A sales rep reviews Broadstreet’s ad tech
“I could not do my job without it,” said Annette Batson, the sole salesperson at Montclair Local, a not-for-profit online-only daily news media.“I would be half as effective.”
Instead of using a graphic designer, Batson is designing and deploying ads on her own, using Broadstreet, an ad tech platform that provides 130 plus easy-to-use ad templates, including engaging premium units. Creating exciting spec ads on the fly for any sales call has dramatically reduced the back-and-forth with clients.
It wasn’t always this easy.
Challenge
Batson started at the online publication, then named Baristanet, in 2004 when it was the hyperlocal daily news & lifestyle media in Montclair, NJ. At the time, she navigated a cumbersome workflow.
The sketch for the art went out to the designer, came back for changes, and then went back and forth to and from the client in additional rounds.
Time-saving is critical to success for hyper-local, online-only media who need to run super-lean companies, and the process was not working for anyone.
Solution
Baristanet started collaborating with Broadstreet in its early stages. Today, Broadstreet is well-known for its extensive library of exciting ad templates. However, templated ads are only part of how the platform transformed the sales process.
Batson now builds ads on the fly without waiting for a designer. She shows clients two or three spec ads with a few “whistles and bells,” which are shown live in recommended positions on the website’s private ‘preview page.’
“Before, advertisers had to take a leap of faith.”
Today, Batson brings spec ads in live preview mode to every first appointment so she can immediately discuss creative, placement, and messaging.
As the ad runs, automated reports show graphs and measure day-to-day metrics on hovers, clicks, and page views. Zip code tracking shows if the visitor are coming from town, or another town “over the next hill.”
Kenny Katzgrau, founded Broadstreet while a software engineer for Mozilla. There, he got to know the publisher of RedBankGreen, his local online publication based in Red Bank, New Jersey.
When RedBankGreen was about to lose an advertiser, “The publisher asked me to build a product to save the account, ” Katzgrau said.
“I built it for him. That advertiser is still running today.”
After that, Katzgrau attended his first LION conference for local online media, changed his pricing model, and eventually bought RedBankGreen to becme a niche publisher himself.
He said the platform’s unique ads “are fun to sell,” because more creative ad units inspire more sales and better CTR performance.
“I sold the RedLobster ad [on his local site] for $500 a month in 30 minutes.”
But it’s not just for local media – the 50 media companies using Broadstreet include Harvard Magazine.
Katzgrau contends standardized banner ads in small boxes commoditize local media, depress prices, and put advertisers to sleep – instead of taking advantage of a valuable, exclusive audience.
Among the 130 templates are units that list advertisers’ events, social feeds that run through the unit, rotating cubes, and newsletter ads.
His e-book, How Magazine and Hyperlocal News Publishers Will Win in the Era of Google and Facebook recommends avoiding conversations about CPMs entirely.
“Your revenue should be built in blocks that you have determined,” Katzqrau said.
The flat fee revenue model in action
With online-only ad sales, the ad manager has to do a lot of heavy lifting for a sustainable model. Montclair Local sells banner ads for a flat fee of $350 to $450 a week, and one premium ad at $1500 a week against 20,000 unique visitors and 200,000 views. Five units run on all pages, with up to three advertisers rotating per unit for an inventory of 15 of these ads per week, plus an unlimited number of “spotlight” ads that run further in.
Montclair Local sells banner ads for a flat fee with a wide price range, based on ad size and location, currently starting at $25 a week, with one premium pop-out ad at $1500 a week – against 80,000 unique monthly visitors and 250,000+ views.
The billboard
The most expensive position is a billboard at the top of the site.
The banner header
The banner header stays at the top of every page next to the logo, even when scrolling, making it a coveted position.
The 350 x 300 ads on the right rail have a two tiered pricing istructure based on position.
These often include special effects, at no extra charge, such as a gallery of images that rotates through the ad or a rotating cube.
Finally, Batson sells a list of “spotlight ads” with simple images and text for $25 weekly to smaller advertisers.
NichePublisherBiz estimates the combination can produce $20,000 to $30,000 a month without selling out the inventory, or including other sources of revenue, such as branded content-style advertising channels for real estate.
But the main benefit of the software is hassle-free automation so that a seller can bring live spec ads on the sales call, and send complete reports.
“It is so useful. You don’t get much time to pitch or grab their attention,” Batson said. “I can put everything out on the table in the least amount of time with the least amount of back and forth.”
Without the software, “it would be too labor-intensive and take too long. Quite simply, I could not do this,” she said.
See also, how to optimize the advertise page to generate more leads from the website.
