MarTech Thoughts | Nicole Bales
How has your organisation / team dealt with the challenge of the marketing industry and wider digital world evolving at such a fast pace?
The media industry has been heavily impacted by the digital revolution. The industry duopoly of Facebook and Google has driven an advertising revenue shift away from publishing and the issue of misinformation has combined with this development to create something of a perfect storm. Dow Jones has maintained a robust dialogue with the tech giants over a number of years and we are now seeing some of the fruits of those ongoing discussions. This includes changes to and acceptance of responsibility for ensuring trusted factual news (which sits behind a paywall) surfaces in search results and that quality content creators like WSJ are being paid for the important work we do.
Currently, what are you primarily looking for in your digital marketing efforts? Awareness or engagement? Why?
From my perspective, I have a view when it comes to what our clients are looking to drive from their marketing efforts using WSJ as a channel. Often clients work with WSJ for our ability to convene and engage a discerning audience. That means that we are more likely to produce thought leadership content for them and focus on engagements such as speaker platforms - essentially, it’s about delivering moments in time where they can drive brand awareness, but delivered using bespoke content or engagement activations.
What is your key takeaway piece of advice that you would give when speaking to others on how to evaluate and select a MarTech stack?
Ensure you are clear on the business problem and requirements that you wish to improve on as a first step. Take the time up front to articulate this, and then do your research on providers. You may find more value and ROI in a more niche and customized technology than a full-blown stack. I would also say that you need to establish a core stakeholder group to support the process, and get their feedback and buy-n along the way. This will make the implementation and change management process much smoother. Once selected, stick to a rigid timeline where possible to get it up and running and minimize the limbo stage which can be frustrating.
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