Second Street Summit Recap: Corporate Breakout Sessions

Creating a corporate strategy for promotions and interactive content is a multi-million dollar revenue diversification opportunity

During the corporate breakout sessions at the Second Street Summit we discussed the opportunities and benefits of implementing a corporate strategy with engagement campaigns.

There is a multi-million dollar revenue diversification opportunity for local media companies with a corporate strategy. However, many corporate teams do not make engagement campaigns a priority. As a result, their potential is not reached.

Rebecca Capparelli, the Executive Director of Promotions at Gatehouse Media, joined me to explain how they built a corporate strategy. She presented what they achieved in year one and what they plan to do differently in year two.

Understanding the Power of a Corporate Strategy

The first session of the corporate breakout session track was focused on the process of creating an effective corporate plan and deciding what programs to implement into it.

The benefits of building a corporate strategy include:

Significant and diversified revenue
Database Growth
New & Engaged Advertisers
Stronger local markets

When creating your plan it is important to focus on the programs that will drive revenue and database. As a result, a true commitment to the local properties’ success can lead to revenue and “buy-in” from various markets.

Rebecca Capparelli discussed what Gatehouse Media’s first year looked like while implementing promotions and interactive content within their corporate strategy.

Gatehouse Media has found success by prioritizing a list of key promotions that can be run for instant results. The most successful promotion topics include best of the best, sports, cutest kids, high schools, and holidays. They then syndicate local, regional and national programs. Lastly, they empower local markets with sales collateral packages and marketing materials.

Rebecca Capperelli w/@GateHouse_Media just said she wasn’t afraid of a $100 million promotions budget. Didn’t flinch. #SecondStreetSummit.

— Vince Johnson (@vincejohnson) June 12, 2017

Your Path to Success: How to Use a Top-Down Strategy with Engagement Campaigns

All in all,The key to success is buy-in from the top-level and from your local markets. With the combination of those two things, and a functional corporate team, you’re going to see success.

During this session we learned how to develop a functional team and how to keep them motivated. We learned that the top suggestions to building an operational team are:

Hire a full-time director to oversee the promotions department
Hire someone who is prepared to build a business – a sales executive with revenue growth experience and responsibilities is preferred.
Build a business plan to support this initiative

With commitment and focus to these suggestions, a million dollar opportunity can result. Gatehouse Media is proof alone, the company started out as a 3-man team that generated 9 million. Today, with 5 full-time employees – an executive director, marketing director, marketing manager, and two technical specialists – on the corporate promotions team, GateHouse is positioned and on track to double their year one revenue.

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Rebecca Capparelli suggested that the key to creating the best possible team is by developing systems that create credibility and measurable results.

She talked about the importance of shifting all technical responsibilities from local markets to corporate teams, and providing full service technical setup of all promotions for local markets. As a result, success was generated across the chain in markets of all sizes.

Corporate Roundtables

The corporate breakout session track concluded with a roundtable discussion.

Questions such as, “How do your corporate teams work successfully with local markets” and “How are you taking success stories and pushing them out?”, were asked to kickoff the conversation. Through the course of the discussion all of the session’s attendees talked about personal experiences within their company. Each member’s account consisted of individual successes and obstacles.

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