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Streaming Subscription Landscape

Turbulent Streaming Subscription Landscape Means Opportunity for Broadcast Ad Revenue

May 26, 2022/in Industry News, Tech Trends, Television/by mccarron

By: Daniel Anstandig, Futuri’s CEO & Co-Founder

As pandemic era restrictions ease worldwide and inflation rates hit record highs in the USA, we see signals that consumers are starting to cut costs on services they leaned on heavily amid the COVID-19 era. Streaming services and major cable companies have seen an uptick in cord-cutting in recent months—with companies like Comcast, Hulu+, Charter, and Dish Network losing hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the last year. One of the largest streaming services worldwide, Netflix reported a loss in subscribers for the first time in around 20 years.

Streaming and entertainment are not the only types of subscription models facing pressure amid changes in consumer spending and habits. Curated subscription and retail subscription models increased subscribers during the pandemic, likely because retail shops and restaurants were closed in many places. However, with restrictions easing, consumers could opt out of retail subscriptions to shop in person. Both Fabletics and Savage X—two clothing retailers that have built their empires on the monthly subscription model—plan to expand their retail storefronts in 2022 to accommodate this shift.

This shift in consumer habits signals turbulence in the subscription space for media and entertainment giants. With so many subscriptions for consumers to choose from, many opt to share accounts with friends and family to cut costs. For example, while Netflix reported a loss in subscribers, it saw a rise in new users—suggesting that many users combine accounts among friends and family.

Subscription Fatigue is Real.

With so many subscriptions to choose from and only so many dollars per month in the budget for those services, many Americans are opting to cancel non-essentials in favor of more affordable options. Sharing accounts is definitely an option for streaming subscriptions—but other, free options are seeing a rise in subscribers.

Disney has started offering park discounts to its Disney Plus subscribers as a way to funnel consumer spending dollars into different sectors of the company. The company could be trying to make up for its losses amid park closures during the pandemic (by the way, $DIS is down 34% YTD, as of time of publishing), or it could be a way to incentivize subscribers to keep their Disney+ subscription after missing growth expectations in Q1. The streaming platform will also implement a lower-cost, ad-supported tier for consumers later this year—a move that Netflix will also likely adopt in the future to combat subscriber losses.

Streaming Giants See New Competition Against Free, Ad-Supported Television

Free, Ad-supported Television (FAST) platforms such as Tubi, the Roku Channel, and Amazon Freevee (formerly IMDB TV) have all seen strong growth in recent months. Many consumers report that they would be willing to watch several minutes of advertisements per hour in exchange for lower subscription fees, or no subscription fees at all. A Deloitte study shows that consumers are increasingly turning toward FAST subscriptions to cut back on monthly spending, showing broadcasters that hope for growth in the future could come from lower consumer spending and higher advertising revenue.

Hulu pioneered the ad-supported streaming platform with its lower fee for ad-supported streaming. Networks have followed suit with low-cost or free platforms to earn revenue. With traditional streaming services such as Netflix, companies are limited to their earnings potential when they come only from subscription fees. Advertising allows streaming services to increase their earnings potential at scale.

What This Means For Broadcasters

With more consumers turning toward FAST subscription models to curb their spending, advertisers are likely to turn increasingly toward streaming. New data rules and regulations in the social media space have also limited advertisers’ abilities to hyper-target consumers with personalized ads.

Meta-owned Facebook announced that it stands to lose up to $10 billion in advertising revenue in 2022 after Apple rolled out an opt-out option on app tracking and other types of data mining in recent years. As targeted advertising on social media becomes more expensive and regulated, many advertisers are turning toward more traditional methods like television advertising and newer methods of advertising such as influencer marketing.

An IAB insights report shows that streaming ad spend grew about 21% in 2021, with continued growth expected as more streaming services adopt an ad-friendly model. Other forecasts predict that global ad revenue among streaming services could double in the next few years—with projections showing an industry valuation of about $32 billion by 2026.

While these changes in data privacy and consumer habits are good news for smaller broadcasters that seek advertisers, it does mean that competition among broadcasters will ramp up once streaming giants like Netflix and Disney begin seeking advertising revenue.

How local broadcast can compete

Smaller, local broadcasters can get ahead of competitors by using advertising and market research tools that provide invaluable data to potential advertisers. Broadcasters can provide answers to advertiser questions in real-time with sales intelligence insight from TopLine-Pivot, an AI-driven intelligence platform for broadcasters and media companies.

TopLine-Pivot combines qualitative market research from SmithGeiger with Futuri’s AI-driven engagement tools to deliver custom data to advertising sales teams in real-time. Sales teams can use the TopLine-Pivot dashboard to customize the data they collect instantly. Data provided by TopLine-Pivot can be used to strategize content and advertising presentations quickly and affordably. Learn more about TopLine-Pivot, the next generation of sales intelligence, here.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/1653511471623.jpeg 400 744 mccarron https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png mccarron2022-05-26 08:38:342022-05-26 08:38:34Turbulent Streaming Subscription Landscape Means Opportunity for Broadcast Ad Revenue
television channels

NBC Wins Despite Losses

May 13, 2022/in Industry News, Television/by mccarron

By Tim Wolff
VP, TV & Digital Publishing Innovation, Futuri Media

The proverbial champagne corks were popping at NBC this week, with news that the network had become #1 in the coveted 18-49 year-old demo.

The Super Bowl and Olympics were key drivers to get them over the hump, but it wasn’t really a story about strong growth over the past few years; rather, it’s a story about the least amount of loss.

As Adweek points out, in the 2017-2018 season, NBC had twice as many viewers in the demo as they did this season. In fact, this year’s victory with a 1.1 rating in the demo would have been 4th place just a few years ago.

But a win is a win, and NBC gets to say they are #1 in the demo. It gives them something to brag about to advertisers.

However, it is more than that. It is an illustration of the nature of our broadcast business. We often find it more important to compare ourselves to our perceived competitors than to focus on our real performance with our audience.

I see it at the local level, too. I recently was talking with a GM (and former News Director) whose station used to dominate early-evening news with double-digit ratings. In the last ten years, they’ve lost 80% of their audience, down to a 2 rating. “But hey,” he said with a smile, “we’re still #1 in our market.”

In sales, local stations go out of their way to determine their share of the market spend. Sometimes, a station can miss its revenue goals by more than a million dollars…but if they hit their market share relative to their competitors, they’re satisfied.

What both of these examples show us is that we are wired to compete, and that we judge ourselves by how others with similar roles are performing. Unfortunately, it’s not necessarily a great barometer of success. Having a solid share of the market means a lot if your competitors are really good; it means nothing if you and your competitors are all mediocre. On the news side, being the #1 station out of 4 lousy stations is really nothing to brag about; it just means you’re the least lousy.

That’s one reason that top stations find other ways to measure success–starting with measuring against oneself. At the #1 stations I’ve been a part of, we have always set our goals relative to our own performance–not to our competitors. This helped ensure we never fell into the trap of lowering our standards to anyone else’s level, and that we kept pushing forward to always be a better version of ourselves. It was a driving key to our success.

So what about NBC, winning the demo despite having half as many viewers as just 5 years ago? They’ve got some real challenges to consider; Peacock is far behind Paramount Plus (and Disney Plus, Amazon and Netflix). CBS still had more overall viewers than NBC.

The reality is that network programming, with commercials, will always have a hard time competing against commercial-free streaming. In that context, it can feel like “losing the least viewers” is a reason to celebrate for NBC.

But for local news stations, the scenario is different. Local news stations are offering something no streaming service is: local news. It’s typically the only place to get it on television in any given market, and local stations have a 70-year branding lead on streaming services.

As long as they are providing value and local context, strong local stations can continue to see strong ratings, no matter how the networks perform. And local station leaders need to realize that their competitors are not the stations across the street; the competitors are also not the streaming services.

The only way for stations to truly succeed is for stations to compete with themselves. If we can constantly strive to understand our audience better, to deliver higher-quality content, to report news that has profound impact on our communities, then the audience will be there.

If we’re just trying to hang on to be a little better than the other guys, then our audience will fade away, and being #1 will be an empty celebration.

Tim Wolff is the VP of TV & Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri Media. To learn more or continue the conversation, email him at timwolff@futurimedia.com or message him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwolff1/.

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A journalist at her desk

AP report: AI is an opportunity for local newsrooms

March 29, 2022/in AI, Digital Publishing, Radio, Television/by Zena

Groundbreaking report surveying hundreds of newsrooms points to the importance of AI.

By Tim Wolff
VP, TV & Digital Publishing Innovation, Futuri Media

What would you choose if someone else could do part of your job? What if, instead of a person, artificial intelligence could do it? And what if it could go beyond just replacing a mundane task to actually creating ways to make your product better?

Newsrooms across America have been wondering about that, and some have actively engaged AI — artificial intelligence. How much a newsroom uses AI has a lot to do with how many resources and how much time a newsroom has to experiment.

That’s according to a new report from the Associated Press, which was part of a project where they interviewed people from hundreds of newsrooms across the U.S. The goal was to learn what newsrooms are using and what newsrooms want, then to chart a plan for getting our newsrooms to that AI future.

Quoting from the AP’s press release:

“Key findings from the report include:

  • There is a significant gap between large and small news organizations in terms of how widely AI and automation technologies are used.
  • Despite some concerns about handing off human work to machines, there is nevertheless strong support among local newsrooms for automating tasks that could free journalists for deeper reporting, streamline production or enhance content monetization.
  • While interest is high, AI technologies are not in wide use at the local level because many news outlets lack the resources or time required to experiment.”

Diving deeper into the report itself, while survey respondents came up with a wide range of uses, there were some areas where nearly everyone agreed there was a need. Finding stories a local market would care about in social media was near the top of the list for newsrooms of every kind (the AP works with newspapers, TV and radio stations, and digital-only newsrooms).

This quote in the report really stood out to me:

“WTAE-TV News Director Jim Parsons said that sometimes events happen in the communities the Pennsylvania station serves, and the reporting team misses it on social media. ‘We don’t have a great system in place, other than keeping our eye on TweetDeck 24/7,’ he said. WTAE-TV relies on manual scouring of local websites and social media that AI may help solve. ‘It would help to have some ‘robotic eyeballs’ trying to find these events.'”

Sure, as the AP’s key findings note, there is some concern among newsrooms respondents about handing human work off to machines. But when resources are finite, aren’t they better spent creating compelling content that sets your brand apart? What’s the harm in letting technology do the busy work?

Reporters in every newsroom are spending a lot of time looking through social, trying to find stories. As anyone who’s spent a lot of time on social can tell you, most of it isn’t newsworthy. Our own research here at Futuri (conducted in partnership with SmithGeiger) shows that social media is the number one way newsrooms get stories today. It’s part of what makes AI-powered TopicPulse ContentAdvantage such an incredible tool. Futuri has been creating cutting-edge AI media tools for more than a decade, and the amount of data processed through a powerful AI is a true difference-maker for newsrooms.

The survey also showed automated writing and automated personalized experiences for users were also near the top of newrooms’ wish list, among about a dozen other key newsroom needs.

The adoption of AI in newsrooms varies, as has the AI knowledge within newsrooms. The AP will begin offering classes to close the knowledge gap next month. And as artificial intelligence in the newsroom is a topic on which I’m passionate, I’ll present the session What News Managers Need Now — spoiler alert! It’s AI — at NAB Show in April (learn more about the session and how to join me by clicking here).

I applaud the Associated Press for calling attention to the benefits of AI for local news. Used correctly, AI stands to change our industry — for the better, meaningfully.

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew.

 

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Image of journalists taking notes

The good reporter who became a bad reporter (and how to be good again)

March 27, 2022/in Digital Publishing, Tech Trends, Television/by Zena

Are you doing the right things to retain your top performers? 

By Tim Wolff, Futuri’s VP, TV and Digital Publishing Innovation

The full article lives on RTDNA.com, the website of the Radio Television Digital News Association

How do you use your best people?

I’ve learned a lot over the years in news management. One of the earliest and most profound lessons was what happens when managers think their job is to plug people in where they can operationally succeed that day.

Let me explain what mean and how I learned this. Early in my career, when I was a news producer, we had an incredible reporter. He enterprised lead stories every day, was brilliant covering breaking news, and often left extra packages for later shows. He could also dive in to tricky stories and make them make sense, all with a positive, willing attitude.

The editorial decision-makers knew this, of course. So every day, the other reporters got the easy, no enterprise needed stories, while he had to come up with his own lead stories and take on the toughest stories of the day. And then he’d get pulled for big breaking news first, while other reporters just did their one easy package and left.

This went on for probably close to two years. Then one day, I noticed his package and live shot were just ok; not horrible, but not up to his standards. And the next day he had no story ideas, and again seemed to mail in his package and live shot. I wasn’t a manager then, but I knew something was up. I pulled him aside the next day and asked him how he was.

He seemed surprised for a second, then exhaled and said something like, “I guess it’s obvious, right?”

Click here to read the full article on RTDNA.com.

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew. You can see his live presentation “What News Managers Need Now” at the upcoming NAB conference. To learn more or continue the conversation, email him at timwolff@futurimedia.com or message him on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/timwolff1/.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Wolff_RTDNAblog_032922.jpg 355 640 Zena https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png Zena2022-03-27 16:05:182022-03-29 17:47:37The good reporter who became a bad reporter (and how to be good again)

A Better Way to Put More Listener Audio On-the-Air

March 25, 2022/in Industry News, Radio, Resources, Television/by lindy

Making it easier for your fans to be heard makes it easier for you

 

By Scott Lindy, Futuri Media

Listener voices are the heart and soul of every famous radio brand. When fans of a station or show are invited to join the conversation, magic happens. We’re humans, and we all want to belong to something bigger than ourselves. It’s an emotional magnet when you hear a listener’s voice saying something on the air you might say yourself or wish you had.

For decades, radio stations have used the studio phone line to run contests, take requests and get feedback on the topic du jour. The calls would pour in. One of the essential parts of a radio DJ’s job was to answer the phone. The studio phone is mostly silent these days because the world communicates differently now.

We heard from the experts, and you can too

We went to the front lines of radio in our most recent webinar, The Studio Line is Dead: How to Get Listener Voices On Air in 2022, to hear from the experts. Three of radio’s most strategic thinkers, Deb Turpin, Program Director for Z104 in Salt Lake City; Nathan James, Director of Marketing and Digital at SummitMedia and Jordan Miller, Digital Content Specialist at Steel City Media – Pittsburgh, spent 30 minutes sharing creative ideas and ways to keep the audience involved on the air. 

The entire guest panel of experts agreed that the Open Mic feature in Futuri Mobile apps makes getting listener voices on the air easy for the user and the station. Nathan James at SummitMedia became a fan of Open Mic at the beginning of the pandemic, “We weren’t out in public with a microphone walking up to listeners to get an actuality. So, it was a way for listeners to give us real-time feedback. To get that content and easily turn it into sweepers immediately was the first thing we did with it.

From Z104 in Salt Lake City, Deb Turpin puts kids on the air reciting the Pledge of Allegiance that not only gets more listener voices on the air but also builds tune in. “We solicit for it and tell them about the Open Mic feature and we’ll let you know when we’re going to play your pledge on the air. So you’ve got grandma listening, you’ve got mom and dad listening. You’ve got a big brother and a big sister, maybe some neighbors listening. And they get the chance to hear that little kid or the scout troop or the bridge club or whoever sends the pledge in. Everybody wants to hear their pledge on the air.”

Jordan Miller, with Steel City Media‘s stations in Pittsburgh, says, “On Q92.9 we created a section called ‘Talk to Q’ where we literally let listeners say anything. From a song request to a mock on-air tryout to be on the air and introduce some songs. We get listeners of all ages from all over.”

When listener audio gets turned on it’s ear

When listeners can simply tap their smartphone to record and send their voice to radio stations using a Futuri Mobile app, there’s no telling what you’ll get. Turpin uses Open Mic listener audio most stations would delete, “We got one Open Mic that says, ‘Dave & Deb, a couple of dumb ***es in the morning.’ We just turned it into a sweeper and we play it almost every day and it’s hilarious.”

Other creative ways to capture listener audio:

  • Record winners when they come to the station to get their prize. A mic on a stand, with branding in plain view, turns it into a video opportunity as well. Use a simple script or just ask questions (off mic and camera.) Get their name, hometown, what they won, and how they did it. What’s their favorite thing about your station? What’s their favorite song and why? If you want to record the listener saying specific branding statements you’ll get more bang for your buck using the ‘repeat after me,’ method.
  • Voicemail! It’s a bit more work but can work with the right approach. Here’s a cool twist on that idea; next time an artist visits the station, have them record outgoing greetings for your voicemail with a question for listeners to answer. Write questions designed to get answers from your listeners that you can really use, like, “who is the funniest person on the morning show and how can you prove it?”
  • Concerts, festivals, remotes, sporting events. Your phone is the microphone you take everywhere. Wear your station gear and say hello to as many people as you can. You’ll find fans of your station or at the very least, fans of the music and artists you play. Plan your questions ahead of time and weave them into the conversation rather than interviewing them, keep it casual to keep it real. When you find a fan, let them know you’re recording and definitely get their name/hometown and permission.

Increasing engagement with mobile = increasing revenue

The opportunity to drive revenue with your Mobile app starts with creating a content strategy built around a personalized and unique user experience. Sponsorships and client presence in your app should embrace the app’s overall design and creative concepts that listeners respond to the most. Futuri Mobile apps are designed to be monetized with that type of approach. As we heard in our webinar, there’s no shortage of ideas to increase mobile app engagement that put sponsors right in the middle of the action.

If you’re looking for standout ideas and creative angles that help get more listener voices on the air this webinar is a ‘must-see.’ Plus, our panel shares ideas for organizing and monetizing station mobile apps that you can use right now. Click to watch the entire webinar on-demand.

 

Scott Lindy is a Marketing Content Specialist and Partner Success Specialist at Futuri Media. He works with a select group of stations to drive their digital efforts forward, while also creating compelling marketing content about Futuri’s audience engagement and sales intelligence solutions. Prior to Futuri, Lindy spent 30 years developing an impressive programming resume at companies including Cumulus, Clear Channel, Lincoln Financial Media, and SiriusXM. He has also served on the boards of directors for several industry organizations, including the Country Music Association and Country Radio Broadcasters.

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Omnichannel Marketing and The Digital Divide

February 8, 2022/in Industry News, Radio, Resources, Television/by lindy

Shifting away from selling ‘traditional’ media vs. ‘digital’ media makes more sense now than ever

Broadcast sales executives hear the term, Omnichannel marketing more and more. It describes an approach to marketing that reaches beyond broadcast radio and TV. Omnichannel refers to the combinations of platforms found in digital environments. That covers everything from on-demand video sent to mobile apps to live streaming on smart speakers.

For years,  broadcasters have been mindful of separating ‘traditional’ media from ‘digital’ media. That meant two separate rate cards, two different sales budgets, and sometimes, individual sales staff.

That made a lot of sense until now.

It Is What The Audience Says It Is

Futuri recently released the results of our collaboration with SmithGeigerGroup, The Future of Audience and Revenue study, one of the most innovative media studies ever conducted.

This study revealed dozens of reasons why omnichannel marketing has become so important. One, in particular, stood out:

The perception of media is changing. Formerly well-established concepts such as “TV” and “radio” no longer exist as they once did. Instead, we have a continuum of professional and semi-professional content delivered through innumerable routes to the end consumer, who is, as a result, more selective and less trusting of the major players who used to dominate the field. In focus groups featuring more than 100 media consumers, we found that modern consumers interpret the term “television” to mean all forms of video, from standard live television to streamed events, video posts on social media, and of course YouTube. The same expanded definition applied to radio, which now refers to any form of transmitted audio over any channel. In every case, respondents brought up non-broadcast content when asked to describe their experience of “radio” or “TV.” Consumers used the terms interchangeably with a variety of audio and video resources. This is both a threat and an opportunity. 

In other words, the audience isn’t thinking about the words ‘radio’ and ‘TV’ the way broadcasters have. Radio is audio, and TV is video, no matter where they’re consumed.  

Download the white paper to see more key takeaways supporting a shift to selling and integrating omnichannel marketing into your branding strategy here.  

The Silver Lined Truth

The terms ‘Radio’ and ‘TV’ aren’t as discriminated against by the modern audience as you might have thought. Instead, audiences are as welcoming to television and radio content they are to video and audio content. 

Broadcast sales executives now have the opportunity to leverage this new information when pitching an omnichannel solution to a client or prospect. The audience’s definition of ‘radio’ and ‘TV’ helps support the digital platforms recommended in any proposal.

 Tell the Two Stories About Digital 

When making a pitch to a prospect, tell two stories that support the digital components of an omnichannel solution. First, tell the story of the prospect’s website performance. Then, the story about their customer’s digital habits. 

The magic happens when these two stories connect to support the digital parts of the proposal. It removes a great deal if not all of the questions the prospect might have. 

Always assume that the prospect is aware of their own website’s performance and is tracking the metrics vital to them. That means you’ll need to blow them away with insights they never thought they would hear from an outsider.  

It’s also highly likely that your prospect will have researched how to best engage with their targets online. If you’re able to offer data that deepen their understanding of their target’s digital habits, your prospect’s ears should perk right up.

An Omnichannel Tool Based on the New Science

So, how do you get the data to tell those two stories? If that sounds like a lot of work you know you don’t have the time for, let’s talk — because our TopLine sales intelligence system can help. TopLine’s Digital Analysis reports will help you tell two stories about your target’s digital data in a way that justifies your pitch and omnichannel solution proposal.  

TopLine advances every stage of your sales process, helps you close more deals, and increases conversion rates – – all while shortening the sales cycle. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how TopLine can help you and your team,  reach out to us at Futuri today.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/omnichannel-marketing-solution.png 355 640 lindy https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png lindy2022-02-08 13:05:092022-02-08 13:05:43Omnichannel Marketing and The Digital Divide
hitting a bullseye with prospects

Prospect Conversions – Don’t Sell Yourself Short

January 27, 2022/in Digital Publishing, Radio, Sales Trends, Tech Trends, Television, Webinar/by lindy

At the beginning of each year, we think about improving ourselves. Some make resolutions while others pick up a new planner or organizational tool for work or personal life. Many find themselves reading a self-help book, like Stephen Covey’s timeless classic, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey wrote that one should seek first to understand, then to be understood. A straightforward tip that’s helpful in one’s personal life and an essential strategy for sales professionals. In our recent webinar, The Broadcast Sales Executive’s Guide to Crushing It in 2022, what we covered is a living example of Covey’s game-winning strategy. Especially for Account Executives and Sales Managers seeking to increase prospect conversions and get more out of their biggest clients.

Walk a Mile in The Prospect’s Shoes

Many SDRs arm themselves with a well-crafted value proposition and create a plan for how they’ll woo the prospect or client into understanding why they should be buying what they’re selling. This is the classic goal-driven best practice for creating a sales pitch. It’s also in need of an overhaul.  

What if, instead of creating your plan based on wanting the customer to understand the value of your product, you took a step back, took some time to get to know your prospects and clients? This sounds easier said than done. How would you do it, and where would you start?

Thankfully, there are tools that can help you understand your clients better. Having a true sense of a prospect or client’s personality is essential. It’s cornerstone of how you’ll tell the story about your product fulfilling their needs. 

At Futuri, we specialize in providing account executives and sales managers with a sales intelligence tool designed to convert prospects while shortening the sales cycle so you can close more deals. TopLine was created to help your sales team understand prospects and clients better on a more personal level and keep you up to speed on the most important news in your client’s industry and help create rock star sales presentations. 

The Right Tools for the Right Job

TopLine equips you to speak the lingo of their industry so you can communicate like an expert in their business category. TopLine Individual Personality Profiles are the secret tools in your arsenal. They help you prepare for the meeting, craft the perfect email, or make a warm phone call. Prospects and clients will remember the connection you made. 

TopLine’s Business Acumen and Instant Insights help you connect in more meaningful and relevant ways. When you sound knowledgeable about what’s happening in their business and use the same terminology and catchphrases, you grow trust. A significant factor in getting the sale.

A great way to glimpse how TopLine can help you identify prospects is our weekly Top 3 Categories infographic, posted every Monday on our LinkedIn page. You’ll see the category, why we think it’s an excellent prospecting opportunity, data to back it up, and prospecting questions to kick start your creative approach. It’s 100% free and clear for you to use when you follow Futuri on LinkedIn.   

We created these features in TopLine for every seller who has experienced that moment in a meeting when your prospect or client seemed to be keeping your ideas and product at arm’s length while they struggled to see how it could help their business. 

That’s where TopLine starts. Our entire suite of features, including meeting prep, client research, custom-built presentations, co-op reports, and TopLine’s newly added client Digital Analysis reports, all come together in a single sales intelligence platform. 

We’ll help you walk a mile in their shoes, help you understand why they bought them, and make them excited to buy another pair from you.

Cut to the Front of the Line

If you’re ready to take the next step and learn how TopLine can maximize prospect conversions, grow your client list, land more new business all while shortening your sales cycle, send us a note, and we’ll be in touch soon.

In the meantime, you can check out our recent webinar here.  

From all of us at Futuri, here’s to crushing your sales goals in 2022!

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/dont-sell-yourself-short.png 355 640 lindy https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png lindy2022-01-27 08:00:532022-01-26 18:30:42Prospect Conversions – Don’t Sell Yourself Short
A newsroom

Will your newsroom be ready when social media transparency becomes regulated?

January 6, 2022/in Digital Publishing, Radio, Tech Trends, Television/by Zena

Social media transparency is about to get regulated: here’s what it means for your newsroom.

By Tim Wolff, Futuri’s VP, TV and Digital Publishing Innovation

The talk–and there’s been a lot of it in recent years–is becoming more than talk. Bipartisan bills have been introduced; the public wants action. Even the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, says, “The place where we have the best chance at progress is legislating a certain amount of transparency.”

The main driver, of course, is that so many people use social media and that there is little clarity or consistency around how each social platform chooses the content we see. Toss in a dash of global election interference and warnings that addictive social media is harming our psyche, and you can see where transparency regulation sounds good for consumers.

But what about newsrooms?

An accurate and in-the-moment understanding of the topics and stories people are sharing and seeing on social media has enormous benefits for newsrooms, who are, after all, trying to report and create content about what interests the most people. As the news events of 2022 unfold in a year that will mark the dawn of social media’s legislated transparency, newsroom strategies for monitoring social media will shift as access to more and different social data becomes available. 

It’s foggy at best how social platforms will evolve data sharing in post-regulation. For now, newsrooms need to be careful not to put all their eggs into one basket. A reliance on data coming solely from the social media company itself could become disruptive if the company stops or changes how and what it shares, which currently would be an entirely legal decision on their part.

Consider, for example, CrowdTangle. They were launched as an independent, free-to-use social monitoring tool bought by Facebook in 2016. CrowdTangle is used in almost every newsroom in the U.S. Journalists log in using their personal Facebook account to access a depth of data culled from public Facebook Pages and Groups, Instagram accounts, and the most popular subreddits. But that can all change in a hurry. 

This week, news came out that the co-founder of CrowdTangle, Brandon Silverman, left Facebook and is now working with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators to shape laws intended to make social media more transparent. Silverman also told the New York Times that the CrowdTangle team was disbanded last fall, and the product was being moved under Facebook’s integrity team. He also says it became an annoyance within Facebook, making it unclear how long Facebook will support it.

That’s one reason we have always focused on a much broader range of data here at Futuri. With TopicPulse, the most advanced AI-driven social data tool, we track data from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and over 100,000 news publishers. Because we monitor all these different sources and publishers, our partners are covered and won’t be disrupted by one social company shutting something down.

We also include real people as part of the mix, helping monitor and manage the artificial intelligence that brings real-time, live demographic data and predictive analysis to thousands of stories every minute.

We believe in data, we believe in transparency, and we believe in constantly improving the best tools that help newsrooms spend less time unraveling the data behind trending stories so they can concentrate on serving their communities.

Here are our top pro tips to help your newsroom track social media for content:

  • Have a broad scope of data sources
  • Choose information that can be widely accessed in your newsroom; if only one or two people have access, that’s a significant risk for you
  • Track more than just your brand(s) social media and your competitors; after all, that’s only a tiny portion of the average consumer’s social media activity
  • Remember, it’s not a zero-sum game between you and the other TV/Radio/Newspapers in town. Social and digital are virtually unlimited, and you have endless opportunities to grow your brand
  • Keep a healthy skepticism about any self-reporting platform
  • Track trending news topics outside of your news team’s comfort zone (we tend to live in similar areas, follow similar social media, and only reflect a portion of our communities)
  • Ask for (or demand) transparency whenever possible, just as we should be as transparent as possible with our news consumers
  • Ask your news team how much time they spend mining social media for news and tips. Then have them track it to get the actual number
  • Look for tools that can save your news team time and get them the essential information they need (you’ll need AI, and you’ll see an immediate positive impact on your team and your news)
  • Take a look at what personal data your news team has had to share to get access to tech or social media data; journalists are under fire as never before, and it’s a good idea to have a cybersecurity expert review the risks journalists have taken in exposing private information to tech and social media companies
  • Stay up to date on changes in social, AI, and media technology by following on LinkedIn, Twitter, or your platform of choice

Tim Wolff is Vice President of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation at Futuri. He has 20+ years of experience as a digital and broadcasting leader who’s led top-performing teams across the country at companies including Gannet, Belo, and Cox Media Group Ohio, which includes three daily newspapers, three radio stations, WHIO-TV, and more. Wolff, who holds a Master’s in Journalism from the University of Missouri, also makes a mean green chile stew.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Newsroom_640x355.png 355 640 Zena https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png Zena2022-01-06 13:34:312022-01-06 13:37:43Will your newsroom be ready when social media transparency becomes regulated?

Call it a comeback: Sports is back in local news

December 8, 2021/in eSports, Television/by jesse

Remember how local news cut back on sports for the past decade?

That’s changing–FAST.

 

By Tim Wolff, Futuri’s VP, TV and Digital Publishing Innovation

For most of the past 15 years, local news has been cutting back on sports. I remember when I first heard that a local TV station in Colorado was dropping sports from its regular newscasts. I was shocked! 

 

But it also made sense. When looking at ratings numbers, about half the viewers weren’t particularly interested in sports. The other half were passionate fans and their interest in sports helped them to decide which station to watch.

 

The rise of ESPN and getting sports scores on your phone made local news leaders think they were going to lose those passionate sports fans, anyway. That’s why many decided to save money and cut sports.

 

But there’s another factor they didn’t know was coming: legalized sports betting. And with it, big money is coming to local media outlets that take the necessary steps to capture the sports fans.

 

 About 70% of news consumers say they go to a local broadcast, app or website for sports news weekly; that number jumps dramatically among gaming and esports fans: more than 90% say they go to local news every week, according to recent research by Futuri and SmithGeiger.

 

That’s not all. More than 60% of news consumers bet at least occasionally on sports. And news consumers generally see adding betting information during newscasts as a good thing.

 

When asked what impact adding betting information to local news would make, 36% said they would be more likely to watch a local station. Only one in five said they would not want betting information in a newscast.

 

The audience is clearly interested. And anyone who has watched a local newscast in a state where sports betting is legal can tell you that the revenue is there. When I was in Denver for the Radio Television Digital News Association conference, it seemed almost every commercial was for a sports betting app or a casino. And that’s the case wherever sports gambling is legal.

 

Futuri CEO Daniel Anstandig says, “Sports betting advertising is one of the fastest-growing revenue streams for broadcasters,” predicted to grow by $3 billion by 2023. That’s why Futuri launched TopicPulse SportsEdge, a real-time, AI-powered story discovery and social content system customized for sports, fantasy and e-sports. Futuri has worked with newsrooms for more than a decade, creating a full suite of innovative, AI-powered audience engagement and sales intelligence solutions.

 

TopicPulse SportsEdge is one tool media outlets can use as they recalibrate news planning to recapture those sports viewers who may have wandered away. Research makes it clear those viewers are ready to come back.

 

But what if you’re one of those news outlets that cut sports? Then start by looking at those who successfully re-imagined what sports content should be. Look for places that know sports news is not just the scores, highlights and game writeups: it’s new information combined with great storytelling you can’t get anywhere else. I’m partial to the great work by Frank Cusumano at KSDK and Derrick Goold at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They invest the time to connect with the audience with great stories about people (like this one from Frank) and live interactions with fans (sometimes Derrick’s live chats go on for more than 6 hours).

 

Sports, at its core, is about people. It’s about knowing where your audience is, and where you can take them.

 

Maintaining a strong sports presence is a choice, and it is a choice that pays off well beyond the sports pages and sports segments. Most local sports fans are also local news fans, and we need to give them reasons to choose our news outlet. We can’t afford to throw away those passionate viewers, listeners and readers.  

 

The audience is ready for local news to ramp up sports again. Is your newsroom ready?

If so, be sure to learn more about TopicPulse SportsEdge right here.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Anstandig_MSBC.png 900 1600 jesse https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png jesse2021-12-08 15:40:412021-12-10 08:41:47Call it a comeback: Sports is back in local news
Futuri Trust webinar image with Tim Wolff and Lynn Walsh

WEBINAR | Trust and Fear: Why News Consumers Do—or Don’t—Choose You

December 2, 2021/in Television, Webinar/by Zena

It’s not just social media that’s changed how consumers make media choices. New research from Futuri and SmithGeiger shows fundamental changes in why viewers, listeners, and readers choose certain local news brands. Key drivers heading into 2022 include the level of trust in media organizations and even the way media platforms affect mental health.

In this webinar on Wednesday, December 8, at 2p ET, Futuri’s VP of TV and Digital Publishing Innovation, Tim Wolff, is joined by Lynn Walsh, the Assistant Director of TrustingNews.org, to discuss the changing face of trust in media and what your news organization can do about it today.

Click here to register for the webinar. Even if you can’t make it live, you’ll receive the webinar on-demand.

https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Untitled-design.png 355 640 Zena https://futurimedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/futuri-logo-.png Zena2021-12-02 07:26:462021-12-06 07:36:02WEBINAR | Trust and Fear: Why News Consumers Do—or Don’t—Choose You
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Futuri is the leading provider of cloud-based audience engagement software for the enterprise. Brands rely on Futuri to make their content more relevant, accessible, engaging, and results-driven. Founded in 2009, Futuri holds 12 published or pending patents in 151 countries. Named to the Inc. 5000 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies for seven consecutive years, Futuri is the only audience engagement platform that includes solutions for sales, marketing, and content teams.

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