CRM For Media and Entertainment Industry

For many decades Media and Entertainment industry is the medium of advertisement for many companies.They serve the marketing divisions of almost all the companies in the world.

If generating leads for other organizations is the key strength of Media and Entertainment industry, why do they require a robust CRM Implementation.

Online advertisement or Digitial Advertising has changed the landscape of Media and Entertainment Industry. The percentage of digital advertising has increased over the last decade. Media and Entertainment Industry can be broadly categorized into the following three

The digital media ad spending is going to surpass most of the traditional media ad spends of TV, Broadcast and Cable. And for the media industry Digital Ads bring both advantages and disadvantage.

Advantage being the speed with which a prospective customer can be attracted and influenced based on his interest. And the disadvantage is the speed with which he can move away from being prospective to not interested.

CRM can bring the speed and structure that is required for the changing media industry landscape. CRM can bring the efficiency and accuracy of sales operations that can help scale the media ad revenues.

Bhea has implemented CRM for Media and Entertainment Industry by tightly aligning Sales with Operations. Some of the compelling additional modules developed by Bhea help Media organizations to seamlessly run their operations side by side with sales.

A CRM for Magazine Publisher should have

Subscriptions / Subscriber Management

The Magazine subscribers and their regular subscription payments help the magazine optimize their operations. And the same subscriber base maintained and available for Marketing and Sales add significant value for up selling and cross selling. Bhea has built Subscriber and Subscription modules on top of SugarCRM framework to smoothly manage them within CRM.

Advertisers and Agencies Management

Even thought magazine subscriptions give some revenues, for most of the media and entertainment industry it is the advertisers and the creative agencies that bring key revenues. That is true even for magazine publishers. Magazine publishers needs to maintain and manage their advertisers and creative ad agencies and maintain key relationship to sustain business. Sometimes agencies act as the commercial entity that places the ad on behalf of the customer. Sometimes it also acts as the key contact point for supplying creative insertions on behalf of the advertising company. Bhea’s CRM for Magazine Publishers has customized a few modules of SugarCRM to cater to these needs.

Event Management

Most of the magazines facilitate interaction of peer groups on certain topics by Conducting events at regular intervals. These events attract revenues like sponsorships and delegate fee. But the key is it provides target segments for future promotions. Bringing these Events and their participants and Speakers to CRM gives us Sales and Marketing Team an edge for their Marketing efforts. Bhea’s Event Management framework built on top of SugarCRM helps Magazine Publishing industry manage their Events, Speakers, Sessions, Participants and many other event related workflows.

Products and Quotes Management

Selling the ad inventory is the key for any magazine publisher. Maintaining the ad inventory and its expiry and time bound traffic management is a key metric for smooth functioning of ad operations. Maintaining current ad product inventory and making it available for all the sales people for live quote generation helps both sales and ad operations. There is no guarentee that the ad product that is quoted is available at the time of purchase order confirmation by the customer. Visibility of the ad operations during order confirmation signficantly enhances the performance of sales person.

Order Management and Fulfillment

Once a sales person closes an Order a good Order Management system allows smooth transfer of sales information to Operations or Execution team. Transferring most of the key contacts and key discussions is one major area apart from timely invoicing for the components that have been purchased. Most of the time the invoice should be raised either before delivering the ad or after the proof of delivery of the order. And if any promises are made by the Sales person during sales time those comments needs to be transferred to corresponding produt line. Bhea’s Order Management system built using SugarCRM exclusively for Magazine Publishing industry helps smooth transition of Orders from sales to ad operations.

Ad Inventory Management

Whether it is a weekly magazine or monthly magazine the ad inventory expires just before the magazine goes for production. The type of advertisements and the size of advertisements differ based on the magazine. So managing the Magazine and each Issue's ad inventory and deadlines for traffic should be managed properly. As part of the Digital Media magazines maintain Newsletters specific to target audience. Sponsorships and advertisements on these Newsletters are limited and will be first come first servered. If sales team promises for a Newsletter sponsorship to one company and by the time the company places the order the same sponsorship was sold to another company a readjustment is possible only if the sales person has current visibility at the time of quoting as well as at the time of taking the order. Bhea’s custom modules for tracking magazines, issues, newsletters built on top of SugarCRM help track these inventory and give visibility to sales person as well as sales operations.

Ad Insertions / Traffic Management

Once an order is received ad operations have to initiate many internal activities to get the insertion at the right place and at the right time. This requires lot of coordination between ad operations and the corresponding creative contact at the customer side. And most of these activities are driven by deadlines. To ensure the creatives and other elements are received right time there should be a comprehensive work flow for tracking these activites. Bhea has developed the competency to set these deadlines seamlessly and trigger corresponding alerts and escalations. CRM for Magazine Publisher has the ability to collect these creative key contacts for each of the insertion at the time of order booking and percolate this to ad operations seamlessly.

Invoicing and Post Sale Revenue Tracking

Invoicing in Media Industry varies based on the product that is sold and the payment mechanism agreed upon. Sometimes if the ad is placed for production in a magazine issue, it should be involved at the date of release of magazine issue and for some products it should invoiced in advance. Most of the Orders may have been placed for a higher amount but the actual realization of the revenue might happen over a staggered period of time. Invoicing area should be customized to take all of these scenarios. Bhea’s expertise in implementing CRM for Magazine Publishers helps us in providing the right solution within the framework of SugarCRM.

Contact Us for analysing your needs and custom demo of CRM for Magazine Publishers.