Selling your publication
Many founders dream of selling their media companies one day.
Let’s take a look at how audience data can help with that.
Tell buyers who is reading
Buyers will want to know who your audience is. For two reasons.
1) Your audience is a central part of what the buyer gets.
The quality of the audience determines the buyer’s ability to drive revenue.
A) If the buyer runs a media business or wants to continue running yours.
In that case, the quality of the audience defines the success of their sponsorship operations.
An audience with buying power will drive sales for sponsors. Sponsors will keep coming back.
A bad audience won’t drive results for sponsors. That will make it hard to get recurring sponsorship revenue.
B) If the buyer is a non-media company.
For example, Robinhood bought Chartr. HubSpot bought The Hustle.
Non-media companies will want to drive sales for their products. This will only work if the audience is good and aligns with the buyer’s ideal customer profile. A bad audience won’t drive sales.
2) Many publications lie about their audiences.
They claim their readers are all executives. In reality, that’s not the case.
Buyers need to protect themselves from that.
Use your audience data
Tell the buyer who your audience is.
That 72% work in the automotive industry.
That 43% are C-level or higher.
That 22% are CEOs, 17% in operations, 15% in finance.
Having this data on each reader builds trust.
It shows the acquirer a path to revenue.
Ad: If you don’t have this data yet, check out Megahit. I’ve built it to get you this data.
Examples
One of my clients at Megahit comes from an M&A background. He told me: “When we sell the media company in two years, buyers will want to know who our readers are and whether they are valuable.” It inspired their company to focus on data early on.
Another client has just started the process of selling one of their newsletters. They’re taking their audience data and showing it to potential buyers. It helps those buyers understand what they are getting.
Find potential buyers
The MoneyWise podcast recently aired an episode where the guest sold his company to his first-ever customer.
Similar to that, you can sell your company to a reader. Your audience is an asset. Use it whenever you try to sell something, even when that’s your whole company.
- Go through your subscriber list.
- Find readers at companies that could be buyers.
- Pitch them on buying the publication.
This process works for selling advertising. It can work for selling your company.
Be creative about who you pitch to.
As mentioned above, non-media companies can also be great buyers. Your publication can be great marketing for them.
Other resources
Our friends at They Got Acquired have great resources for selling your business. They also offer free consultations, and their founder, Lexi, is always super helpful. (Lexi is a big Audience Doctor fan.)
If you want more audience data, check out the section below.
Ad: Want more audience data?
Over the last two years, I’ve built Megahit, a data tool for B2B media companies.
Megahit finds your subscribers’ names, job titles, companies, locations, LinkedIn profiles, and more. All from their email addresses. (It even works for Gmails!)
Then it gives you statistics on who is reading. You can show these to potential buyers. It also helps you filter your subscribers, e.g., to find those buyers.
Check out Megahit! I’d love to give you a demo.
(This content is meant for the US market. If you process EU data, comply with the GDPR.)
