It's the Email, Stupid

After Tisers are pretty fed up with all those toughy meals and audience numbers media companies have been throwing around for decades. So if it's not your phantom audience share or your boss that radio reaches 90% of adults, what number will impress them? In this episode, we'll tell you exactly what it is. You're listening to the local marketing transplant cast now in its fifth year of delivering unique insights from two of the industry's brightest analysts. Corey Elliott and Gordon Burrell, today's podcast is sponsored by Frequence, which streamlines advertising workflow by putting everything you need in one dashboard, and by Audience.io, your key to a bigger audience and more revenue using zero in first party data. And now, here are your hosts, Corey and Gordon. Hello, everybody and welcome to the show. My name is Corey Elliott. I'm one of the hosts and with me as always, Mr. Gordon Burrell. Hello, Corey. Hello, everybody. We're talking about email now, right? Oh, are we? You went right to it. I got it. I got it from the intro. I thought, yeah, he's talking about email, but you said something that we've always kind of felt that an email is like the lost, forgotten thing. You know, what do you do all day long? Check your freaking email. But you said something in the intro. I wanted to ask you about you said a phantom. Audience share. So Nielsen providing a phantom audience share. What do you say? A little slap in the face. Well, no, it's because I used to do it because that that was my gig is how can I make these numbers look big? And how can I show a giant share? We reach 90% or we have 90% of the listenership or the viewership or the readership. And it's just, it's messing with numbers. Yeah. And making it look bigger. Yeah, the 90% that we always joke on about radio. 90% of people listen to radio 24 hours a day. We're not not exactly that, but it's 90% you know, listen to radio. I think at least once a week or something. Yeah. And the TV equivalent is 90% of households own a TV. 90% of households can read. Yeah. All right. Here's one. Argue you with this. 96% of adults check email daily. And we're not saying how many times because I know by asked you how many times you check email. It seems like all I do sometimes. Yeah, I have to turn the speakers up because that little dang. Oh, I got another another fish on the line. Right. Yeah. So yeah, it's it's a really cool topic. We did discuss it gosh years ago on our at our conference as one of the key things we thought media company should be keeping an eye on as a metric or a measurement. It's a requirement as strive to get a certain share of all the email addresses in a market in a certain share might be 30 40 50%. You'll never get 100% but those are some big numbers. Corey. Yeah, they can get big and they can get lofty. The only thing that I caution is falling down the same hole that you know you wound up in with newspapers and radio and TV back in the day where it just becomes just a number. Yeah. 50,000 email addresses in a database now what you got to do something with them of course and you know 90% of them might you know not respond to anything that you send. But I think there's something really different about an email address. Corey. It's not as you said in the intro a fan. It's a person. You have an email address for most of them you know but someone's going to read that email. So it's it's an individual you have person to person contact it's not we're going to throw this mass message out and then. This Phantom group of people we assume you know have their TVs tuned to to our station at 6 o'clock are going to be watching. No, this is an email that goes to individual people who we know check email 97% of them at least once a day. I think what I'm saying is an email list is only an email list it's the beginning of a clutch if a media company let's say media companies collecting emails or gathering emails it's the beginning of a first party data set right so. You have 50,000 emails the more you can layer on to that the better because back in the day local advertisers wanted big numbers and that's what media companies did they went out with those numbers we're talking about we reach these many readers have these many viewers. Then it shifted to and we see this through years of our talking to local advertisers it shifted to how can you target I want to target now now it's all about targeting what do I want from the media company I want the ability to target then I think there's a third step there which is I want to target the right people so it's one thing to target now I want to be in front of the right people and that's the evolution that email list that got to get to. Yeah in our interview segment for this show we've getting Creighton green with audience IO which helps media companies get email addresses and we will talk about that segmenting it then the importance of it but let's put that on pause for a second because I don't think people realize how many email addresses you know they know how many TV households there are and they know they think they know how many radio listeners there are how many newspapers subscribers should have many email addresses there are. Adults in Phoenix let's guess that one I bet you know because I know you have a list in front of you yeah let me just scroll down let me act like I don't know why you're doing that I look at it what is it it's right around a million a million email addresses and that's Phoenix city you know we're talking about just city you know not like an entire television market area if you pick something like Aurora Illinois and you can make these calculations it's over a hundred thousand in Waukegan it's 55,000 you know these are actually really really small cities yeah so you start adding them up for any market area and it's probably 90% of the adult population sure and that's your target. And how many email addresses addresses how many email addresses do you have so you have your work address which what other ones do you have I think it's a dress I how many email address I have to have let's see I'm embarrassed to tell you but very early on I was an email I was on the internet so I have Borel at aol dot com Wow Borel at Yahoo dot com Gordon Borel at Gmail dot com and G Borel at Borel Associates dot com now I have you know multiple email addresses at Borel Associates dot com but that's what for exactly so I mean point being is yeah the these numbers are right off the population but if you multiply that by two two point one or you know however many email addresses people have it's it's you know hundreds of thousands out there it's an amazing number to look at how many email addresses are in any city Kansas city 350,000 and then multiply that by whatever share you think you ought to be getting up it was a 10 20 30 40% well if you're in Kansas City just can't see alone not the television market area and let's say it's 350,000 it 10% you need 35,000 email addresses it just 10% so I'm interested to see if you can see it. I'm interested to introduce this interview coming up after the commercial break Corey because Creighton Green really is an expert on collecting email addresses and then doing something really valuable with them turning them into into gold for media company so we'll get to that interview right after this. Streamline your advertising workflow with the only platform that puts everything you need in one dashboard from proposals to performance frequency makes things easy for you and your team sales operations reporting all in one place the future of media is here visit frequency dot com to get started. Looking to boost your digital revenue and attract top advertisers start with the essentials zero and first party data audience dot IO is your gateway to growth and ownership of your digital audience trusted by industry leaders like I heart media Cox Gray Bell media and over 4,000 others we empower you to take command of your data our full spectrum of tools includes contests quizzes polls dynamic pop ups QR codes advanced segmentation and more. Check us out at audience dot IO to elevate your digital strategy. Okay I've got with me Craig and great and welcome to the show you're the co founder of audience and you spoke at our conference so I'd love to have you on the show welcome. Yeah thanks for having me it was great to be in Miami and now I'm back in Utah. So hey you know the reason we have you on the show two fold one your sponsors thank you very much for that but you and I were talking the other day about audience IO what you do audience dot IO I guess the name of the company is. Anybody wants to visit the site and we're talking we sort of hit on this thing like email email is the holy grail and you said something that was really I thought dramatic and something we've thought for a number of years kind of quietly has it made haven't made too much noise about it and that was the company that owns the most first party or zero party data or basically an email address wins that's kind of the end game and I think people have less sight of that don't you. They have yeah I think emails initially we looked at like we got it you know build a bigger newsletter and it was just kind of a maybe a side project that didn't get a lot of priority but. Yeah, I believe any market, any community, the media company that owns the most first party data in that community. They're the ones that are going to win. They're the ones that wear advertisers are going to be knocking down their door to get access to those individuals. Now, when you started the company back in 2011, was was email your focus or was there a different focus? Oh, man, back in the day, it was all about Facebook. That's all people care. Was the number of Facebook fans or likes that they had? And I think the entire industry jumped on that train for a little while and then quickly realized that was a little bit more of a vanity metric than it was something that could move the needle, especially once Facebook started changing all of the algorithms and what posts could be seen and and all that crazy stuff. So yeah, wasn't there a company that was tracking for TV stations, you know, how many fans, the anchor a certain anchor had. Yeah, it was almost like a not to replace like a Nilsen rating score, but it was one of those that looked at okay, how many of the on air talent have Twitter and Facebook and you know, let's look at how many followers they have and let's add that big number to the number followers. The station has and compared to everybody else in the market and there was a score given and I think a lot of people that was a race to the top of the leaderboard of who could have the most followers or or likes. Yeah, did they do it many good? Looking back now unfortunately that was all Facebook and then Twitter's world and we were just players in their little environment and those numbers unfortunately weren't actually numbers at these stations owned. We were I think everybody was growing Facebook's audience and he was looking back at the bummer right because those are all individuals that these television stations radio stations media companies really don't have access to and so that's why yeah. Email needs to be the focal point again start there right that's the initial goal is the email because that's the that's the start of a profile. So we've heard we've heard a lot of companies say oh yeah we're doing great in that we have 10,000 email addresses or 50,000 email addresses of people in the market you know maybe a. A smallish market or maybe 70,000 email addresses what are the upper reaches of a list of email addresses contact information. Yeah, let me answer that but also explain I guess our philosophy around these email addresses so there is that argument around you know quality versus quantity. And a lot of email addresses were collected years and years ago and so you have to look at you know how fresh are those email addresses to people still have them to still use them. And so when it comes to counting the number of email addresses you know that a media company has it's really looking at how many are active how many have subscribed how many have provided more information than just an email address. But no we've seen some amazing numbers me you can look at you know markets that are really large like Atlanta where we have some customers they're adding over 60,000 entries like just this month and when I say entries those would be emails slash profiles. And what's the aggregate total in the market that's the maximum yes we see a lot of these giant spikes in growth absolutely tied to some sort of a campaign or an incentive. And so if there's media company that's giving away cash or groceries or gas gift cards or you know maybe it's tickets to an event or a concert you see these big spikes in the growth there but when we look at you know okay. We see this spike it's happening you know let's say it's in Canada it's in British Columbia and you know dial it down to the exact market. We do start to look okay how does that relate to the overall population. And where is that percentage where is that number where you could say yeah they're winning like they could go into any advertiser and get their attention and for this individual media company that's up there they're in that number they're in that you know 40% plus saturation in that that market where you look at population. Let's say that you know you're looking at maybe 18 year old plus and then look at all right how many of those have an email address you don't spare to say I think you might have some stats around this. Vancouver has a population just googled it while you were talking of 631,000 so what do you think a media company should reasonably expect in a market the size of Vancouver to get email addresses. If you can get into that 40% mark like art we try to train in you know educate and consult our clients that you do need a goal in all things and so look at your your actual like market the city the community that you're in. Do this math do these kind of numbers and say okay moving forward you know this this next year you know however long you're set that goal. What are you going towards the goal should be around growth and it should be trying to get to that that percentage of is a possible to get 40% 45% of this entire city market this this DMA to opt in and connect with us and give us their email and start building those profiles. Give me two or three quick examples of campaigns that just sort of blew it out of the water and maybe some numbers around them. Yeah I was looking this morning there's a few TV station groups radio groups others that they really stand out but I have a couple here so. In Atlanta there's a morning show on television station and they're giving away cash in the morning so we're just talking that quick little morning lifestyle show. And this month alone the party see over 60,000 profiles added to their database and so we're not that far if you look at you know we're not that far into into April here. And they've already added 60,000 people into that database and what's on the on that for a moment what are the stats on those that opt out after they realize it and win a prize. 50% is a 10% or what it's single digits it's it's way less than I mean it's less than 5% in a while more that's fantastic I have seen it higher when that data is abused and what I mean by that is you know let's say I want to enter to win some cash from a TV station so I you know. Fill the form email and all that but then all of a sudden I get opted in there signed up for you know 8 10 emails a day of you know whether in news and sports and headlines and. There is a moment where it becomes overwhelming and it's robotic and it doesn't feel personal and so. It takes a lot of money and time and resources to earn the trust and to get people to provide an email address and to often to be part of your database how you treat that person is going to you know dramatically impact how long they stay around or how how well they engage and so. We always say like it starts with the email address and the firm there it's how do you learn more about them and add on to that profile but second what are you actually doing with the data that that's being collected. Another quick example another one. Okay another example would be talks media one of our our great customers they have been doing a lot of these like listening win type contests they used to do over text and now they do it. Strictly like on their sites and we power the whole tool to the platform that does these like listening keyword contests and we're pulling up some of their stats and. I mean they're averaging over 35,000 people that participate in those every single day and if you are actively adding you know group like this 35 plus 1000 people into a campaign and into your database. Those are numbers and stats that will really really impress the advertisers and those that are spending money with a group and so. Those are you know some just current success stories that that we have that we feel there should learn from I pulled up a another group that that works with us they own quite a few radio stations. But mainly in smaller markets like really small markets and it was cool to see like when they came on board with us they had about 150,000 profiles in their database and now they're over 2.4 million. You know a lot of companies have an R-POO measurement average revenue per unit average revenue per customer have you seen anything similar with email addresses you talked about. You know mind boggling 2 million email addresses okay so if you have 2 million email addresses can you expect to get a dollar and revenue per year from that you know per email address or $10 or 15 or any measurement that's popped up so far with regard to how many email addresses you have and how much revenue you can expect from them. I've seen it all over the board unfortunately I wish I had like one number ballpark I could give you and let me explain why there are a lot of groups out there that as they grow their database and as they have more emails coming in. These people are subscribed to newsletters and in those newsletters they have banner ads and so of course as the number of email addresses grows. That's more people that are seeing these advertisements they go to the advertiser that you know the cost per thousand goes up and I would say that that's probably like a strategy that most media companies are looking at them okay we have email or sending email there's ads and they were making money there. Where the number can just skyrocket is when you look at these is less less as like newsletter subscriptions and more as a database of leads that advertisers would pay to have access to. And so if it's simply just you know creating an audience.io and I'm subscribed to your your weather email that gets sent every morning at 7 a.m. like my value is going to be very fixed but maybe at some point I've answered you know a survey or pull or quiz. and I've told you that, hey, I've got three kids. And I own two vehicles. We have a dog. I like to ski. I like to bike. Like as I start to tell you more about myself, I become much more than an email address. And much more than a weather email that goes out every morning, I'm now a person, a profile that, whether it's a landscaping company or a roofing company, or maybe down the street, someone that is doing oil changes, like they would pay to have access to me. And what's cool is that's an owned audience. We talk a lot about owned audiences and borrowed audiences. The Facebook thing, that was all a borrowed audience. Media comes in to own that. And so owning an audience, starting with an email address but stitching more data onto that, as you stitch more data onto a profile, that becomes so much more valuable than just a newsletter hopped in. And then also when you're looking at these individuals, not as emails, but as leads. And that's a whole other business where the value per lead, the value per profile can jump dramatically. - Wow, great insights. Great, thank you very much. If anybody wants to reach the company, you can just go to audience.io or Google the word audience. You'll come up with a number of things, but not too far down the list. We'll be audience.io. It says audience, harness the power of your first party data. Genius, great and thank you very much for being on the show. Thanks for being a sponsor. And thanks for sharing your insights. - Absolutely, you're the best. Thanks Gordon. - Okay, I am so glad you got to that. But before we get to that last part, the very last thing he talked about, I think was, I was waiting for it. But first thing I want to talk about, is the fact that his version of back in the day is Facebook, that's hilarious. (laughing) He was referring to a company called Share Rocket and it was all the rage. Back in the mid 2000s and then instead of the time when Facebook, you know, to 2010 and all when Facebook was around and what they were doing was they were pushing out information on ratings for anchors and what share they were getting of Facebook followers. And it was like, wow, this is kind of crazy, but they're gone. - Yes, the fans of the pandemic, they've collapsed. Their last post on Facebook, I think was 2018. And the guy who was doing a lot of that posting, I think is now listed on LinkedIn is exploring sustainable paths of housing. I don't even know what the hell that is. (laughing) - But it shows you the, - Exploring sustainable paths of that. - I want to make fun, but I don't know what it is. Probably something very worthwhile. - Yeah, exactly. - So, but, you know, the point is how, you know, quickly Facebook faded as a standard for audience, I guess. - And that's what I mean. At the very end, he got to what I was hoping he would, what you guys would get to is the first half of the interview was all about what we were talking about. Email, there's a lot of emails out there. That's where you can get your numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. And I was scared, scared, that's probably too big of a word, much of a word. But I was concerned that not getting to the first party got to aspect in putting something on those email addresses and actually creating not only audiences, which is exactly what a media company would do is, hey, these are our audience of email subscribers or email addresses. But the next generation, I think, after targeting audiences is targeting consumers. And I think that's what local advertisers and local businesses want. Not so much you coming out and talking about your audience that you can get through email, but talking about the customers of theirs, you can reach through email. And I think that's gonna be the next evolution. - Yeah, and maybe working with those companies to get their customer lists and try to integrate them and to retarget and handle their email communications. 'Cause frankly, email is a medium. It's an EuroMedia company, right? Or if you're an ad agency, you should be managing media for your clients. And the clients don't really know how to do that. So if you reach a conclusion from this podcast, it's, wow, email is really important. I do check email three, four, five, 10 times a day. Yeah, 90% of adults check their email daily. And there are some big numbers in my city. Now, how do I monetize that? What do I do with all that? How do I begin managing email communications in a way? I guess very similar to direct mail. You're sending mail to 100,000 households expecting a two percent return, right? coupon redemption or something like that. How do you do that with email? So I think what he was talking about, Corey, was having a contest, running contest. 70,000 new emails a month. You know, that's a lot. And then to your point, what do you do that? - Well, and I just wanna reiterate, 'cause I think it's so important. It's one thing to gather numbers. It's something else to put, you call it first party data data on it. He talked about asking about, hey, do you like to ride bikes? Or anything that you can do to qualify these emails, the quantity of emails, the more you can do that, the better. And that's where you start getting into, you know, first party data analysis. - One of the greatest examples of usage of emails many years ago, maybe seven years ago in Durango, Colorado, where it was a resort town. And it is a ski town. And the business is there, didn't wanna advertise, you know, on the newspapers website, because they said, oh, no, people who come to our restaurants or our shops are out of town, people, and you don't have any cash, a with them. So they found a way to, when people came to town, you know, enter a contest, you know, for free lift tickets or vacation in Durango or another city. And they began collecting lots of email addresses. And then what they got was of course, where that person lived. So they suddenly had a medium, which was email or a newsletter, 'cause they were doing newsletters as well, that appealed to the people who were likely to come to Durango. - There you go. - There you go. - There you go. That's the, as simple as that is. That is 10 times better than just an email. Now I know something about these people. And I think that's where the real opportunity lies. - Yeah, we had another person on the show from a radio group in the Midwest, who was doing generally the same thing. There were a lot of snowbirds in their market. And they actually found a way to keep in touch with them as they went to Florida or Arizona, wherever they went through email. Email newsletters and things like that, you know, around things that they might be interested in, like travel, vacation, golf, you know, flower arranging, whatever. So here's my conclusion in any market that you're in. If you can find out how many adults over the age of 18 multiply that by 0.9, you have a rough estimate on the number of email addresses that are in your market, multiply it as Creighton said by 0.4 and there's your target. 40% of email addresses, that's probably what you should get. I think any station would die for a 40% share of something, or any newspaper, you know, might be in a 10 or 15% share of households now. So 40%, 50%, you know, what do you want? Those are big numbers, go for it. And Corey, as you said, you know, okay, then what? Make it viable, make it, you know, active. It reminds me of the word of the podcast. That's what I think of right now when we talk about there's a certain word in your mind. Yep, yep, yep. The mind, are you ready? Here it is. I'm going to use it in a sentence. Email and first party data is Chocoblock with opportunities for media companies. I like that. You know, so full of it. I am Chocoblock with it. You've been listening to the local marketing trends podcast brought to you by audience found at audience.io and by frequency, where you can learn more at Frequence.com. If you have ideas for future shows, email the hosts at [email protected]. And if you enjoy the show, don't forget to give us a thumbs up on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening. And thanks for putting our show in the top 5% of podcasts nationwide.