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ramialkarmi · 6 years

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As digital media sours on Facebook, traditional TV shows like The Dodo's partnership with Animal Planet could help diversify revenue — but they're tricky to pull off

Digital media companies are looking to diversify revenue, especially as Facebook becomes an unreliable partner.

Traditional TV shows have been considered a good opportunity, however, they can be hard to actually complete.

We spoke to The Dodo's leadership about their upcoming collaboration with Animal Planet, "Dodo Heroes," with an eye toward what can get a show the green light.

The digital media world is in a twitchy mood, and the culprit is Facebook, which has been sending gradually less traffic to publishers over the last few months, even in an area that it once called the future of the platform: video.

This has led to belt-tightening around the industry and at least one death (Little Things) already. And smart publishers are looking at the projects they hoped would diversify their revenue away from a reliance on a single tech giant, and assessing when they will bear fruit.

For video publishers, one of the growth opportunities bandied about has been the development of TV series: either on linear TV or on premium streaming outlets like Netflix. But getting a TV show on the air is tough, and many get killed in various stages of development. Not every digital media outlet has had the success of Vice when it comes to actually getting shows on the air.

Nevertheless, a handful of shows from digital upstarts like BuzzFeed (Oxygen), Vox (PBS, FYI, Netflix), Ozy (PBS), and Attn: (Showtime) have beaten the odds and received the green light.

To understand what it takes to land one of these deals, and how they work, Business Insider spoke to The Dodo’s CEO Izzie Lerer and president YuJung Kim about their collaboration with Animal Planet, "Dodo Heroes," which is currently in production and whose 6-episode first season will debut June 9 at 9 p.m.

It helps to have a partner

The first big point to understand is why getting on linear TV is so attractive for digital media outlets, some of which have talked about television like it’s a dying medium.

The short answer is “money,” but a longer one is the idea of extending a brand into a premium product. In the digital video system, it’s currently very hard to make enough money to support the kind of high-cost production that can help define a brand and impress big advertisers. And while the ad dollars might not be in traditional TV forever, they are certainly there now, and a TV show gets a video company a much bigger budget.

But people don't just throw money at you to make a TV show.

“Once we could proved ourselves in short form, we could play in mid form, then longer form,” Izzie Lerer told Business Insider in an interview, explaining the way video brands like The Dodo hope to add layers.

But getting a TV show on the air is a long and arduous process, and takes a lot of capital and capabilities many digital media companies simply don’t have. That’s why it helps to have a partner in traditional TV who understands your brand and has a stake in your financial success. In The Dodo’s case, that was Discovery.

“The linear [television] conversations really came about with Group Nine, coinciding with The Dodo maturing as a company,” YuJung Kim said.

In late 2016, the Group Nine holding company was created to tie together four media brands: Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo, and Seeker (Discovery's digital network). Discovery, which owns Animal Planet and had previously invested in The Dodo, put another $100 million into Group Nine at the same time.

That financial stake in mutual success helped solidify the trust between Animal Planet and The Dodo when it came time to develop a show together, Lerer said.

“There has been a lot of trust on both sides around what we each know, a lot of willingness to bring social and digital know-how,” she continued.

Susanna Dinnage, the global president of Animal Planet, told Business Insider she was also struck by the “common purpose of the two brands.”

Pitching the data

With the trust established, Animal Planet and The Dodo could embark on the process of actually making the series.

“Our real bread and butter is telling stories where the animal is the center, making animal the protagonist, their quirks, their likes and dislikes,” Lerer said, before adding “that’s more challenging for linear” television. Not all of The Dodo's bread and butter stories would translate easily.

Lerer said that when thinking through what would work on traditional TV, the team decided to focus on stories that were more relationship-centric and human-centric, settling on "Dodo Heroes," which spotlights humans who go above and beyond to help animals.

Then they decided on potential subjects using data on what had performed well for The Dodo in short form online.

“Given that the concept came from us, they were looking for a rec from us around casting,” Lerer said. “In almost all cases we had data around the heroes we ended up featuring.”

“That was the very starting point, pulling data on those specific stories,” Kim added.

One of those stories in the upcoming season that Kim specifically pointed out centers around a vet, Derrick Campana, who makes animal prosthetics. He works a lot with dogs, but in the episode “we get to see him work with an elephant which is incredibly unique,” Kim said.

Enter a third party production company

To make the show, The Dodo and Animal Planet worked with a third-party production company.

“Animal Planet agreed on a production partner, Nomadica Films,” Lerer said. “They are out in the field shooting. We have been extremely involved every step: casting, providing shot lists, talking them through our approach, what we want it to feel like and look like.”

The use of a third-party production company is an important point, and is a common arrangement for TV shows coming from digital media companies, though some have done production in-house (like Vice).

Why use a production partner?

“Everything from equipment, to experience shooting that kind of production,” Lerer said. “We don't have a built out originals team. These shoots are all over the world they are very time intensive. We are also a really lean shop.” The Dodo currently has 63 employees.

Other industry insiders Business Insider spoke to also emphasized that a company like Nomadica was a known entity for Animal Planet, and while this would minimize risk, it could also limit the financial upside for The Dodo.

This is markedly different from many of the TV-like shows appearing on Facebook’s Watch platform, which digital media companies like The Dodo have been making entirely in-house.

“We have been able to use the people we’ve had,” with a few additional hires, Kim said of The Dodo’s Facebook Watch shows. These include "Comeback Kids: Animal Edition," which Lerer described as the “number one” show on the Watch platform.

Is it a hit?

When the show comes out this summer, it will be time to measure its success.

“I want to reach every audience with this show,” Dinnage said. “Total consumption becomes a really interesting point. Everyone living in world of linear ratings, that’s only part of a story.”

One point Kim stressed was that from an ad-sales perspective, Group Nine had made “a bundle that is pretty rare in the market, a true digital-linear package. 'Dodo Heroes' is perfect example in one product being able to bring together digital and linear,” she said.

But though both Lerer and Kim pointed to The Dodo’s moves to diversify platforms — “we are the No. 1 animal channel on YouTube” — the spectre of Facebook is still hanging over many brands that built huge followings on that platform.

“Engagement is the key word in the [Facebook algorithm] shift,” Kim said. “Content that generates engagement will rise to top … On [Facebook] Watch we have three of the top five when it comes to shares per episode.”

That sentiment is true when comparing competitors in the space, but the absolute Facebook numbers have not been kind for video views, even for video publishers with engaging videos.

The Dodo's total video views on its main Facebook page have fallen from their peak of around 1.2 billion in April 2017 to around 560 million in February 2018, according to data from CrowdTangle.

That drop is not out of step with many of The Dodo's competitors, but it does raise the question of how much having an engaging brand can help one beat against the Facebook tide. That is one reason why diversification is so important, Kim said.

"Our approach to being a distributed media company has always been about creating exceptional programming wherever audiences are — whether that's on Facebook, TV or beyond,” Kim said in response to the decreased reach of video publishers on Facebook. “It's about being diversified, and most importantly, creating engaging content that people love. Time spent on our content was at an all time high in February, and I think that's a testament to our ability to optimize content for our audience across all our platforms."

The Dodo grew from 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion monthly video views over the last year on all platforms, the company said, even with the Facebook drop.

For distributed media companies to continue to grow revenue, initiatives like The Dodo’s upcoming TV show will be important to understand where to lean in, and where to lean away. With Facebook no longer the silver bullet, we’ll see which brands that grew enormous from it can extend beyond it.

SEE ALSO: Why a Wall Street analyst says Netflix will probably end up spending more on marketing than a traditional TV network — not less

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: There's a surprising twist at the end of the 'synchronized global growth' story

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samiam03x · 7 years

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How to Manufacture Urgency to Blow through Conversion Roadblocks

We don’t need things.

We might need a six-dollar, almond milk, sea salt caramel mocha (no whip) when it gets a little chilly outside.

But we don’t need-need.

The lights are on. Roof over our head. Heating or AC blasting in the background.

That applies to most things you’re trying to sell.

Doesn’t matter if we’re talkin’ ‘bout that shiny new app you deployed or the fancy new eComm product. People don’t need it.

Which makes your life tough. How are you going to move the needle, get more subscribers, and scale revenue, when the vast majority of the people you’re speaking to have zero actual need to buy your widget?

You need urgency. Or more specifically, you need to manufacture urgency out of thin air.

Here’s how a few of the web’s top converting sites create urgency out of thin air to get visitors to finally commit once and for all.

Why Urgency Works

People don’t need your stuff. But it gets worse. Because people also resist change at the same time.

So you’ve got two problems. You need to shake people out of their inertia. And then somehow get them to act.

Thankfully, the solution’s no secret. There’s a book on it. Along with countless studies.

For example, ConversionXL explains one account where just a little bit of urgency sprinkled onto a product page lifted revenue by over 27% for Bob & Lush.

They came up with the idea to that “clarity of deliver time on a product page would push more customers to convert.”

Sound familiar? It’s what some of the best in the business, from Amazon all the way down to the QVC have gone to great lengths to employ.

So they made one relatively small tweak to their product pages.

The new variant included a little simple text box that highlighted when someone would receive their product if they ordered within a short time frame.

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Not only did revenue jump (27.1%), but the the number of purchases (9.5%) and checkout visits (10.1%) did, too.

Of course, the inclusion of this delivery date estimate wasn’t just a hunch. An epiphany. Or a ‘growth hack’ some growth hacker wrote about in their Bible to Growth Hacking on GrowthHackers.com

Instead, the hypothesis came from a place that good ideas always flow. But few rarely tend to go.

Consumer Research (AKA The Part Everyone Always Skips)

In 2012, Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour launched a ‘Groupon deal for musicians.’ (And wrote about the experience in another excellent ConversionXL case study. Yes, I’m completely ripping them off today).

He reportedly invested months and even dipped into personal savings to fund it. The boats were burned. There was no going back. It had to churn a profit.

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No need to bury the lead. He increased conversions from a mediocre-but-fine 2.5% up to an astonishing 10.8% by infusing urgency into every pore of the site.

That incredible conversion lift wasn’t the part that got me, though.

This was:

When people think of conversion optimization, they go to landing pages. They go to headlines. CTAs. Images. And other similarly miniscule details that kinda don’t move the f-ing needle.

But all of those elements (which we’ll touch in soon) are at the mercy of one giant thing: the audience.

All of the CTA tweaks in the world can’t save you from targeting the wrong audience in the first place.

That’s the critical difference Marcus understood. And acted on. (Emphasis, mine.)

“Prior to launch, I “tested” hundreds of traffic sources, from Reddit Ads, to specific music forums. I wanted to know was which traffic sources I need to prioritise during the real campaign.

I ended up with a custom Google Analytics dashboard like this, which made it clear which traffic sources delivered the most relevant traffic.”

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“Not only did I know where my customers would come from ahead of time, but I knew more about my audience, such as how guitarists were almost three times more likely to buy than drummers, and that my conversion rate was highest in the UK and Australia.”

Similarly, when ConversionXL worked with Bob & Lush initially they didn’t haphazardly start throwing stuff on a DIY landing page builder. Rather, they begun with a boring, tired, old survey.

One hundred eighteen people opted in. And many agreed that their biggest fear centered around “running out of food for their dogs.”

That’s the catalyst. The trigger.

It manifested as a purchasing roadblock based on “knowing when the food would arrive.”

So that’s what ConversionXL leveraged. You’ve already seen the updated landing page variation that was a success. Just by using simple language to entice people to buy now (instead of waiting around).

The tactic – the thing you see on the screen – isn’t the point. It’s the impulse it targets. The underlying motivation that’s already preventing people from feeling like they need your thing.

It’s no coincidence that this is the exact same strategy that one of the interwebs top converters implements.

Expedia recently announced gross revenues of $16 billion. Up 8% from online sales.

Which should come as no surprise when you see what they’re doing.

How Expedia Manufactures Urgency Out of Thin Air

Visit Expedia.com.

The homepage is fairly bare. A giant reservation form takes over almost everything above the fold.

Below that, a few of “Todays Deals” are highlighted.

So far, not much is happening. It’s not until you actually search for a trip that things start to get interesting.

Vegas sounds fun. Pool season sure beats reading another blog post like this in your pajamas.

Plug in some dates. Hit Enter. And here goes.

Whoa. Lots happening.

You see plenty of greens (good!) and reds (bad!) to help you instantly understand their meaning.

In the lower right-hand corner, multiple little callouts keep popping up, sliding in and out of the screen, emphasizing the same thing: a BUNCH of other people are looking at booking these deals right now – so they might not last long.

Then of course, the Daily Deal hits you at the top of the screen. A classic countdown timer that ticks away. My heart rate sped up. Palms sweaty. Despite not having any real interest in booking this initially.

Once again, that was no accident. As this case study featured on Behave.org (formerly WhichTestWon) indicates.

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All that was added was a countdown timer. That’s it.

They even removed a few elements, including ‘free delivery’ and ‘order now’ in order to remove extraneous distractions and focus viewers on what mattered most: that countdown timer.

The result after 50,000 viewers? An instant 8% conversion lift.

Ok. Enough boring marketing stuff. Back to Vegas.

How Expedia Uses Price Anchoring & FOMO to Make this Trip Look like a Steal

Those FOMO callouts slide in and out of view.

The countdown timer continues ticking down. And then the product attributes help you decide.

For example, scroll down a little bit until you reach Cosmo.

It’s garnered a little yellow “Top Hotel” badge. It literally screams “Wonderful!” with excellent ratings and reviews to match.

Price anchoring in full effect, with the ‘sales price’ slashed down to the new effective one.

Scarcity comes into view with the strip of text in red that highlights the number of people who also booked this hotel in the past forty eight hours. Along with when it was last booked.

So. If we’re even remotely serious. We need to move fast.

Let’s select Cosmo. Because c’mon: wraparound terraces!

You look at available rooms and are immediately met by an “Unreal Deal” that will “save you 100% on your flight.” That’s backed up by the pricing, which shows you’ll ‘owe’ $0.00 more to select it now.

Deals like that won’t last. Don’t last. Which means you should act.

Not later, but now.

How Expedia Forces You to Take Action (Now)

Words matter.

It’s not that people absorb every letter in detail. They don’t. Hell – people don’t even read. ‘Specially not online.

But the sum is greater than the parts. It’s scanned in a moment’s notice and the meaning hits home.

For example, email marketing service AWeber ran a simple copy test on their call to action.

The only change? A single word.

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AWeber added the word “Now” to their call to action. And they saw a 12% increase in paid signups with a credit card.

An online travel booking flow is no different than any other conversion flow. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about signing up for a new email marketing app or trying to go through a shopping cart checkout sequence.

The stats are remarkably the same, too. Online travel bookings see a 81% abandonment! While shopping cart abandonment averages right around 70%.

61% of those cart abandonments are because of ‘extra costs’ (including shipping, taxes, fees, etc.)

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You know how this feels. You’re super pumped about that new pair of plastic jeans (yes, that’s a thing) you just found. Except when you head over to checkout, you see that another ~30% has been tacked on due to taxes, shipping, and fees.

Guess what Expedia does, instead?

First, they ‘drop’ the price. Two cents. Literally. But it’s green and happy and there’s a check mark exclaiming “Good News.”

The other thing it says? “Book now to secure this price.”

Zooming into the pricing area on the right, you also see the savings of booking the flight and hotel together. Then, down below, you see the total price (again first – price anchoring).

And then a “Due at hotel” line item that cleverly buries all of those damn resort fees that we hate so much.

But they’re almost invisible because of how Expedia has positioned this pricing and sale.

Instead of being ‘thrown off’ the conversion scent at the moment of truth, you’re practically already packing your bags. #Humblebragging about your upcoming Vegas trip.

Conclusion

Ranchers use a cattle prod to get those big, dumb, slow moving animals to do what they want.

Whether that’s to eat, find shelter, or head to the slaughterhouse.

Consumers don’t need to do anything.

They might want lots of things. But they lack nothing. And so there’s no inherent desire to purchase your widget.

Instead, you have to create it. Manufacture it and bring it into existence.

For guidance, start with the web’s top converters. Expedia is a master at creating urgency by using countdown timers, product attributes, prince anchoring, FOMO, and a host of other psychological tactics that would make Cialdini proud.

Increasing conversions online isn’t about tricks or gimmicks or hacks. It’s about building up the value of your offering so much that people can’t help but convert.

About the Author: Brad Smith the founder of Codeless, a B2B content creation company. Frequent contributor to Kissmetrics, Unbounce, WordStream, AdEspresso, Search Engine Journal, Autopilot, and more.

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marie85marketing · 7 years