Media in Focus - Agenda

Your Name: Blake Hutchison
Name of Media: Agenda (TheAgendaDaily.com)
Target Market: 25-35 year old male and female lifestyle oriented professionals
Launched: March 2010
Staff: 10 (includes contractors and freelance trend-spotters)

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What is Agenda?

Agenda is a once daily, always free email magazine. Each day we handpick and deliver recommendations for the best new restaurants, nightlife and things to do. We also offer Fashion & Travel insights and occasional local business offers and deals.

Tell us how & why Agenda started?

There's really 3 reasons:

1.  I personally used equivalent daily email product when living in the US. Each day DailyCandy, Thrillist and UrbanDaddy would serve up the very best local content (in my case San Francisco). They offered a simple and practical solution for uncovering the very best about your city.
2. The model had been proven. Short-form content delivered via daily email to an engaged lifestyle oriented customer base offers a more targeted advertising opportunity. Advertisers can target by edition, category and specific demographics. This is a highly affluent and responsive lifestyle consumer.
3. When looking at lifestyle product in Australia they were restricted to online mags, blogs or narrowly focused newsletters. Agenda delivers only one recommendation daily via email and targets both male and female influencers.  Email is a platable way for this time-poor audience to discover new things.

 
Can you outline The Agenda Daily's current market position and your forward plans?

Agenda is only 5-months old and we've already established a loyal following with 5000 daily subscribers. We'll launch in other markets across the region shortly.
-What benefits do you offer advertisers? Advertisers can purchase on-email display ads, partner listings (short-form advertorial) or sponsored / co-branded issues of Agenda. We can segment our database by edition, category and demographic attributes.

What is the best & worst thing about being an independent media owner?

The best thing: Flexibility. The worst thing: resource constraint.  

Tell us about your advertising sales structure? (who sells your ads, your sales team, client base etc)

We're only now sorting out this structure. We are and will continue to be a direct sales force.

What are some things you have learned when dealing with advertisers?

Help them make decisions and be flexible - be willing to try things that others won't. Assist them to get the very best out of your platform and customer...obviously. Today we have a small but strong loyal following - we know what these customers will respond to so we make sure that the solutions we recommend are suited to their goals, are measurable and actionable.

What is some advice you would offer to anyone starting a new commercial media business?

Ask yourself a few questions: Would somebody else help you fund this business? Can you scale quickly? Do you already have the skill-set to execute? Is your definition of a customer actually likely to become one - ask them?

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