What it takes today to win in the fast changing media industry

At Trigg Digital, we’re privileged to work across a diverse range of different business sectors. In our second edition of ‘Trigg Thoughts’, we look at an industry facing a constant challenge of balancing opportunity and risk, and one in which a solid CRM strategy is mission-critical.

That industry is the world of Media—a fascinating and fast-moving sector that has changed beyond recognition over the last decade.

You’ll have seen it happening. If you’ve got Netflix, Amazon Prime or The Disney Channel, you’ll know it.

If you’ve got teenagers, you can’t ignore it. If you dip into YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Snapchat, you’re part of it.

What we’re seeing, though, at Trigg is that media channels—particularly digital and social ones—are proliferating so rapidly that it’s hard for businesses and consumers to keep up, and the definition today
of media has become much broader.

Consider for a moment the big grocery retailers who publish, manage and update millions of supplier product offers every single day. Similarly, how about the travel websites that publish up-to-the-second offers to help
hotels maximise their occupancy. Even online food delivery services like Deliveroo and Just Eat are working with media companies and directly with advertisers to produce and promote offer-led content—all of which is blurring the boundary of what a ‘media’ company actually is.

Undoubtedly, we live in exciting times, and it’s not difficult to find numerous examples of companies who are riding the wave of digital opportunity—transforming their businesses into multi-channel operations and engaging viewers across a mix of platforms.

Others, however, are understandably struggling to keep up with the pace and, consequently, are seeing media share, advertising revenues, and sales stagnate. And many organisations, from established businesses to disruptors, are fighting to find the right balance between creating and distributing content, monetising it via new partnerships and business models, and optimising how they sell and charge for advertising. And, of course, the changing nature of the customer also drives a relentless demand for personalised offers accessible any time and anywhere.

This is why speed and agility are crucial, and a CRM and customer-centric infrastructure is not just a luxury; it’s a must-have. Data, and more importantly, the insights into customer behaviour it provides, are vital
for enabling businesses to use relevant, timely and engaging content to connect with customers when and how they want it.

An effective CRM platform can unite and interpret multiple data points, analyse that data and present it back to content creators and decision-makers to craft strategies, campaigns, offers and messaging that drives
results, both by improving the experience for customers and simplifying the process for publishers.

This is how successful media companies are winning market share. They are quickly expanding and adapting to embrace new markets and audiences. And they can only do this with unified, agile and intelligent
CRM systems that simplify the end to end publisher workflow from lead to order management, fulfilment systems to billing, ERP and reporting. This is what empowers fast and effective decision-making.

Conversely, trying to master new markets with the burden of outdated and incompatible legacy systems built to address individual markets and silos is expensive, inefficient and fatally flawed. And crucially, it prevents a business from keeping pace with the continuous speed of innovation.

Ed Bonilla, Trigg’s media industry expert, says

” What could end up being a three-year project to deliver new publishing monetisation strategies for a supermarket, a retailer or digital newspaper could be completed in just three to six months using Salesforce and platforms like ADvendio. That is why we continue to see a massive market shift to adopt these platforms.”

And to get down to practicalities and to ensure that opportunities are converting into revenue, it’s vitally important for media companies to understand and utilise solutions that help manage the complexity of
multi-channel inventory and pricing at scale. Life gets complicated in a market with different ways to charge, such as CPC, CPA, CPM, CPL and subscription-based solutions! And that’s all before you factor in any number of variables like product configuration, bundling, customisations, quantities
and multi-tiered discounts and targeting.

For a sales force to quote consistently, accurately and swiftly, this is why you need to have the right systems in place. Likewise, to manage agency or partner sales, programmatic and direct sales, matching quotes to customer needs, streamlining contract management with electronic signatures, revenue reconciliation, invoicing, billing and payments can all be dramatically simplified and sped up by investing in a tried and tested scalable end-to-end CRM, Order Management & Billing solution.

And then there’s the whole other matter of providing a self-serve customer-facing booking platform to offer advertising placements in-store, OOH or online—a crucial way of extending the audience reach to increase impressions, CTR and ultimately results. For retailers and supermarkets, in particular, this enables you to attract longer-tail advertisers and create opportunities for advertisers who are looking to crack their verticals. This is why we’re seeing companies like GreenJinn take advantage of gaps in the market where retailers are not offering publishing opportunities by offering their own.

In our experience, designing, building and maintaining these platforms from the ground up can be extremely time-consuming and complex due to the workflow and integration complexity and speed of technological advancements in the industry. This is why we find implementing a proven off-the-shelf platform so beneficial.

Robert Tubridy, CMO, ADvendio, says

“The media industry today demands a modern solution without the complex implementation project and this is what ADvendio offers. Our out-of-the box solution combines a best in class CRM system from Salesforce with future focused technologies built specifically for the media industry. Some of the best known companies have not only reduced their implementation time, they are satisfying their omnichannel advertising needs with solutions such as self-service.”

In summary

With everything happening at such an unprecedented whirlwind pace, your CRM infrastructure must be ready to meet head-on three big challenges;

1. Personalisation—weaving together a holistic experience spread across disparate moments and brands.
2. Monetisation—managing ways to create and capture value and getting to new audiences and markets quickly.
3. Agility—enabling employees to respond quickly and accurately while collaborating both internally and externally.

How can we help?

At Trigg, our experience of CRM is admittedly working with the world’s number one platform, Salesforce, so we may come across as a little biased here. But in the spirit of offering time-saving advice, and let’s face it, that’s a
big factor here, Salesforce has a powerful portfolio of market-leading media solutions, and our partner ADvendio has been in the game since 2004.

We would strongly urge any established or emerging media player without a unified platform to check them out. They are both game-changers. For more information, visit www.salesforce.com/media and www.advendio.com.

Meet Trigg Digital

The team at Trigg Digital are here to offer a fresh perspective and help you get further faster with Salesforce. We’ve been in your shoes before as a customer and have witnessed first-hand how Salesforce can transform businesses rapidly into agile and powerful operations. That’s why we created Trigg and why we now use our experience and deep expertise to help other companies. With a focus on being friendly and accessible, highly cost-effective and with a laser-sharp focus on maximising ROI, we pledge to optimise CRM processes to grow your business. Get in touch on +44 203 239 8492 or at hello@triggdigital.com

More reading and inspiration:

1. “From a service or subscription point of view, managing our customers on a single platform is critical to survival.” Christina Scott, CIO of Financial Times.
Discover the impact that transitioning to one unified Salesforce platform made to the Financial Times.

2. “The notion I wrestle with is whether NBCUniversal is now the best content-driven tech company or the best tech-driven content company. Either way, you slice it; we couldn’t do it without Salesforce.”
Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising & Partnerships
How NBCUniversal became a tech-driven content company and earned new fans using a Sales CRM solution.

3. Everything you need to know about Salesforce solutions for media companies

4. Enlightening extra reading on;

“Why Media Industry Requires Online CRM Software for Success?”
Solving challenges in the Media Industry
Emerging challenges and trends facing the media industry

5. Meet ADvendio, Trigg Digital specialist partner in delivering world-class media buying and selling CRM solutions