Skram Media Founder/CEO Interviewed in TopTech

BY MATT KINSMAN AND BILL MICKEY — 03/03/2010 — As magazine publishers reinvent themselves, their technology demands are changing as well. Here, FOLIO: spoke with 12 different publishing executives representing a range of large consumer, b-to-b, online-only and custom publishers about which technologies are having the biggest impact on their businesses. We asked them about technologies supporting both back-end management and customer-facing products. While each has a different take, one thing is clear: sales management tools and measurement analytics are in high demand.

Mark Crowther, Founder, CEO, Skram Media

The biggest impact for Skram Media on back-end technology has been Salesforce.com. We have a custom install of Salesforce which has had a massive impact on efficiency across the board‹ad sales, production and billing. In early 2007, after we acquired Climbing Magazine, I knew we needed to invest in a CRM that could ensure the sales team spent as much time selling (and as little time administering the sale) as possible. My ad sales manager at the time, Kevin Riley, who is now associate publisher, came from a software sales background where he had used Salesforce.com. So with his input and the help of BlueWolf we developed a magazine specific custom install of Salesforce. In addition, as we¹re a Mac environment, we integrated an application from Conga to mail merge out of Salesforce to our standard IO. That cut down the IO preparation time from minutes to seconds. We also installed the echosign app into Salesforce, which allows e-signing of IOs‹immediately speeding up the signing process and also assisting with a paperless archive of the IOs to log with finance, sales and production.

We also maintain our database of climbing gyms and outdoor stores in Salesforce, and we run all our sales from our marketing to that customer base through Salesforce. As a Web-based solution, all our sales reps can log in and work from Salesforce. There is also a mobile application, so when you¹re on a road trip you can look at account history and log call notes. It’s become the spine of the company.

In terms of our Web sites and digital content, I really like the “Unity” approach of Zinio, and I say that as an example to other vendors to offer publishers total solutions. Spending time searching out solutions for different elements of a Web site, be it video or social media apps, and trying to integrate them into existing platforms is time consuming and expensive. And often the expense of integration kills the opportunity.

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