Native Advertising Sales Tips

Speaker: Olivia Svendsen, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal

Olivia Svendsen: Hello, my name is Olivia Svendsen and I am a senior account executive with the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. And when I share ideas about native content with clients, I really focus on the ability to tell their story their way and the opportunity to be seen as a thought leader or expert on a certain topic or to highlight a client story or a project that they feel would be of interest to our audience.

JP Sabogal: Hi everyone. My name is Juan Pablo Sabogal. I go by JP for short and I'm an account executive here in the South Florida or the Miami market.

JP Sabogal: But the question here is what are some of the main benefits we share with clients or prospects about native content or native advertising opportunities. And that's simple. What I tell them usually on every discovery call or meeting is that it's a fantastic way for them to position themselves as market leaders or as a subject matter, expert in a specific industry, vertical or topic. And in their own words, really, through these published articles, share their valuable insights or what makes them stand out

JP Sabogal: Overall, just a great way to publish content that is going to assist them in connecting with our business community.

Jennifer Guarton: Hi, I'm Jennifer Guarton I've been working for Atlanta Business Chronicle for 10 years. The benefits I share with clients and prospects about native advertising is that native branded content invites them to be able to tell their own story that we will then promote with headline impressions. Native content is searchable on our site and search engines and will live online indefinitely in front of the paywall. They will also have 100% share of digital ads surrounding their content while their campaign is live.

Olivia Svendsen: I recommend native content to clients when they want to do something a little bit above and beyond a traditional print or digital campaign. And they really want the opportunity to tell a story, be seen as a thought leader in either their industry or on a specific topic or potentially highlight a really cool client story or project that they have that they've been working on. Anytime I hear any of that, When I'm in a discovery call, those things trigger a conversation about native content.

JP Sabogal: And that's simple. Usually I look for keywords such as, you know, sharing their insights or wanting to connect with the business community or connecting with certain industries or leaders that are going to assist them in sharing their expert council in a specific area to the to those specific leaders or to that part of the community, I also look out for, you know, certain things such as, you know, recent changes in the market, things they, you know, possibly new initiatives, the client or prospect is undergoing or new, you know, new areas of expertise or new areas that the company is growing in. Those are great keywords that I hear that I look out for and keep an ear out for because that's a great way to turn that around into a, you know, a branded native content article package.

Olivia Svendsen: A client of mine ran a native content hub with six articles highlighting their clients and subtly talked about the different ways that they were able to help their clients succeed. Ultimately, the goals of the campaign were to generate brand awareness for my client as well as to be seen as a thought leader in their specific industry. Also, if lead generation or something like that came out of it, that was a cherry on top. What ended up happening is the client's campaign more than double outperformed our standard native benchmarks. It had tons of engagement, not only through the business journal website, but also through linkedin and social post, the client shared it to their channels as well and ultimately, they received three inbound leads. One of those also turning into a client. So they were really really happy with the brand awareness that they got the thought leadership that they got their clients were happy because they were highlighted in the business journal and ultimately, they got business out of it. It was also a great way for me to prospect the clients that they featured in their articles as potential future new business clients, for my desk.

Jennifer Guarton: I work with clients across industries on native advertising including a new annual content hub for Northside Hospital. The example I would like to share involves multiple higher education clients that invest in a custom package that includes native run of site and a print ad in a higher education special section that publishes in September. This package solution creates a competitive interest for universities to share their expertise. It also allows them to build awareness for new programs and ensures that their branding is aligned with higher education editorial content.

Olivia Svendsen: One of the biggest tips I would say is to be sure that you're subscribing to your client's newsletters, also make sure that you are following their businesses on linkedin. Make sure that you're looking at the different channels where they're posting content, whether it be blogs, newsletters, linkedin. Like I mentioned, those are often really great ways to see what kind of content your client is already trying to push out and is maybe already creating if it's based on thought leadership, if it's based on stories about their success with their clients, that can really easily lend itself to turning that into a native content, art article with the business journal and promoting that to a much wider audience for your client.

JP Sabogal: I usually ask them how they approach thought leadership or how they put themselves out to market as experts in a specific industry or topic which will align them to business leaders in, in those communities which I think are important.

JP Sabogal: I also float the native content carrot as I, as I phrase it on every single discovery meeting or needs analysis.

JP Sabogal: I always, you know, dangle that native content carrot in front of clients or prospects in meetings by, you know, by simply saying that phrase, you know, letting them know our our audience, they love this content. They love hearing from other business leaders or other partners that work with the business journals. And that's a great way to kind of get that that conversation going. And then I also offer the ability to let to basically let them know that native content packages are not restricted to just written articles. We obviously offer publishing those as podcasts or as videos or as powerful infographics with a description sometimes I think we get uh tunnel vision on, it's just written content and it's not. And I think when you open that conversation up and kind of use some of these keywords that they can use a podcast that can be used as a video. And letting them know that it runs that it remains evergreen on our site. Our other is another thing I usually say because that triggers in their mind. Well, this could be something I can repurpose or reuse down the road. So those are some tips,

Jennifer Guarton: It is very important to ensure the client is aware that native is a great compliment to a campaign rather than exist on its own. Native is designed as a brand building solution, packaging, native with other solutions such as a run of site campaign or high impact digital solutions can position them as experts while ensuring that their visual messaging is also reaching their target audience and meeting their KPIS. Although we promote their article for 30 days, the client should also be sharing the link on their social channels and encouraging their employees to share the link as well.