CSP E11 - Michael Bernstein - Unlocking Growth Through Strategic Partnerships

In this compelling episode, Michael Bernstein of the Atlanta Journal Constitution shares his expertise on leveraging strategic partnerships to drive customer success. He reveals how implementing a B2B partnership channel led to remarkable growth, accounting for 25% of AJC's subscription acquisitions within just six months. Through practical examples like the Dancing Goats coffee shop collaboration, Bernstein demonstrates how partnerships can unlock access to previously untapped customer segments.

Detailed Analysis

Bernstein's approach to partnership development encompasses three crucial elements: economic modeling, operational infrastructure, and marketing strategy. His insights highlight the importance of thorough preparation before launching partnership initiatives.

Key takeaways include:

1. The necessity of executive buy-in and resource allocation for successful partnership programs
2. Critical importance of operational capabilities specific to B2B partnerships
3. The value of pilot programs in testing and refining partnership models
4. The role of seamless customer experience in maintaining successful partnerships
5. The significance of cross-departmental alignment in partnership execution

The discussion emphasizes how partnerships can extend beyond traditional direct-to-consumer channels, particularly in the digital space. Bernstein's experience with the hospitality sector exemplifies how strategic partnerships can create win-win situations, benefiting both the media organization and its partners while enhancing customer value.

The success metrics shared demonstrate the tangible impact of well-executed partnership strategies on business growth. Bernstein's implementation of digital access programs and app-centric promotions shows how traditional media companies can innovate through strategic partnerships.

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Transcript

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Kevin Metzger 0:10

Hello and welcome back to the Customer Success Playbook podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Metzker, here with my co-host Roman Reba. We're on our 11th episode of this year. This is our one big question segment with Michael Bernstein from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. On Monday, Michael shared his number one tip on. Leveraging partnerships for better customer success. Be sure to catch that. If you missed it, Roman, excited to move on to this episode today and go deep in the, uh, one big question.

Roman Trebon 0:39

Yeah, Michael, before we get into our one big question, we want our audience to get to know you a little better. So. Maybe these are our three little questions. I'm not sure how we want to put this. All right, we have the one big question coming up, but here's these really hard hitting questions to get you loosened up. All right, Mike, you ready? I'm ready.

Michael Bernstein 0:55

Let's do it.

Roman Trebon 0:56

What's the number one place you'd like to visit that you've never been?

Michael Bernstein 1:00

Bucket list is, uh, African Safari. Maybe Tanzania, that would be pretty cool. Pretty awesome. Yeah, it would be awesome.

Kevin Metzger 1:07

So what's one book business or personal that you'd recommend to the audience?

Michael Bernstein 1:12

I just, uh, I'm in the middle of a really good book. It is relative to partnerships. It's by Mark. So Janet, he's, uh, he has over 20 years of experience. It's called the art of strategic partnering, dancing with elephants. And really what it does is it basically goes through and, um, the dancing with elephants refers to some of the large enterprises, uh, large accounts and, and the small companies are the mouse and how you navigate the bureaucracy and basically put in place the, um, the partnership cycle that, uh, that it goes through. It's really pretty interesting, especially to my role.

Roman Trebon 1:48

I like it. Well, we got a safari and elephants, but I'm getting a theme here. When there's a, now, now this third question, I don't know where we're going to go with this third question to tie into the theme, but all right. You got a big deadline looming. All right. Pressure's on. What is your go to comfort food?

Michael Bernstein 2:04

Oh, definitely elephants. No, I'm just kidding for a bite at a time. Right. It's a deadline. I'm going to eat quick. Right. So I've got to, I'm gonna probably just grab a slice of pizza, you know, grab a pie. A cold oven bake preferably. That's my go to. Quick and easy and, uh, comfort.

Roman Trebon 2:22

That's awesome. I love it. Nothing like a good slice of pie. All right, Michael, thanks for that. Now it's time to dive into our one big question. All right. You spoke about forming strategic partnerships on Monday. You know, typically businesses might focus solely on direct sales or marketing to drive customer success, but you know, you believe partnerships are often an untapped golden line, right? So leveraging these partnerships, why is that? And how does it tie back ultimately to customer success?

Michael Bernstein 2:50

Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is, is it increases your reach and access to a whole different type of customer. Now, when I 1st, I've been with the AJC for over a year and before I got there, they did not have a B2B channel or say partnership segment and. After, you know, laying the groundwork operationally and, um, you know, budgets and, and onboarding sequences and stuff, we were able to really get out there and basically address a whole new audience that had hadn't had exposure to an AJC ad on Facebook or a digital campaign at some sort, obviously we do have brand recognition, but ultimately. B to B segment allowed us to basically go out there and partner up with folks where we could share their database. We could share their membership base to market our services. And basically, that enables us to reach again a whole new market and segment of customers that. We had an access with a, with a DTC program. So, you know, I'll give you a, for instance here, you know, with, um, hospitality channel where we hadn't gone out there and, uh, we deliver newspapers to some, some hotels at certain points, but we never really had a digital access or app centric promotion. So this allowed us to partner up with a couple of local and pilots and programs here and address guests of of hospitality. Hotels in midtown that again, drove awareness and subscriptions for us. Those are the types of things, uh, as an example of, we're not really gonna get in front of these folks and we can leverage the advertising and marketing of our partners to, to drive that part of our business. Ultimately in six months, the B2B segment or the partnership channel has had is over. 25 percent of our overall subscription acquisition business for the year. That's a testament to the importance of fishing in a bigger pond, so to speak.

Roman Trebon 4:51

And that are for our audience listening. If you're, if you don't have a partnership channel, Michael just gave you some of the ROI right there, 25, you know, that's a big ROI in one year. Just to kind of dig in a little deeper. So you, you came in and you saw the value of partnerships when you came into the AJC. Talk to our audience a little bit about how do you go about getting a partnership program off the ground? Like what if you're if I if some of our audience is thinking about a partnership channel, they don't have something in place How do you go about maybe socializing that, talking about the value and then operationalizing it?

Michael Bernstein 5:19

Yeah, so I think, you know, first off, there's a lot of data and analytics that go into it, right? And who is our core customer and what is our objectives here? Is it to basically serve those core customers or to expand to another? Customer base in the B to B segment, and I think, you know, basically, it's it's throwing stuff against the wall. See if it sticks. But essentially, the 1st thing you got to do is get buy in from your executive and resources to go out there and market and put together some pretty aggressive. Economic models to incentivize businesses to market the product. The 1st 1 we did was with dancing goats, which is a 4 or 5 chain coffee shop in Atlanta. We went in there as a partnership and, uh, basically gave them access to. To reach all of their, all of their guests that come into the coffee house were able to access AJC through their wifi. And we developed a economic model just to test it out and see what worked. And it turned out to be pretty successful. And then we, we looked at doing other things with other entities that have large customer bases that can drive awareness and subscriptions for us. So it's building the economic model. It's building the operational model and it's building the marketing model and all those things, again, need to come together before you go out there and start pounding the pavement, so to speak.

Kevin Metzger 6:44

Yeah. It sounds like a lot of planning going into that, as you go into starting and thinking the deal, right. The next step is to start with the execution process. And do you have a playbook? Do you have a design for once you start? Executing on the deal, how, how you go through your onboarding, how you go through showing the justification, you know, showing that you're providing the ROI you estimated showing that you're the partnerships achieving the goals that you set out for.

Michael Bernstein 7:17

Yeah, so I think, um, you know, the first thing we, we need to do there is to, um, is to make sure that again, all the teams have buy in before you go out and capabilities too, because there's a lot of operational capabilities that. Are different from DTC that you need to build, you know, the ability to access the ability to do email domain access. And I think the key from a customer success standpoint is. You can't, well, you can't go out there before having all those ducks in a row to make that experience seamless for the customer, because if you have customer issues and onboarding, then it's, uh, the partnership goes south really quick, um, because they're, they're on the front lines and their customers will let them know real quick on, on if a program is, isn't working for them. So the key is really to align with the operations and marketing teams to make sure and do some testing. So that when you do go out there, it is a seamless, uh, process and that you are able to achieve the volume that you set forth, you know, in getting the buy in in the first place.

Roman Trebon 8:23

And I think I just heard a business development guy saying that we shouldn't be selling stuff that we're not capable of delivering. So I just, I thought I heard that.

Michael Bernstein 8:30

Product team and the operational team need to need to be on board and get that in writing. An email before, before you go out there and pitch it. So exactly,

Roman Trebon 8:40

exactly. Michael, thanks for explaining, um, how strategic partnerships can fuel customer success and in ways to traditional models might overlook. On Friday, you'll be back for Kevin's favorite episode of the week, right? I will wrap up this three part series by exploring how artificial intelligence can amplify these partnership strategies to create. Even better customer outcomes until next time kevin keep on playing