“Non-core revenue streams often have a higher profit margin”: FT Strategies’ Joanna Levesque
Earlier this year, Joanna Levesque joined FT Strategies as Managing Director, bringing with her over 25 years of experience at the sharp end of FMCG, telecoms, financial services, media and even the arts.
Joanna’s extensive multi-sector experience gives her a well-rounded overview of how media fits within today’s business landscape, whilst her career focus on customer strategies (at Accenture she led the customer strategy practice for eight years) gives her deeper insights into how media businesses can better serve their readers.
At Revenue Europe in just under two weeks’ time (tickets here), Joanna will give a talk entitled, ‘Beyond Tradition: How progressive publishers craft diversified, balanced revenue models’. In advance of her appearance, we asked Joanna to briefly introduce herself and outline her current thoughts on a rapidly evolving media landscape.
Diversified Revenue Streams
Not surprisingly, after 21 years at Accenture, where she led the customer strategy practice to double digit growth, Joanna says she is “passionate about organic customer or audience-led growth. I have spent my career working with a variety of organisations across a range of industries to deliver profitable growth.”
When asked whether a mix of diversified revenue streams was key to long term sustainable growth, her response was measured. “I would agree, but I would also say that this isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon for media organisations. I was struck listening to Liz Moseley (Managing Director of Good Housekeeping) at our recent event talking about how Good Housekeeping’s financial success has been underpinned by a 95-year-old affiliate and product testing business – Good Housekeeping Institute.
“Although giant warehouses of cleaning products may not be the first thing you associate with media organisations, non-core revenue streams often have a higher profit margin and more room for growth.”
Joanna singles out a whitepaper on revenue diversification published by FT Strategies as underlining her point, “In our whitepaper, there is a relevant extract worth sharing: By transitioning away from a single audience segment or single product, news organisations can mitigate the risk associated with “revenue concentration”, a situation where a significant portion of a company’s revenue comes from a limited number of customers or a single product line.”
She adds that in an FT Strategies’ study based on data from 400+ publishers, “News organisations with four significant revenue streams (of 15%+) had higher profit margins and better overall sustainability scores.”
Time Out: Rediscovering cities
When it came to choosing a media organisation that is particularly impressing her, Joanna selected Time Out. “They faced an existential crisis in the 2010s where the decline of print media was forcing brands to transform digitally,” she explains. “Rather than prioritising digital transformation, in 2014 Time Out branched into completely new product territory by launching its first-ever Time Out Market in Lisbon in the historical Mercado da Ribeira.
“Time Out described the move as a ‘physical representation of Time Out, bringing the best of the city’s restaurants, bars and cultural experiences together under one roof, and pointing the way forward for a new era of expert curation’. By 2019, it had opened in five new locations across North America. In an incredible turnaround, revenues from the markets outgrew its historical print product.”
One swipe at a time: Gen Z & Gen Alpha
When asked what conversations she was keen to have with her fellow participants in Berlin, Joanna didn’t hesitate: “I am interested in hearing about other attendees’ challenges surrounding revenue diversification, but I am also interested in how they are thinking about attracting younger audiences.
She added, “Attracting younger audiences is a challenge that we are currently working on with a number of clients.”
You can meet Joanna as well as your peers tasked with monetising media at the Revenue Europe summit in Berlin on 1st October. Find more information and sign up here. See you there!
