Month: April 2023

Publishers’ events businesses have been a bright spot in an otherwise grim economic climate. While trade publishers and consumer publishers have different approaches to how events fit in their portfolios, both are benefiting from advertisers wanting face-to-face impressions with prospective customers.

VentureBeat’s total revenue increased by 50% year over year from 2021 to 2022. And despite having an events business for more than 15 years, the company’s events revenue increased by about 100% during that same time period, said Gina Joseph, the company’s newly appointed chief strategy officer, who was promoted last month, though she did not provide exact figures.

In Joseph’s five years at VentureBeat, she implemented VB Lab, a structure for how the company’s sales team custom would build campaigns for each individual advertiser. During the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, she discussed how VB Lab’s impacted VentureBeat’s bottom line in the four-and-a-half years since its launch, as well as how her appointment to CSO marks DE&I history in the publishing industry.

Below are highlights from the conversation, which have been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Giving advertisers a realistic understanding of event marketing 

We saw about [100%] growth in events sponsorships [year over year] and that’s also partially because we added more events to the calendar. And that was in response to the demand. So we said, “Wow, there’s a lot of demand for our content, how can we keep the engagement going?” And so that’s actually one of the things that I’ve also encouraged our partners is, don’t plan to just make a big splash at a big event. You have to think about your go-to market strategy leading up to the event, after the event [and] how you’re really engaging with the community. It only goes so far if you’re a headline sponsor for a big event and then you kind of disappear. Authenticity is going to be even more important.

Revenue breakdown

Events is about 50% of our revenue and that has stayed steady. We continue to see that and I do see a bit more growth on the digital side, but because when we do bring in those custom event sponsorships, which can range — our event sponsorships can range from $35,000 to $1.5 million. And that is really reflective of our process of how we’re going to put together the right partnership opportunity.

And then the other 50% [of our revenue] is all things digital to support thought leadership, lead [generation] and awareness goals. Almost every event sponsorship has some component of digital tied into it.

Centering diversity and inclusion in events and leadership 

Given the industry we’re in, media, where we’re creating content and we’re influencing business leaders and informing how they make decisions, every media company becomes even more responsible and has a bigger responsibility to increase their inclusivity so that you’re not biased in your content.

When you make decisions as a leadership team… I look at everyone on my team as a leader. They’re all a leader in their regard… they’re leading their initiatives. But when you make a decision, that’s why inclusivity becomes even much more important, because your decision is only going to be based off of what you know. And I always like to build a team where everyone around me knows more than me and is smarter than me so that we can work together to make the right decision and move forward.

And I will say that sometimes you don’t have the resources to hire the way you want to… but what you can do is think about what are other ways that you could support this. One of the things we’re doing, for instance, for our events is being really mindful that at least 50% of our speakers represent [people from diverse backgrounds] and/or are women.

And why not 80% to 90%? Sometimes it’s hard to do because if we have an event on AI, and there’s only so many women who have been promoted in leadership positions in the tech world and you don’t have a lot to work with, it’s like a trickle effect. But that doesn’t mean that you stop and you have excuses. You have to think about what you can do, how you can contribute to it, whether it’s your content, your events, your decisions, or using your platform to support other organizations.

“It’s still a drop in the bucket. If you look at all the different software everyone’s using, they are expensive, but they are the cost of business — you pay for Shopify Plus compared to standard Shopify,” said Luminosity head Alex Gonzalez. “If there’s a 1% chance that our account is going to be shadowbanned or have some sort of negative impact that may be irreversible, that risk was not worth it. If you’re willing to risk a multi-million dollar business over 60 grand, that’s just not a smart bet.”

Esports orgs often rely on their social following to pitch themselves to prospective brand partners. Twitter owner Elon Musk has stated that only paid Twitter subscribers will be promoted on the platform’s “For You” feed beginning April 15, and the engagement metrics of unverified orgs are likely to suffer as a result. 

“For gaming, in most countries, Twitter is the number one social platform — so for sponsorships, Twitter is always bundled into that as a package,” said Matthew Woods, CEO of marketing agency AFK. “I think that’s why people see it as a necessity. If their content isn’t getting out there, then it devalues the following they’ve built.”

Luminosity is not the only esports organization to have bought into paid verification already. SoaR Gaming is paying the fee too, and G2 Esports CEO Alban Dechelotte told Digiday that his org had already offered to pay for Twitter Blue for creators on its roster, although G2 is “still evaluating” whether it will buy into verification on an organizational level. 

“I think most teams will end up doing it,” Gonzalez said.

At the moment, all forms of media are somewhat reliant on Twitter, and esports is far from unique in that regard. To some extent, some esports orgs are simply leaning into Twitter out of inertia, or a need to double down on the time and money they’ve already invested into the platform. But while major media organizations such as the New York Times, Washington Post and Buzzfeed have publicly stated their plans to not pay for Twitter Blue, esports companies have gone the opposite way.

One explanation for the esports community’s embrace of paid verification is simply that Twitter is the closest thing to a community hub in the space. But esports creators and orgs stand to benefit more from the changed Twitter verification policies than other brands in digital media and entertainment. In esports, impersonation is rampant — but the majority of influencers work under the auspices of larger orgs such as Luminosity or SoaR. By buying into organizational verification, teams gain the option to place their logos next to their creators’ check marks, making it explicitly clear who is or is not part of the organization.

“Overall, I think it’s worth it — and not for all the features that they’re giving,” said SoaR Gaming evp and co-owner Mustafa “Crudes” Aijaz. “It’s just worth it for the affiliation portion of this.”

In spite of the esports industry’s generally warm reception to Twitter Blue, not all prominent esports orgs are convinced about the current value of verification. Misfits, for example, informed Digiday that it would not be subscribing to verification for organizations — although it is still evaluating the policy. 

But the esports community’s embrace of paid verification is not limited to esports orgs; it is already spreading to all kinds of companies in the space, from competitive teams to media operations like Dexerto. When it comes to verification, the esports industry is willing to pay to play.

“The decision was an easy one for us to make,” said Dexerto co-owner Mike Kent. “We have a long-standing business partnership with Twitter, and it’s where the gaming and influencer audience is.”