“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.
Today’s column is written by Rob Beeler, founder and CEO at Beeler.Tech.
No single piece of ad tech is going to prepare publishers for the rough waters ahead.
If anything, tech stacks will only continue to be a mishmash. Publishers can’t commit to one strategy because it’s unclear if that strategy will stand the test of time. Knowing that, how do publishers move forward?
Building trust with your audience comes first. You are nothing without an audience.
Second is restructuring your organization to maximize the talent you have in new, efficient ways.
This is especially true in the world of ad operations. Publishers’ operational success depends on the abilities of a few specific individuals. If you have amazing operations leaders that can think strategically, you can do things other publishers can’t. But lose that leadership and the company’s future prospects take a hit. Publishers can lose months, if not years, by losing their key people.
Your future depends on investing in your people, putting them in strategic roles and starting to reshape your organization to be nimble and efficient.
Rock stars deserve rock-star treatment
Yeah. I said it. If you want to be prepared for the changes coming to this industry in the next few years, you have to hold onto your best people. There aren’t enough superstars to go around.
Make sure their time is spent more on thinking and less on doing. Find out what’s on their plate and start clearing it off.
Operational efficiency is essential
Publishers won’t solve for the future by building up bigger and bigger sales teams. More sales people mean more operational support costs, and the return on investment doesn’t always follow. Considering today’s economic climate, you need an effective sales team and an efficient operations team behind it.
Efficiency is achieved by investing in your talent and having them work on the right stuff – the stuff that moves the needle. I’d want my team more invested in analyzing what drives advertising performance and user engagement. Focusing on that allows you as a publisher to tell advertisers more of a story versus just showing them clicks on their ads.
Publishers win by demonstrating an understanding of their audience, not by producing copious amounts of reports and screenshots.
Yes, your clients are going to need reports, but is that the best use of your team’s time?
Map out workflows with the intention of reducing time spent by your top people on repetitive tasks and remove these from their day-to-day responsibilities. Outsource or automate.
Consider the cost of cutting costs the wrong way
Most companies believe sales makes money and operations is a cost center.
The problem with that framing is, when it comes time to cut costs, you punish operational creativity and reward those that can grind harder and faster.
When it comes to operational creativity, I’m talking about the people who are trying to create efficiencies, who are thinking about profitability and who are helping you navigate regulations, a lack of cookies and an ever-changing ecosystem.
My call to action isn’t to save operations and fire sales. People go into operations because of how hard sales is. We need sales people to sell. But give your operations talent an opportunity to grow and lead.
You’ll know you’re doing things right when your operational leaders are bringing you ideas to grow the business. They know how the sausage is made. And if you give them the time, they can transform your company.
Publishers, the only way forward for you is to invest in creating content people want to consume and in the people who help make that investment pay off. The upside? They may already work for you.
Follow Rob Beeler (@rbeeler) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
For more articles featuring Rob Beeler, click here.
