it will be hard to charge advertisers for an ad in a digital edition if you have given it away to them for free for years. Also, this plan needs to include items like staffing considerations, production work flows, software providers and sales initiatives.
Niche Bonus question: What is your favorite guilty pleasure food?
RD: Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream!
*************
More about Ryan Dohrn: Ryan is President of 360 Ad Sales Training, an internet & sales consulting firm focused on developing print and online revenue strategies for magazine publishers.
***************
Niche Media has created super niched-out events specifically for magazine publishers for over 12 years, including the upcoming Niche Digital Conference this fall in Nashville. We’ve helped pave the way for the era of boutique events that connect specific audiences and provide great educational, friendly and super-fun environments! Plus, Carl Landau – Niche Media’s Grand Poobah – just launched a blog all about creating and marketing targeted events – blog.NicheEventNation.com Check it out!
– Twitter: @NicheMediaHQ
– Facebook: NicheMediaHQ
– LinkedIn: Niche Media Network
– YouTube: NicheMediaHQ
