13 questions every publisher should ask a potential tech partner

Choosing a new technological service provider is no easy feat for any employee in the media industry. From third-party tools that extend the reach of your content to tools that offer state-of-the-art analytics, there are countless forms of helpful technology that could, theoretically, help your company grow in revenue and success.

“Though direct ROI is an important consideration, there are a lot of activities that are crucial to the health of a media organization that may not be direct revenue drivers, but that generate value that indirectly yields revenue,” states a recent report by Publishing Executive, a company that provides publishers with industry insights. “Efforts related to content creation, management, and distribution, user experience, and audience engagement deliver value to publishers’ products, if not always immediate revenue.”

With so many potential tech partners to sift through — many of which offer similar tools, with the most minute differences — how can you possibly make a proper decision in the limited amount of time that you can spare?

In Publishing Executive’s new report, data suggests that one of the main challenges publishers face when selecting new technology is that they don’t have enough time or resources to actually go through the product-selection process in depth. The publication suggests that the “solution may be to build more of a structured evaluation process for new tech in order to streamline and accelerate awareness, evaluation, and decision-making.”

To help save you time and guide you down the path to success, we’ve rounded up the key questions you should be asking a potential tech partner before you go ahead and seal the deal.

One of the first steps to purchasing software for your company should involve digging into exactly how much you can expect to get out of it. Whether that means 3x the revenue, number of members or any other metric will depend largely on what your business is trying to achieve.

Odds are, a vendor will ask you about your KPIs and reader revenue strategy to find out how they can best answer your question. So if you’re going to meet with a tech vendor, make sure to have a basic understanding of where your business stands, and where it plans to go.

A successful tech partner also needs to be able to provide you with enough data from the tool so that you can accurately measure its profitability. If you don’t have a way to measure their tools’ success, how can you know whether or not your benefiting from it?  

It’s 2019, and that means if your platform isn’t completely responsive to suit any device, your users’ experience is going to suffer.

According to Pew Research Center, out of the Earth’s 7.53 billion residents, around 5 billion of them own a smartphone. So before you sign on with any tech partner, ensure their system can be seamlessly integrated with your website, and is friendly to all available operating systems and devices.

After all, the last thing you want to do is turn away all the visitors who choose to access your platform via mobile device.

An industry expert on The Drum explains that “consistency is key in building familiarity with your customers, which leads to understanding and trust. Customers will not trust a brand that offers a fragmented brand experience.”

Something as simple as changing the font type and color on any integration or embedded tool so it adheres to your brand’s design guidelines can make a world of difference to your users.  

We get it, every single software company is just dying to improve your user’s experience, and help push them to subscribe to your publication. But do you have a good understanding of how their tools work and influence the visitor’s journey to subscribe?

Before you jump the gun, be sure to investigate the direct impact any new tech will have on your users’ journey. If your vendor can help you better understand how they can boost your users’ engagement and subscriptions, it might be worth testing out.

Think beyond the cost of a product and have the vendor outline exactly what it will take to integrate and implement it on your owned and operated properties.

“Time – not budget —  is #1 obstacle to tech adoption: Publishers are price conscious, but price is not the top concern when making a technology investment,” explains Publishing Executive.

Ensure you have a thorough understanding of what you need to do on your end for the setup process, and how long it will take to implement the tool, from proposal to launch. 

When you sign on with a tech partner, they will most definitely run system updates from time to time so they can improve your experience with their software.

While regular updates shouldn’t be cause for worry, you do want to make sure they have an effective process in place to support you should you run into any issues or bugs. Plus, check to see if the system updates would be applied to your company free of charge or at an additional cost.

Fun fact: Often times, companies will throw a 10% price increase at the time of your contract’s renewal to cover updates. So remember to ask about it ahead of time so there are no surprises along the way.

Each software provider will have its own unique support services. At Viafoura, for instance, we offer data analysis services on top of our standard tools to help our partners draw insights from first-party data.

If you require a product and a specific service or guidance, it’s better to kill two birds with one stone by picking a single service provider that can appease all of your product-related needs.

The best business models of a tech partner are geared towards growing as your organization grows.

These types of vendors are typically able to scale their offerings to your organization’s size.

This one’s an obvious one, but still can’t be stressed enough. The best tech partners know why they’re the best, and should, therefore, be more than able to communicate what sets them apart from everyone else clearly and concisely.

In a publisher’s world, audience data equals revenue. The more data you can pull from your audience, the more conversion-related insights you’ll be able to take away and use to improve your conversion strategy.

Check in with your vendor to determine whether or not they can give you valuable audience data as your community interacts with their tech on a regular basis.

If you’re seriously considering signing with a tech publisher, don’t be afraid to request their client references. Book a short 10 or 15-minute call with their references to discuss what the client’s experience has been like in working with the vendor, and how their business has benefited from their services.

If you feel like a client is no longer interested in the service, it may be a red flag. It’s also a great way to find out any implementation challenges that a vendor may not be completely honest about.

When it comes to technology that involves user interaction, moderation is a must-have piece of the solution. Without it, you can expect trolls and toxic posts to destroy the quality and safe environment of your platform.

Ask the vendor you’re chatting with about what kind of moderation technology they’re leveraging, if any, to give your users the best experience they can possibly have.

There is a direct relationship between your users and your revenue. A better user experience encourages users to return to your platform, interact more with your content and, eventually, subscribe. Which is why any front-end tech tools you invest in need to provide your users with a flawless and intuitive experience.

If you’re short on time, this checklist is a quick way for you to get started in the product-evaluation process. You’re welcome.