‘We found a more engaged audience’: Why Kajabi is increasing its media spending on TV now
Last fall, Kajabi dedicated 20% of its media spend for a new advertising campaign to television for the first time to boost brand awareness and test spending on the channel. The test proved fruitful in helping the brand reach new audiences and that’s why the digital entrepreneur platform is spending “just north of 60%” of its media budget on TV and streaming for its new campaign, according to Kajabi CMO Orlando Baeza.
“For a while, there was a lot of buzzworthy conversation about TV being a dying channel,” said Baeza. “The reality is that TV is anything but that. It continues to show up, deliver eyeballs and show interest. We found a more engaged audience. That coupled with what’s happening on the digital front with rising CPMs … in many cases we weighed out higher efficiencies on TV.”
Showing up more on TV and on streaming platforms is part of a brand awareness effort to get more entrepreneurs or those seeking to become entrepreneurs to know about the platform, which offers people the ability to create and monetize digital products like newsletters and online courses. Kajabi, a SaaS company founded in 2011, isn’t alone in reconsidering advertising on TV as DTC brands have added more TV to the mix and, in recent years, brands like 7-Eleven and Monster.com have returned to TV.
During the first quarter of 2021, Kajabi spent $740,540 on advertising up from $51,764 during the first quarter of 2020, according to data from Kantar. Those figures exclude advertising on social media as Kantar doesn’t track media spending on social media.
The most recent campaign, “What Will You Create,” by creative shop Snow Beach, aims to showcase various entrepreneurs like a fitness trainer or a floral arts director, among others, who use the platform to offer digital products to their audiences.
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“We want people to see themselves in people who are successful on the platform,” said Baeza. “We want to use and leverage our customers’ stories to breathe life into the software. The idea is to humanize what entrepreneurship can look like and that it can come from all cloths and walks of life.”
Turning to TV and streaming platforms to do so makes sense to brand consultant and co-founder of Metaforce Allen Adamson. “When you’re trying to get something new across, TV is still a better medium for explaining a new idea,” said Adamson, adding that doubling down on TV allows the brand to reach less digitally savvy audiences more easily. “ITV is a better vehicle for explaining new concepts or somewhat complicated ideas.”
Aside from the ability to explain the concept and introduce new audiences to the brand, the cost of TV and streaming compared to digital has become more appealing for some brands. “I’ve seen a lot of brands shift budget to TV lately,” said Nik Sharma, DTC investor and advisor and founder of Sharma Brands, adding that recent cost efficiencies with TV advertising compared to digital platforms has made it more appealing for DTC brands.
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Overall, Kajabi is aiming to be a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs and become the brand that people think of when pitching digital products, explained Baeza, adding that the company would like to be for digital products what Shopify has been for physical products selling via e-commerce.
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