Podcast transcript:
Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:13] Hello and welcome to another episode of the "Performance, Harmony & Commercial" podcast, produced by PHCom in the "transforma bxl" studio with technical support from "The Podcast Factory Org".
Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:23] The "Performance, Harmony & Commercial" podcast is aimed at marketing and sales managers as well as company executives with commercial responsibilities.
Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:32] Every month, we share with you our best practices in finding new customers for business-to-business companies.
Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:38] You can find each episode on the PHCom point be website, P.H.C.OM and also on all good podcast platforms.
Stéphane Depaepe: [00:00:48] You can support this podcast and promote its visibility by sharing it with as many people as possible via a like, comment or share.
Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:00:55] The answering machine is always on so you can leave us a message. We'll be delighted to respond.
Stéphane Depaepe: [00:01:00] You can also book an appointment directly with Nadia or Stéphane on phcom dot be.
Nadia Ben Jelloun: [00:01:06] See you soon.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:07] Hello Philippe,
Philippe Streydio: [00:01:08] Hello Camille.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:09] We're delighted to have you on our podcast today, the PHCom podcast (Philippe Streydio: Well, thanks for having me). Let's start very simply: tell us who you are, what you do, and what you do for the future. But not only that...
Philippe Streydio: [00:01:21] But not only that. So yes, thank you for welcoming me to your studios. I'm in charge of the IPM group's regional advertising department, and we market all the IPM group's products, titles, dailies and magazines, i.e. the newspaper l'Avenir, La Libre Belgique, La Dernière heure, Magazine Moustique, the magazine Paris-Match, as well as Fun Radio, LN Radio and LN24, which are all part of the group.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:01:43] So when we talk about "régie", we're talking about marketing? Can you explain it a little better for our listeners? Because not everyone knows what a Régie des médias is.
Philippe Streydio: [00:01:50] La Régie des médias régionaux markets advertising to regional advertisers throughout Wallonia and Brussels, within its press titles. So we meet the advertising needs of our customers and prospects through all our media, whether print or digital. Because there's always a print title, but there's also a digital title, a digital platform that enables even greater interactivity with audiences and readers, and amplifies the message that advertisers and prospects want to get across.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:02:21] Can we talk about competition? Are there many competitors?
Philippe Streydio: [00:02:24] Our main competitors today are, of course, the players who publish press titles, like those we publish, but there's also a major competition we're up against, and that's the competition from the GAFAMs. So today, our world of daily newspapers and magazines has evolved considerably. In a context of constant and permanent change, we are increasingly digitalizing our content to meet the demands and needs of our advertisers and prospects, and to face up to the competition from social networks. Our DNA is really, certainly at the level of the newspaper l'Avenir, because l'Avenir has eight regional editions spread across the whole of Wallonia. We broadcast local news. Of course, l'Avenir also has a national edition, covering economic, cultural, political and tourism news. But our local editions really get to the heart of the matter. So we have a DNA of very, very close proximity. And in a way, what I like to say when I'm in contact with customers is that we are, in a way, a life-size social network, but on a human scale. In other words, we're in touch with the people, we're in touch with the players on the ground, with the people who are developing business, setting up companies, creating jobs. And I think that our range of action, our way of communicating, is even wider, and more sincere dare I say, than that which can sometimes be used through social networks.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:03:44] How has this digitalization been received? It's not easy in a press group.
Philippe Streydio: [00:03:48] We've been busy digitizing our content for several years now. And of course, for some of my colleagues who have been with the company for many years, it was a major revolution and required a great deal of support to train them and help them market their products, ensuring that they had all the elements and arguments they needed to evangelize the market on the merits of our media for communicating and advertising our advertisers. But on the whole, it went very, very well because we have this natural open-mindedness, we create a newspaper every day. Every day, a new product arrives either in bookshops or in our subscribers' mailboxes. Every day, hundreds of articles and videos are published on our news websites, so we're finally rebuilding ourselves every day. And so, for the people in our teams, for the members of our teams, it hasn't been a great difficulty to be able to adapt, quite the contrary.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:04:43] We've been talking about GAFAM, can you explain what that actually means?
Philippe Streydio: [00:04:46] So GAFAM are the big international groups: Google, Amazon, Facebook, these are the main players.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:04:53] When we talk about digitalization, we're talking about artificial intelligence. I personally feel that it's an integral part of our lives, whatever our generation, whoever we are. How are things going at the management level?
Philippe Streydio: [00:05:06] Indeed, these are tools that we use on a daily basis, and we even tend to speak of assisted intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. This is to make the use of these tools very positive. And so, yes, at the level of the advertising network, at the level of the Group's advertising networks, artificial intelligence or assisted intelligence is essential for improving the performance of our campaigns. In other words, we're able to better analyze campaign results, which means a much better return on investment for advertisers. For example, we're able to identify which visual is the most effective in terms of clicks and reader interaction, and then push these visuals to gain greater prominence on our platforms to meet the needs of our advertisers. In other words, they can be sure that a euro invested will be put to good use, and will be seen by a wide audience.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:05:57] What are the current obstacles to sales?
Philippe Streydio: [00:05:59] So, I don't know if we can really talk about a brake, but the economic situation as we know it today, the geopolitical situation, is creating a lot of uncertainty for our customers, for retailers, for entrepreneurs. And so, inevitably, the first budgets to be cut - as we're wont to say, and as your listeners will certainly confirm - the first budgets to be cut are communications budgets. So, in my opinion, it's not a good plan, it's not a good idea because, in times of crisis, in times of difficulty, it's better to continue to communicate and make yourself known to stand out from the crowd rather than turn off the tap. But fortunately, not everyone reacts like that, and we still manage to capture the attention of our customers, and continue to run great advertising campaigns with them.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:06:37] How do you currently find in-house customers?
Philippe Streydio: [00:06:40] We have a network of media consultants based geographically in Wallonia and Brussels. There are nine of them. Each has its own specific territory, and it's often said that these media advisors are the barons of their region. They need to know everything that's going on in their region, economically, culturally, socially, touristically and politically, so that they can bounce back and come up with the best possible offer for our customers, one that matches their needs and priorities as closely as possible. That's what our media advisors do every day. By comparison, the Walloon and Brussels territories are quite large. We have a medium-sized team and have called on PHCom's services to help us prospect new markets. And I have to say that we were very pleased with the way things worked out: we selected a few territories, and PHCom's work enabled us to capture the attention of advertisers we didn't yet have in our portfolio, for example.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:07:36] Before PHCom comes to your aid, your media advisors and what they have quite specific tools or practices for managing your pipeline, your follow-ups, your appointments. How are things going internally?
Philippe Streydio: [00:07:47] We have an internal CRM that gives us a good overview of our customers' history. This allows us to know what they have ordered in previous years for this or that campaign. We have a CRM in which they also track their prospecting and customer contacts. And this allows us to have a good communication strategy through our B2B marketing department. To be able to send highly targeted newsletters to certain market players, because we're developing a whole series of themed dossiers, which are editorial dossiers, but which contain advertising from our customers. These thematic folders also enable us to segment our prospects to whom we can send newsletters, to whom we can communicate, etc. And it's a big part of our income every year. And these files include, for example, a Batibouw file, a car-motorcycle Mobility file, a seniors file, education files, tourism files, housing files, a whole series of files like these that bring together a wide range of entrepreneurs and shopkeepers, and through which we manage to showcase them.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:08:44] These are big names, big files. How do you keep track of files like these over the long term?
Philippe Streydio: [00:08:51] But fortunately we have a market which, even if the geopolitical and economic situation is difficult, is quite large. The whole of Wallonia is home to a large number of businesses and retailers. And so, yeah, I think we've managed to retain a large proportion of these customers because we have this DNA of proximity, which is recognized. We also disseminate information, which is recognized for its quality! We were talking earlier about social networks, and even if we're sometimes in a schizophrenic situation, because we too, as media, use these social networks to boost our audiences and disseminate our content. But these social networks are also notorious for spreading fake news and information that is sometimes not entirely verified. Ours are verified, and that's what makes us so special in the eyes of our advertisers and customers: they come back because of this quality. They remain loyal to us because they know that every subscriber to l'Avenir - and it's important to say this too - 90% of our readers, between 90 and 95% of our l'Avenir readers, are subscribers. Who receive the newspaper in their letterbox every morning, or pick it up at the bookshop. So that (Camille de Meeûs: It's exponential, it's great) is super cool, obviously, it's super cool, yeah, yeah.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:09:59] How have sales techniques evolved in your sector?
Philippe Streydio: [00:10:02] They are constantly evolving. I wouldn't say it's every day, but it's still very regular and very frequent. And that's what's so rewarding about our job, is that we have to challenge ourselves on a regular basis to keep abreast of these new technologies, and to be able to respond as effectively as possible to our customers' needs. We also support our customers in the use of these new technologies because, let's face it, some of our customers are not necessarily aware of all these technologies and all the tools that can be made available to them to communicate with our audiences. And so we have this work of evangelization, we have this work, not of training but of information as well (Caille de Meeûs: Of accompaniment), as media advisors. Supporting our customers to clearly explain to them the best communication campaign and strategy they can implement, while at the same time trying to make things easier to understand, because we're often dealing with English-speaking terms, highly technical terms that are sometimes misunderstood, and so we also have a duty to adapt to this, and to adapt to each person we're dealing with in order to make things easier to understand. They need to understand the issues and strategies we're proposing to them.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:11:02] Today in 2025, well, being a good salesman isn't always that easy, with everything that's going on, can we say that? Maybe that's a bit of a generalization. What do you think are the essential skills a salesperson should have?
Philippe Streydio: [00:11:13] It's about being at your customer's service. First and foremost, to be at your customer's service, to listen to your customers, to understand their essential needs, so that you can respond more effectively to their requests. Because if a retailer or entrepreneur invests money in communication, it's obviously because they want to recoup their investment. So there's no point in going out and selling a product that won't be of any use to that merchant or entrepreneur. What we really need to do is listen to their needs. And if he wants to run a communication campaign for an open house, if he wants to run a communication campaign because he has an e-shop on which he wants to attract traffic, if he wants to run a communication campaign because he has a real estate project that he wants to develop and sell as many apartments within a given timeframe, one of the main characteristics is to listen to and serve his customer first and foremost. The second characteristic is to be stubborn, to never give up. And we also saw after Covid that human interaction may have been a little disrupted, so we also know that there are a lot of salespeople on the market, a lot of people who prospect and do so by phone, who do so by e-mail. I think that a presence in the field, at least as far as I'm concerned, is essential, it's primordial. Being the baron of your region means going out to meet people, listening to what's going on in the stores, hearing what's going on in the companies, keeping abreast of all this so that you can be the media advisor who meets your needs exactly.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:12:39] The human aspect is still very important. Getting out and about, meeting new people, that's one of your core values too!
Philippe Streydio: [00:12:46] It's part of our DNA. Indeed, we have this DNA of proximity, but more than anything else we have a DNA that is necessarily human because: we report information that is happening in the regions, in the towns, in the communes. And to be able to relay this information in the best possible way, to be able to transmit this information in the best possible way, we need to have these contacts, which are indeed human contacts, and fortunately so.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:13:05] Is there a business goal or ambition you'd like to share with us in the coming year? It's late 2025, and 2026 is fast approaching. Is there anything you'd like to see develop commercially?
Philippe Streydio: [00:13:18] We're right in the middle of building our budgets, aren't we? So we're actually at the end of the year, and it's a major challenge to be able to build our budgets. So what I want for next year is to be able to meet the company's needs, to build a budget that's as solid as possible, that also corresponds as closely as possible to the market situation, and to have a team that remains as it is today, super-motivated, super-committed and enthusiastic in the field. And to continue to meet the needs of our customers.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:13:44] Philippe Is what appears in the press today affordable for everyone, by the way?
Philippe Streydio: [00:13:47] There are two aspects, obviously the national advertiser aspect which covers all our editions, the whole territory. But for our regional advertisers, thanks to our numerous editions, our eight regional editions, at the level of the newspaper l'Avenir, we have the possibility of targeting regionally. And so we're really at the heart of a region, and for this particular target in a given region, we obviously have a corresponding rate. The same applies to digital advertising, where a whole range of segmentation tools can be used to broadcast digital advertising in specific areas. And so this answers one: The needs of a regional advertiser. Because someone who advertises, who has a business in Tournai for example, isn't interested in seeing his advertising in the Libramont area. What interests him is reaching his catchment area. These are the tools we've developed to really reach our advertisers' core markets.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:14:37] Why did you choose PHCom as your partner in the end?
Philippe Streydio: [00:14:41] So PHCom quickly became the obvious choice. We obviously carried out a market study before selecting PHCom. But PHCom quickly proved to be a winning choice, because when we talked to the various people we spoke to, we realized that their DNA ultimately matched ours perfectly. In other words, a local DNA, on a human scale, a medium-sized team like ours, with people who work here in the heart of our regions, who know our regions, who also know the companies and businesses. And it seemed essential to us to have this close relationship with PHCom's contacts. What I can also say is that in this relationship, well, it was a win-win relationship because we also created moments between the PHCom teams and the Régie des médias régionaux teams to be able to meet, to be able to exchange together and to create this fundamental link that enabled the success of our prospecting campaigns.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:15:27] Do you think working with PHCom has made you more productive? Did you save time?
Philippe Streydio: [00:15:34] We called in PHCom when one of our colleagues was absent for a slightly extended period. We needed a presence on the ground. We needed someone to keep prospecting. And who can bring ben the budgets we had planned for this territory. And so, by working together with PHCom, by implementing the processes we had set up, because they were great listeners, we were able to create a pitch together, we were able to develop our sales pitch, and they took it on board. And frankly, they were making contact with our prospects and customers, and this enabled us, perhaps not 100%, to capture the budget we had defined upstream for our absent colleague, but in any case not to lose all this work capacity. So we were very pleased with the way things went.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:16:14] Right now, we're not working together anymore, but what would make you re-sign with a company that specializes in business development?
Philippe Streydio: [00:16:22] So today we no longer work together, but it's a question of opportunity. It's not a case of "We don't work with anyone else", because we believe that PHCom really is the player, the point of reference, and when the need arises, we'll more than likely call on PHCom again. Today, we're in a situation where the need for external prospecting isn't really felt, is it? Our team is complete and operational on the market, but the quality of what we've been able to implement with PHCom will probably lead us to continue working together.
Camille de Meeûs: [00:16:52] Thank you Philippe for this exchange and all the best for the future.
Philippe Streydio: [00:16:56] Thank you very much Camille. I wish you all the best.
