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![]() SheKnowsMedia is the No. 1 women’s lifestyle digital media company. In April its properties racked up nearly 81 million unique visitors per month and 162 million social media fans and followers, according to ComScore Media Metrix. Key to the company’s success: Samantha Skey, chief revenue and marketing officer. Here, she spoke with me about her dual role, penchant for startups, the company’s new #Femvertising awards for pro-female advertising excellence, and goals for the business. CMO.com: Tell us about the SheKnowsMedia—its mission and brands. We have three major brands: BlogHer.com; StyleCaster Media Group, which consists of BeautyHigh.com and DailyMakeover; and SheKnowsMedia, our flagship. StyleCaster is our edgy, Millennial-targeted brand. SheKnows is the mom site targeting women who are 25 to 49, many of whom have kids. Our biggest content assets there are focused on parenting, food, beauty, home, health, and entertainment. Then we have 2,000 bloggers on BlogHer, which we’re relaunching as Momentum this summer. Momentum will serve as the bridge between all of our assets–it’s for content creators to make and share content with any of our sites. CMO.com: What insights can you share about marketing to Millennial women? What are you doing to result in such impressive traffic? Secondly, our focus on “smart service” has helped to build relevance with the Millennial audience. We try to provide true utility throughout our platforms. Our increased focus on content creation tools has made our products more useful. Finally, Millennials care about social impact. Our commitment to “women inspiring women” resonates with Millennials as content creators, consumers, and employees. CMO.com: You have a dual role—why do you have it and how does it work? Two years ago, as I began brainstorming with our CEO, Philippe Guelton, who came from Thrillist and Hachette, we started to envision a platform of experts. They are women who want to make and share content, who have some degree of expertise, but want editorial mentorship. We were designing the product as we were taking it to market. Because we’re in the process of producing our differentiation and unique value proposition almost at the same time as we’re taking it to market, the two areas of focus become inherently intertwined. The dual role is efficient when you’re designing new products and services for a market while you’re simultaneously trying to monetize them—I don’t want to sell something that doesn’t work for the user. In digital, it’s pretty conspicuous if you’re producing sponsorships, ad packages, or ad products that don’t engage the user. The interests within digital of the user and the advertiser are inherently aligned. If the experience sucks for the user, it’s not going to produce results for the advertiser. We melded the two positions at first organically and then formally as we continue on the path of producing the largest place for women to make and share lifestyle content on the Web. CMO.com: What do you like best about the combination of roles? As CRO and CMO, I’m responsible for the brand, the audience, and the revenue simultaneously. It eliminates conflict. It makes us focus on the user and what works for the user. It’s a pretty natural pairing of roles. It’s advantageous for advertisers because we’re not taking packages to advertisers that don’t work for consumers. There’s a dual accountability on me. CMO.om: What makes SheKnowsMedia unique among all the other content for women that’s out there? CMO.com: Can you elaborate on how you integrate advertising—banners, native, etc.? We have the largest organized network of lifestyle bloggers, and social content producers. We bring this influence to bear for advertisers. To ensure authentic advocacy, we insist on matching brands to the influencers who love them. This relevance mapping engenders true brand endorsement at scale. CMO.com: Different advertisers want different things. What are advertisers looking for from SheKnowsMedia in terms of measuring ad effectiveness? CMO.com: SheKnowsMedia recently launched the #Femvertising Awards. What is the goal there? In our SheKnows Media Femvertising Survey [in September 2014], we found that 52% of women bought a product because they liked the way the brand and its advertising portrays females. … Campaigns like Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign, the now 10-year-old Real Beauty Campaign by Dove, as well as the Lean In and 3% Conference movements are all contributing to a profound shift in the way that advertisers market to women. We invited brands and agencies of all sizes and across all industries to submit entries. The public will be able to vote on their favorite pro-female campaigns from among the finalists starting May 27. Winners will be announced at the #Blogher15: Experts Among Us conference [in New York City, July 16-18]. CMO.com: What are your top three priorities in the next year to 18 months? |
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