The Opportunity to Target the CEO

The most powerful person in a company is the CEO. Now Semafor is sending them a newsletter.
Earlier this month, Semafor launched its invite-only newsletter, The CEO Signal, targeting the top leaders at companies generating over $500 million in revenue. While Semafor’s is free, there are plenty of other publishers generating thousands—if not tens of thousands—of dollars directly from these readers.
Take The Wall Street Journal, which has spent time going after this market. According to a story in The New York Times:
In September, The Wall Street Journal hired Alan Murray, a former chief executive of Fortune Media and author of its CEO Daily newsletter, to start the WSJ Leadership Institute. Mr. Murray said the institute would build on The Journal’s existing CEO Council, a paid membership network, and similar networks for chief financial officers, chief marketing officers and chief information officers. Those networks now have about 675 paying members.
A price has not yet been set for membership, but it is expected to be in line with the roughly $25,000 a year that members pay for the C-suite networks, a Dow Jones spokeswoman said.
With 675 paying members and a $25,000 price tag, you’re looking at a business generating nearly $17 million in top line revenue. And that’s before whatever Murray accomplishes with the expansion of the Leadership Institute.
As The New York Times shows, most of the largest business publications are chasing this audience. Fortune and WSJ have had their products for quite some time, Axios is building more $1k+ membership products, the above-mentioned Semafor is monetizing with ads and I’m sure there are plenty of others.
In many respects, this is the ultimate example of niching down because there will only ever be a single participant from any respective company. Depending on the size of your niche, you may only be talking to dozens or, if you’re lucky, hundreds of individuals.
That’s really the point. These “CEO” products aren’t meant to be large. In many respects, the very exclusive nature of them is the value proposition because it creates the ultimate “safe space” for those individuals. And as WSJ has shown, that’s worth a lot of money.
The question is how to monetize them, and there really seem to be three possibilities.
The first, which Semafor took, is to treat it primarily as a sponsorship opportunity. As the Times reported, PwC is the launch sponsor of this coverage area. Davos is going on right now, and by the time you’ve read this article, its “CEO Intelligence Advantage” event will have already taken place.
The biggest perk of this model is that it is a natural extension for predominantly ad-supported media businesses since selling exposure to CEOs is one of the easiest ways to get the “yes” from a marketer. The downside is there’s no real revenue diversification from reader revenue.
The second is to lean more aggressively into the events business and create a “retreat” of sorts. For example, you could rent out a luxury hotel in Napa Valley. It’s theoretically a desirable location, so the executive might be more likely to attend.
However, this isn’t about a full day of programming. Yes, you want to have some interactive content where the attendees can participate. The real crux is in the networking. That means you’re investing a ton of time and effort making connections, especially if folks don’t know each other.
One of the ultimate examples of this is the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference. As people have described it, this is summer camp for billionaires. There are plenty of activities, including hiking, rafting and golf, plus other ways for folks to meet each other.
In the case of Allen & Company, they don’t charge because the bank wants the participants to use them when doing deals. But it still costs thousands of dollars to be there because of the airfare and lodging proving the value obtained by being in the room.
The third is to build on number two and create a membership of sorts. Instead of just selling a one-off ticket to your exclusive retreat, build a more robust offering year-round. It may culminate in an annual retreat, but there should be additional content and opportunities that take place throughout the year.
For example, for $15,000, you get invited to the annual retreat, the chance to attend a quarterly dinner in one of four different cities, a monthly virtual discussion and exclusive content or research, which could inspire discussions at the dinners and virtual discussions. The idea is that for a single payment, the CEO gets everything they might need.
Ultimately, what you’re providing here is exclusivity and connection to others that are in a similar position. To some extent, there is some price elasticity to this. WSJ charges $25,000. I suggested $15,000 in the previous paragraph. Maybe the annual retreat is $5,000. This is one of those things that you’ll need to pressure test with your specific audience.
But if you’re operating in a niche, I can’t help but feel like there’s an opportunity here.