Journalists and sales: don't sell your soul

Over the past several years, I have written a number of blog posts about how journalists can get involved in sales and marketing without violating their ethical standards or damaging the credibility of their publication. Here are a few of them.

1. Journalists selling ads: think of it as a fair exchange

When I was going through the transition from editor of a business publication to the role of publisher, I dreaded sales calls with clients.
"It meant I had to ask clients for money, which was a new and uncomfortable experience. The hilarious irony of this is that, as a reporter and editor, it was my job to ask people much tougher, more-intrusive questions, and I did it with no problem -- grieving parents about the death of their child, a political candidate about his sexual escapades, a business executive about her salary.
How tough could it be for a former reporter to ask an advertiser for money?

5 dirty words journalists have to learn to say without blushing

Versión en español aquí.

Journalism is the best job in the world, and working with journalists is fun. They’re funny, irreverent, intelligent and excellent storytellers.

Still, as a group we tend to be arrogant, self-righteous and holier-than-thou (I include myself in this criticism). We tend to view ourselves as high priests of an exclusive profession and bearers of a special ethical standard that few others can live up to. We see ourselves as purer, more objective, less affected by the prejudices of the mere mortals we cover.

Journalists selling ads: think of it as a fair exchange

When I was going through the transition from editor of a business publication to the role of publisher, I dreaded sales calls with clients.

It meant I had to ask clients for money, which was a new and uncomfortable experience. The hilarious irony of this is that, as a reporter and editor, it was my job to ask people much tougher, more-intrusive questions, and I did it with no problem -- grieving parents about the death of their child, a political candidate about his sexual escapades, a business executive about her salary.

How tough could it be for a former reporter to ask an advertiser for money? (I borrow this example from Robert Niles's book.) Not that tough, as it turns out.

Making money Part III: How journalists can do ad sales

This weekend I spent a day and a half participating online in NewsU's Revenue Camp for Journalism Entrepreneurs, an intense session on some of the new ways journalists are making money on the Web. (The entire course will be available to view online in a few days; Twitter comments from the course are at #revcamp.)

The biggest mistake that journalism entrepreneurs can make in selling is assuming rational behavior on the part of the client, says Mike Orren, principal of Just Be Amazing, a consultancy on content, sales and marketing. 

We might think the client will buy based on the traffic numbers or the audience profile, but often the decision is an emotional one: the client likes the sales rep from your publication more than the rep for a competitor, Orren says. (My own experience as publisher of a business journal is similar to Orren's.)

Editors are best marketers of a news organization

Versión en español aquí. 

Many editors cringe when asked to be involved with sales and marketing. They feel it betrays ethical and editorial values to make a buck. 

But editors have product knowledge useful in sales, and they have a passion for their work that can inspire sponsors and advertisers to spend money on the site.

Today editors have to be involved in sales and marketing because of the competition from digital media. The question is how to do it without compromising editorial integrity. 

Digital provides audience data

It used to be that editors in large news organizations had little contact with the audience unless someone called to complain or wrote a letter to the editor. 

They had no way of knowing how many people read a specific article, how much time they spent with it or whether they recommended it to their friends. Now editors can and should know all those things. They have the data and they need to study it. 

The goal of studying traffic data is not to pander to the audience by feeding them more news about celebrities' love lives. The goal is for the editor to make the core product as attractive to the target audience as possible by studying the impact of headlines, design, story placement, time of day, geography and story tags on the website's traffic.

An editor should be the chief marketer of the newspaper, where "marketer" means the person charged with knowing the publication's target audience and developing products designed to capture that audience. 

Competition forces change

The old business model in which editorial could be walled off from advertising and marketing does not work in the competitive environment of digital journalism. Hordes of online competitors are studying user data so they can steal the audience and advertisers of traditional media.

Editorial has to be in sync with marketing and sales to help the enterprise compete. All parties have to have intimate knowledge of what the other is doing and have to cooperate on a daily basis. 

How the editor can help sales

The best salespeople can tell stories about how their product benefits the customer, and the editor is in the best position to tell the story of the news organization. 

The editor is recognized in the community and is in effect a celebrity spokesman for the product. A potential client will avoid a salesperson but will make time to meet the editor. 

So how do you get the editor involved in sales without compromising editorial integrity?

Meet-the-editor events are a great way to pull in new potential advertisers and sponsors. The publication can advertise the event to the public at large or just invite a few key executives. The editor can speak about the news products, some recent scoops, local and national economic trends, the audience of the publication, etc. without ever uttering a word about sales. The editor can refer questions about sales to the sales manager, who should be present.  

I have seen this technique work for business publications and think it can work for other types of publications as well. The editor has to feel comfortable doing it, and a way to ensure that comfort is to not ask the editor to cross the line. 

Digital media competition is breaking down the Chinese wall. That doesn't have to mean the barbarians are invading the newsroom. It can mean that peace now reigns between two formerly antagonistic camps: editorial and marketing/sales. 

Related:

Robert Niles: How to Make Money Publishing Community News Online
Making money Part I: Advice from Mark Briggs
You don't need all the skills to get started
How much to charge advertisers? As much as possible
Social media challenge Google for news distribution
How journalist built his brand from college dorm room
More proof that journalists need to brand themselves
Go for it! A message to digital entrepreneurs
Why 10% of your web traffic is worth more than the other 90%
Dan Gillmor: We need more experiments on revenue side of media startups

Google takes magic out of advertising sales process

The three key roles in a digital media operation

The biggest mistake that journalists make when they start an online news operation is that they don’t include marketing and technical people from the beginning.


Journalists are pretty good at figuring out how to tell stories online but they haven’t a clue about how to generate enough income to survive. They don’t know how to sell and even consider the notion somewhat repulsive. 

TBD may have failed because of cultural clashes

Versión en español aquí.

Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute has the best early take on why Washington’s hyperlocal TBD.com failed. One of his points is that the operation started out too big, with 50 people.

This number troubled me from the first announcement of the launch. Why wouldn’t they start with a smaller staff and build up gradually? Innovative ventures are an exercise in exploration, and it is hard to know at the beginning where to focus most of the people and resources. It’s often better to start small and let the market tell you what it wants.

Selling digital ads not like selling TV

One of Edmonds’s other points was that the sales staff of television station WJLA that was a partner in this venture was supposed to sell digital advertising.

Without knowing the details here, I cannot imagine that a television salesperson accustomed to making big commissions would want to dedicate valuable time to selling digital without some significant financial incentives. Were they part of the deal?

Google takes magic out of advertising sales process

Una versión en español se encuentra aquí.

In a confrontation between Old and New Media in 2003, Mel Karmazin, CEO of Viacom, told the founders of Google that their advertising sales program was "messing with the magic" of sales.

Google’s Adwords told advertisers exactly how many people were exposed to their ads and how many clicked on them, as well as other specific data.

The model for selling advertising espoused by Karmazin and the Old Media was, "Advertisers don’t know what works and what doesn’t...You don´t want to have people know what works. When you know what works or not, you tend to charge less money than when you have this aura and you’re selling this mystique."