Bonus Session:
Driving Digital Sales

Join a lively, interactive discussion at 10 a.m. on Monday morning, Feb. 22 at the Mega-Conference, as five digital sales experts share best practices and lessons learned in growing digital revenue, covering topics from structure, acquisition and retention approaches, and how to find and keep the best digital sales people.

Moderated by Marty Goodnight of InboundStar, this session also will include: Patrick Acton, digital sales director, Austin (Texas) American-Statesman; Sheree Brockway, director of digital and strategic sales, The McClatchy Co. and Fort Worth Star-Telegram; Dale Darling, vice president of sales, Deseret Digital Media; and Jay Horton, principal consultant, Digital Who.

Goodnight said: "As an experienced sales leader, I look forward to surfacing and exploring the critical topics from our digital experts that offer immediate and long-term strategic ideation for newspaper executives. Expect a lively and thought-provoking session."

After leading many client acquisition initiatives in small, mid and large markets, Brockway said a very clear formula for success emerged.  She said, "During this session, I will share key strategies used to successfully acquire and retain new digital advertisers."

Our Presenters:

Marty Goodnight founded InboundStar after 17 years as a top performing advertising executive for Knight Ridder, McClatchy and Gannett.

InboundStar is a Certified HubSpot Partner Agency and Goodnight combines his experience in traditional media with an inbound marketing methodology to help local sites achieve sales goals. Inbound marketing can grow new digital subscribers, upsell digital solutions to current accounts and also drive new business leads for their sales teams.

One important solution that Goodnight offers is an affordable, turn-key service that transforms static, rate-driven Advertise with Us links into customer-facing lead generation tools that require minimal internal resources and no additional payroll.

Patrick Acton has spent the last five years with Cox Media Group at its television and newspaper properties in San Francisco and Austin.  He currently is the digital sales director at the Austin American-Statesman. His previous ad agency experience at GDS&M, RPA and Foote Cone & Belding uniquely positioned him for the recent local digital media landscape transformation, where publishers are now delivering a wide range of digital marketing services.

Sheree Brockway has more than 20 years experience transforming digital sales teams and producing digital sales results. Through the early years as director of digital sales for VIACOM Television to her current role as director of digital and strategic sales for The McClatchy Company / Fort Worth Star-Telegram, she has built digital sales structures, product integrations and processes along with training and systems to support digital transformation. 

As general sales and development manager for McClatchy's corporate digital revenue team, she successfully developed strategic initiatives in the area of client acquisition and retention across McClatchy's 28 markets, including vendor alignment, staff training and preparation, sales execution and retention.  In addition, Brockway incubated and launched McClatchy's SMB digital pure-play offering, impressLocal, and has successfully grown the program across all markets.  She is an accomplished trainer and speaker who has educated thousands of business owners and numerous sales teams through local digital marketing workshops and seminars.

Dale Z. Darling is Deseret Digital Media's "rainmaker." DZD is a convert from the TV broadcasting industry (22 years) to the digital marketing revolution. He is a talented sales professional who has served DDM for the past six years. Along with a great team and DDM leaders, Darling has grown DDM's annual digital advertising revenue by 15x since 2009. He spends much of his free time working for his church and other charitable organizations that are open to his direct style and leadership. Darling is a runner, skier, adventure bike enthusiast and a frustrated golfer.

Jay Horton is wired to help businesses with their development of strategy, designed exclusively to their resources and capabilities, with a path to execution and realization of organizational goals.

His past roles have included serving as the director of digital sales for the Newspaper Division of Scripps. In that role, Horton was responsible for the monetization of the Scripps newspaper audiences through all digital platforms, as well as the extensive agency services that Scripps provides. He is a 15-year veteran from the front lines of digital sales, product and platform development for newspapers, working also with Knight-Ridder and Gannett. He started his career with a small marketing agency, and has also held roles in product management and as a site director.

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