Farm Journal is the leading provider of agricultural content in the United States. With its continued rapid growth, the standardization and simplification of its digital operations quickly became a necessity. Through Indigo Trigger, a company that specializes in consolidating technology for media companies, Farm Journal began an evaluation of a number of different Lead-to-Cash platforms and ultimately selected the solution that would transfer their entire eco-system: Naviga Ad.
The Challenge
With Farm Journal’s continued rapid growth, the standardization and simplification of its digital operations quickly became a necessity. A stilted system of manual data entry over countless excel sheets, often kept on individual hard drives, was creating duplicative work that hindered their digital advancement.
As they continued to expand, Farm Journal added new systems and vendors, however these tools were often isolated from each other. Courtney Yuskis, Farm Journal’s VP of Digital Operations, was focused on addressing these inefficiencies. “We realized that none of our systems talked to each other,” Yuskis explains, “Everything was being tracked manually by spreadsheets, and that causes pain, frustration, and delays.”
Hear Indigo Trigger's Founder & CEO, Christopher Prinos, and Farm Journal's Courtney Yuskis talk about tech stack planning. Hosted by Tom Cintorino, Principal at The Next Chapter Consulting.
Additionally, Farm Journal did not have an integrated CRM, which meant they had no automated sales funnel or ability to forecast ad demand.
These pain points were magnified throughout the company in ways that resulted in inefficiency, unaccountability, and waste. Many digital operations were outsourced and there were not clear SOPs. Something had to change, so Farm Journal turned to Indigo Trigger, a
company that specializes in consolidating technology for media companies. Through Indigo Trigger, Farm Journal began an evaluation of a number of different Lead-to-Cash platforms and ultimately selected the solution that would transfer their entire eco-system: Naviga Ad.
"The more standardization and simplification we can bring to the entire company, the more efficient, profitable and client centric we will be." Courtney Yuskis, SVP, Enterprise Solutions - Farm Journal
Farm Journal's Strategic Goals
Farm Journal was in need of a solution that would improve integration and transparency across the company. They were seeking a solution that would enable them to end reliance on
outsourcing for digital operations, improve automation, streamline operations, integrate with legacy systems, and simplify the overall tech stack. “The more standardization and simplification we can bring to the entire company,” explains Yuskis, “the more efficient, profitable, and client-centric we will be.”
The Naviga Decision
After a system evaluation of 3 different platforms, the Farm Journal team selected Naviga Ad because it offered a full lead-to-cash solution that would align the entire operation with one system of record. Yuskis saw how the end-to-end solution would make sense for a company like Farm Journal -- the Naviga Ad platform would bridge the gap their disparate systems had created. “Having a demonstration of how the platform would actually address Farm Journal’s specific needs sent Naviga straight to the top of the list” says Yuskis.
Results
“This is an entirely different way for us to run our business,” says Yuskis, and it’s helping solve the digital operations problems that were once “completely manual.” Naviga is now the primary platform for sales tracking, pipeline development, order entry, and billing for all of Farm Journal’s titles. It’s the epicenter for the entire revenue funnel. Many of the tools it offers weren’t available in the tech stack Farm Journal had in place before. On launch, the new CRM identified a funnel of 531 known sales opportunities — Farm Journal’s old system didn’t have a funnel, let alone the ability to surface new sales opportunities from the CRM.
“It’s been pretty phenomenal to look back at everything [from the old tech stack] we’ve been able to reallocate, sunset, or bring in-house,” says Yuskis. “We’ve deprecated — I’m not exaggerating — hundreds of spreadsheets.”
Now, Farm Journal has the systems in place to support functions that were happening ad-hoc before, including:
Multi-platform inventory management
Pipeline development
GAM integration for more efficient order entry
Tracking profitability
Developing new ad programs and understanding profitability before they are sold
"The new CRM immediately identified a funnel of 531 previously unknown sales opportunities." Courtney Yuskis, SVP, Enterprise Solutions - Farm Journal
Most importantly, Naviga is helping Farm Journal overcome institutional inertia and embrace digital transformation. “Now you are breaking habits, you are changing process, and, ultimately, we’re using this to change our entire culture,” says Yuskis. And changing culture is what the new age of digital publishing is really about.
About Farm Journal
Farm Journal is the nation’s leading business information and media company serving the agricultural market. Started 145 years ago with the preeminent Farm Journal magazine, the company serves the row crop, livestock, produce and retail sectors through branded websites, eNewsletters and phone apps; business magazines; live events including conferences, seminars and tradeshows; nationally broadcasted television and radio programs; a robust mobile-text-marketing business; and an array of data-driven, paid information products.
Farm Journal also is the majority shareholder of the online equipment marketplace, Machinery Pete LLC. In 2010, the company established the non-profit, public charity, Farm Journal Foundation, dedicated to sustaining agriculture’s ability to meet the vital needs of a growing population through education and empowerment. Visit them online at www.farmjournal.com.
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