As a publisher, growing your revenue base is critical to expanding content and markets. Without that fuel, your publications and your business stagnate.
You’re all too aware of how the Internet has wreaked havoc with the print business model. You’ve jumped online and it’s gotten better, but you’re still struggling.
People don’t want to pay for subscriptions —most people expect to view your content for free. While that can work as a business model, it leaves you dependent on revenue from banner ads, email blasts, and any conferences you host.
Meantime, brands are becoming more sophisticated and demanding. They’re questioning their ROI with your publication. They want to know why you aren’t tracking and measuring your visitors’ behavior on the web. That means impressions and clickthroughs aren’t enough anymore.
The bar keeps getting stacked higher and higher against you.
Your problem? You haven’t “cracked the code” to monetizing the traffic you’ve got.
New Kid in Town
Some of the biggest brands today are using inbound marketing to drive their costs down and their ROI up. You can leverage its power to provide campaigns that deliver the results your advertisers need.
Most advertisers today are struggling with two things: traffic and conversion. You’ve got traffic nailed. Why? Because you’re in the business of creating content for a specific audience. An audience that visits your site regularly. A site with content that attracts more people every month. An audience your advertisers need to reach.
Offer Inbound Marketing Services
You’re content experts. You know what your viewers want. You know what they hate. And you’ve got the credibility and the authority to create content they’ll read.
Advertisers will pay handsomely for that content. Pair your content with smart forms to capture reader information. Provide lead nurturing campaigns with still more content you’ve co-created with your advertiser. Sell those leads to your advertiser.
Your advertisers will match these new leads with their own internal lead nurturing and CRM campaigns. Assuming they’ve got a solid sales process in place, they’ll quickly be able to calculate ROI.
That’s high value. That’s a high margin campaign for which any brand would be willing to pay well.
And there’s a bonus. Offering inbound marketing services turns your advertising sales reps into trusted marketing advisors. Instead of hacks selling the same old tired thing. That’s meaningful differentiation.
Offer Audience Intelligence Services
Next to leads, what do your marketing clients care about most? Audience intelligence. They hunger to know more about their “personas.” They’re trying to understand them —their motivations, obstacles, fears, dreams, buying intent, etc. They want to know things like, “How soon will Bill and Sue Professional buy a house after they buy a new car?” “What triggers Obstetrician Joan into selling her business, and why?”
Inbound marketing provides access to online behavioral data. Data you can track, measure, analyze, and profile. Giving you new insights into your audience that no one else has. Insights your advertisers lust for. Now you can segment your audience to more accurately target who your advertisers are trying to reach. That’s high value.
With that highly targeted list, your audience insights, and your industry expertise, you can sell powerful lead nurturing campaigns. That your competition can't touch. Coupled with the specialized content you can create, you’re in a whole new league. Leaving your competitors behind to scratch their heads wondering what the heck happened.
This is how you can charge a higher price per lead to your advertisers, and increase the lifetime value of your audience. This is how you create extreme value-added.
Conclusion
Leverage the assets you’ve got with inbound marketing — you’ve already got a leg up with your content and your website. You’ll need tools, training, advertiser packages, and a plan to pull it all together. There are thousands of brands of all sizes that are using inbound marketing today.
They’re looking for a leg up — especially when it comes to driving brand awareness. (Inbound marketers refer to that as “top of the funnel” or TOFU.) The opportunity is yours for the taking. Don’t let your competition to beat you to it.
Originally published Oct 16, 2014 2:00:00 PM, updated January 18 2023