How are you planning to increase your linear inventory revenue in the coming year? Many things impact if you hit your sales goals. You do have control over some of these impacts, including how you price. If you’re relying on hunches to optimize pricing, you may not see the results you expect. Instead, why not use a proven methodology — yield management for broadcast sales.
Is Your Pricing Dynamic?
Setting rate cards across inventory and adjusting them according to demand factors doesn’t have to be complex. You can use data to adjust prices more consistently. Dynamic pricing provides a way to leverage that data in conjunction with demand factors. Those demand factors include the demand for media, stations, programs, digital properties and marketing solutions you provide. Audience ratings, ROI and the competitive landscape also impact it.
So, how can you take all these components and data to transform broadcast media sales?
Yield Management Enables Dynamic Pricing
Companies execute the strategy of yield management every day. You feel it when you purchase a flight, hotel, event ticket or any other product or service that prices based on demand. Every person on a flight or hotel floor may have paid different prices.
That translates to media sales as well. Your product, commercial inventory, is fixed. Once it’s gone, there’s no ability to reap revenue from it. Much of the time, you also have a fixed number of spots, so you’re not increasing inventory. You do have to hit budget, which always seems to go up.
So, you may be on a journey to find the “perfect” rate card, and that isn’t static. It all depends on the demand for that spot, fluctuating based on already-booked inventory, tolerances, overall market drivers and much more.
Pricing Will Look Different
You’re facing a lot of competition for advertising dollars. You want to meet your advertisers where they are with fair pricing. Leveraging this tactic doesn’t always mean pricing will increase; it will depend on demand for those spots. You can balance out a proposal with a long-time advertiser with high- and low-demand spots, delivering a better overall value. It will require some conversations with advertisers, and if you have contracted rates, it doesn’t need to affect them.
Marketron REV Powers Yield Management
Trying to connect all these dots may seem overwhelming, and it can be if you attempt it manually. That would involve lots of data on spreadsheets, constant rate card meetings, and possibly data scientist or analyst support. The right tools make it easy to implement and control.
Deploying the right platform informs how successful you are in implementing it. One of REV’s core competencies is yield management. We designed the system to be intuitive and customizable based on your strategy. With prebuilt rate cards or those you develop yourself, the curves adjust based on demand automatically. The advanced algorithms of the tool keep ingesting new data to deliver optimal rates to drive top-line revenue. On average, media companies see a lift of 5%.
Get More Insights on How It Works
Learn more about this strategy and why it works for media sales. Watch our on-demand webinar, Yield Management in Broadcast Sales: Why It’s a Powerful Dynamic Pricing Tool, featuring expert Adam Lang.
