By Ronn Levine February 20, 2024
“It’s kind of the Ronald Reagan approach,” Jim Elliott told me recently when asked what advice he’s offering his many customers given the unknowns of 2024. “Hope for the best but plan for the worst.”
Cover image of Signature Magazine MAr/Apr 2023
Signature magazine is published by the Associations, Media & Publishing Network of SIIA. Jim Elliott was interviewed by Carla Kalogeridis, Editorial Director, in the Mar/Apr 2023 issue, about his experience helping associations increase non-dues revenue.
Prior to the special advertising workshop Jim Elliott will be delivering at the FIPP Media Congress in Lisbon-Cascais, Portugal June 7-9 2022, Jim was interviewed by Ashley Norris about his views on the coming year and beyond.
Can associations with reduced resources take advantage of post-pandemic opportunities?
by Carla Kalogeridis in Signature Magazine
This article presents interviews with publishing experts to help publishers of association magazines decide whether to cut and consolidate or reset and reinvent. Jim Elliott's interview emphasizes the importance of planning.
By Tony Silber in Forbes
In the context of the pandemic, what steps can sales teams take to create and maintain important relationships and hit their numbers? Jim Elliott and Steve Grossman provide answers sales leaders can use today.
By Max Willens, Digiday
“Now is the time to plan what are you going to be doing 2021,” said James G. Elliott, the founder of an outsourced ad sales firm that’s worked for titles including Popular Science, Foreign Affairs and Yoga Journal. “It’s the time to let the buyers know you exist.”
Featuring Jim Elliott, president, James G. Elliott Co., Inc.; John French, CEO, John French LLC; and Todd Krizelman, CEO of MediaRadar, Inc. A webinar presented by Connectiv, The Business Information Association, a division of SIIA, on May 12, 2020.
How you lead, generate new products, treat your customers and sell in the next several months will go a long way in determining your success in the coming years. At this webinar you will obtain up-to-date MediaRadar data and forecasts. You will learn how to lead and how to set up your organization to generate multiple new replacement products and revenue. You will also leave with ideas that can have you making money today.
View here: https://beacon360.content.online/xbcs/S2082/catalog/resource.xhtml?eid=21526
At the Lunch & Learn held by Connectiv’s AM&P on April 1, three leaders of association publishing groups talked about the special coverage they had developed to provide members with critical COVID-19 content. Native advertising is one potential approach, suggested Jim Elliott. By definition, it is rooted in content, not claims, and therefore could provide a softer, more helpful and even informative approach at the same time it provides much-needed revenue.
Read MoreThe advertising industry has experienced unprecedented disruption. Search and social platforms are valuable distribution channels, but they’ve concentrated massive amounts of ad revenue in the hands of just a few companies. The Facebook/Google duopoly alone accounts for close to 60% of digital ad spend.
Social media and news-aggregation apps have transformed the content consumption patterns that long sustained media brands. Now, instead of fully engaging one-on-one with their favorite magazines and newspapers, people snack on stories from among clusters of media brands via Apple News, Google News, Twitter and the like. Or they follow their favorite brands via social platforms—once removed, effectively—and the platforms gain much of the behavioral intelligence that’s gathered, along with the ad revenue.
Here’s the good news. We’ve just completed our third survey of advertising buyers and one thing remains crystal clear: Media brands are still essential to agency buyers. Opportunity abounds for media companies that adjust to the new ecosystem. We’re pleased to share these findings with the Ads&Ideas audience. Following are some highlights. —Jim Elliott
Read MoreTwo longtime media leaders have teamed up on a venture intended to help companies clarify their strategic direction and rationalize their operations and their portfolios. The executives, former B2B CEO John French and Jim Elliott, CEO of the consulting and advertising firm James G. Elliott Co., have created what is essentially a full-service turnaround consultancy. The overall idea, according French and Elliott, is to drive profitability through a series of services.
Read the full article on Forbes.com:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonysilber/2019/10/10/two-magazine-industry-veterans-form-a-turnaround-consultancy
The following article appeared in our most recent Ads&Ideas Newsletter.
By Tony Silber
All companies, and all industries, face the existential challenge to adapt. In futurist Ian Morrison’s “first-curve-second-curve” model of business economics, the most treacherous curves are hidden. It’s the unforeseen competitor. It’s new skillsets, capabilities and distribution methods that become essential, but seem marginal when they emerge—“edge” activities.
The challenge of the “first-curve-second-curve” model is that “edge” activities suddenly become central, and companies often realize it too late. Things always look best just before a company (or industry) goes into decline. Revenue is surging and profits robust. Once a company knows it’s in trouble, once the red flags emerge, the die is cast. Publishers seeking to reach the second curve need to succeed at what they’re doing and at what they’re trying to become simultaneously. Once a company hits a revenue stall, according to Matthew S. Olson and Derek van Bever in their 2008 book, “Stall Points,” it has less than a 10% chance of ever fully recovering.
Here, says James G. Elliott Co. President Jim Elliott, is where many magazine companies falter, especially in the advertising sales discipline. He and his team have developed a list of the most common missteps around advertising that may prevent publishing companies from reaching the second curve.
Read MoreThe following article appeared in our most recent Ads&Ideas Newsletter and was published by FIPP at https://www.fippcongress.com/american-and-european-publishers-learn-from-each-other-as-advertising-models-converge/
In March, I attended the FIPP Digital Innovators’ Summit in Berlin and left with the realization that advertising-related problems in Europe are the same ones we’re facing in America: media fragmentation, a failing business model, fraud, and the emergence of social platforms that distribute our content for free and control the ad spend. This led to a decline in ad dollars for virtually all content creators. The myth perpetuated by the platforms was if you build a social presence-, the audience—and business model—will come. It turns out the only business you built was theirs.
The roots of this situation go back years. It’s taken us 25 years to understand it. Consumers need to pay for content. And that’s not what Google and Facebook want. They alone account for more than 60% of all digital ad dollars spent. But now, at events like the Digital Innovators’ Summit, we’re seeing signs of new approaches.
I spoke with FIPP CEO James Hewes about the media and advertising environment. Here’s a transcript of that conversation, edited for length and clarity by Ads&Ideas® Editor Tony Silber.
Read MoreDuring the ACT 9 Experience held at the Magazine Innovation Center of Ole Miss this May, Jim Elliott moderated a panel: Data Bridges The Gap Between Magazine Media Platforms. Panelists were from very diverse backgrounds: Alan English, VP of Communications for the Military Officers Association of America, John French of French LLC, Michael Marchesano of Connectiv/SIIA/AM&P, and Kevin Shirin of Focus on the Family.
Watch the full panel below:
In the association media business, new-product development is an insular process. It’s frequently driven by association executives who rarely speak to advertisers and don’t understand timing or the pain points in the market. They just know they’re under pressure to produce revenue for the association, so they push out a flawed idea.
Suddenly, the association sales team finds itself selling a media product developed with the association’s needs in mind — not the advertiser’s. Jim Elliott and Jack Semler (Owner and CEO of Readex Research) talk to Signature Magazine in this article from the April/May issue:
FaceTime with James G. Elliott and Readex Research
Read MoreJim Elliott and Stephanie Holland, Director, Global Advertising Sales & C&EN Marketing, American Chemical Society presented Case Study: What American Chemical Society Learned About Launching a Content Lab at BIMS this November.
Their session went beyond the window dressing to offer an insider look at what’s really required to create a cutting-edge marketing services business, including the required resources, infrastructure and investment, as well as the reality of customer expectations. You can watch the video here:
The ad-sales business has gotten much more complex in the last decade. Media companies are scrambling to adapt as marketing budgets get smaller and ad campaigns get shorter—even as media product lineups have vastly expanded, forcing salespeople to master new technologies—and sell more stuff.
But in ad sales, as elsewhere in life, you are what your numbers say you are. For companies seeking continued revenue growth, and looking to impose tighter cost management, one alternative is to partner with a proven outside sales firm.
Outsourcing your ad-sales operation is a big step. But it’s also one that’s fairly common. If you decide to outsource, there’s a playbook available to ensure your decision succeeds. Dennis Connaughton, general manager of the James G. Elliott Co., and I recently discussed approaches, insights, and principles on the ad-sales outsourcing process during a Q&A with our newsletter editor, Tony Silber.
Read MoreTony Silber interviews Todd Krizelman of MediaRadar
What does it mean when more than 20,000 advertisers stopped placing ads in print media in the first four months of 2018? Perhaps it’s more ad spend flowing to digital channels and the Facebook/Google duopoly, right? You might conclude that it’s bad news for print media and part of the rise of digital.
Wrong. It’s something more complex, and it serves as a clarifying moment for print-media companies and their sales teams.
There were 151,825 advertisers in print in January-April 2018, according to an analysis by MediaRadar, down by 13 percent from the 172,155 print spenders in the same period in 2017. But the catch is that those advertisers didn’t move to digital. Rather, they stopped advertising altogether.
This intriguing analysis doesn’t support the narrative of a decline of print media. Here’s a transcript of our conversation with Todd Krizelman, edited for length and clarity.
Read MoreSteve Grossman, a well-known Chicago-based sales consultant, first contacted my company to measure our interest in taking over ad sales for a group of consumer titles, which eventually happened. It seemed odd that this important role had been assigned to someone outside of our industry; we tend to work mostly with publishing specialists. However, as we worked together, I realized that most of the challenges I hear about from both small and large publishers are not really unique to publishing sales.
Yes, there are some distinctive characteristics of the ad sales business, such as multi-channel sales points with client and agency involvement, but Steve had run into similar problems in other industries. I thought that our readers might benefit by exposure to sharp thinking from someone who is not “in the bubble” with us. Steve agreed to share his thoughts:
Read MoreFOLIO: talked to ten publishers and industry partners (including Jim Elliott) to see how they plan to get the job done in 2018. Here's an excerpt:
Jim Elliott, President, James G. Elliott Co., Inc.
Investment planning must grow out of each individual publisher’s specific situation, reflecting their goals, resources, history, skill sets, market environment, and much more, so there is no single best strategy. However, there are some general considerations that pertain to each of the major publishing sectors, as follows:
Read MoreOfficial press release:
SIERRA, the national bi-monthly magazine of the Sierra Club, expanded its audience by more than 30 percent in 2017, cementing its place as the largest environmental magazine in the United States. A key factor in this growth was the recent membership surge of the Sierra Club, which resulted in related growth in SIERRA subscriptions from approximately 525,000 to more than 700,000. The award-winning print magazine inspires and engages Sierra Club members, as well those just becoming interested in environmental protection. Its readers are active outdoor advocates, changemakers, environmentally conscious consumers, and influencers.
SIERRA’s online edition, videos, and digital edition complement the print edition with breaking news updates, relevant commentary, and green lifestyle and outdoor recreation tips sought after by a growing number of Americans. Sierramagazine.org posts original stories daily and attracts hundreds of thousands of readers who aren’t Sierra Club members.
Read MoreJames G. Elliott Co., Inc. is one of the nation’s largest national outsourced ad sales companies for print and digital publishers.
