Cost-Cutting Techniques for Media Companies

𝗟𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆... ...because if you're in FP&A, you've definitely sat in one of those meetings… “Guys… we need to cut costs.” Everyone goes silent and all heads swivel to finance. lol. And then you instinctively open Excel to look busy 😩 A while back, a company I worked with decided to launch a "cost reduction sprint." The goal? Shave ₦100M off the P&L in 60 days. The first move? Freeze team lunches, and slash staff welfare. But guess what was untouched? >> A ₦40M/month logistics arrangement that hadn’t been renegotiated in 18 months. >> A bloated software stack with 10+ overlapping tools. Yes, costs came down. But so did morale, productivity, and eventually, revenue. Don't be like that. Let me show you how to approach cost reviews smartly: 1. Start with the big buckets: Don't waste energy arguing over lunch budgets. Zoom out. Where are the real levers? Usually, 3–5 cost lines move the needle: logistics, payroll, marketing, operations. Focus there first. It’s where meaningful efficiency lives. 2. Break down into fixed vs. variable costs and review performance: >> Fixed costs (rent, salaries) require structural decisions: renegotiation, process reengineering, automation, etc. >> Variable costs (shipping, commissions, raw materials) give more flexibility for short-term gains. Plot costs vs. revenue: do they scale appropriately? 3. Do a zero-based review (where needed): Zero-based budgeting isn’t just for budgets. Ask: “If we had to build this cost line from scratch, would we spend this much? Why?”. It's tough work but worthwhile, and especially useful for subscriptions & software, marketing expenses, consulting and third party vendors. 4. Evaluate vendor spend: Vendor lines hide shocking amounts of inefficiency. I once found a team paying 3x market rate for routine services because “we’ve always used them.” Ruthlessly benchmark rates. Consolidate where possible. Kill redundancy. 5. Headcount & Payroll: Headcount is usually the biggest cost but it’s not the first to attack. Before suggesting layoffs: >>Fix team structure >> Eliminate manual tasks >> Automate where possible >> Cross-train before hiring Layoffs are sometimes necessary, but they should never be the default. 6. Introduce procurement & expense discipline: This doesn’t mean burying everyone in red tape. Just ensure spending decisions are intentional. Clear approval flows. Visibility. Pre-approvals for big ticket items. 7. Simulate cost impact scenarios: “What happens if we cut travel by 40%?” “What if we renegotiate rent in 3 locations?” Data wins debates. Always model before recommending. 8. Tie every cost to a business goal. For every cost line, ask: “What outcome are we driving with this?” No clear answer? That’s a red flag. Recommend a reduction or a reallocation. Bottom line: Cutting costs is reactive. Optimizing costs is strategic. The real win in FP&A is helping the business do more with less, without ruining the system. #FPATuesday

CMO: Our tariff hedge isn't just cutting costs. It's building a creator community. CFO: You lost me at "community." CMO: Hear me out. We're paying a disintegration tax. CFO: A what now? CMO: We're paying for influencer seeding, UGC ads, and whitelisting. All separate agencies, separate efforts, and expensive. CFO: And? CMO: We can get all 3 for the price of 1 and consolidate the strategies. CFO: How? CMO: An integrated creator ecosystem through our own creator community. We recruit 100 creators/ mo on a performance basis, run monthly content challenges, and affiliate links. CFO: Sounds complicated. CMO: It's not. We align incentives, creators make better content. CFO: What's the bottom line? CMO: More creatives, higher quality, lower cost. Plus, it pays for itself. CFO: You had me at "pays for itself." How? CMO: Affiliate sales from new customers. Performance-based compensation. CFO: Numbers. I need numbers. CMO: One client broke even in 9 months and is producing 50+ UGC/whitelisting ads per month at a net zero dollar price per ad. CFO: That's... impressive. But our margins are already tight. CMO: Exactly why we need this. It's not just a tactic, it's a strategic hedge. CFO: Against what? CMO: Tariffs squeezing margins. Rising ad costs. This fights both. CFO: So we're not just cutting costs? CMO: We're cutting costs and we're extracting more value from every marketing dollar. CFO: While our competitors are just slashing budgets? CMO: Bingo. They're playing defense. We're playing offense. CFO: And this really works? CMO: It's the ultimate competitive advantage in this environment. CFO: Alright, I'm intrigued. What's next? CMO: We consolidate our creator programs into one creator community that compensates creators for creating organic, affiliate, and ad content on a performance basis. CFO: And if it doesn't work? CMO: Then we'll be right where our competitors are. But if it does... CFO: We'll be leagues ahead. Got it. Send me a proposal. CMO: Already in your inbox. With enough ROI data to make you say "and for that reason, I'm in." CFO: Did you just... CMO: Shark Tank you? Yes, yes I did.

We helped Fortune Foods reach 3 million more people while cutting their media costs by 25%. Here is how we did it. Most brands face the same dilemma: reach more people or save money. Our work with Fortune Foods proved you can do both. Fortune Foods operates in India's competitive edible oils market. They needed to build awareness across tier 1, 2, and 3 cities. The challenge was standing out among countless competitors without inflating their marketing budget. Here's what we did differently: We used Programmatic to unify their media buying across YouTube, SonyLIV, and ZEE5. Instead of managing separate campaigns on each platform, we centralized everything. The strategy was simple but powerful: We implemented frequency control to avoid showing the same ad to the same person multiple times across different platforms. This eliminated wasted impressions and reduced audience fatigue. By streamlining the approach, we removed the overlap that most brands ignore. The results were clear: ● 26% increase in incremental reach at zero additional cost ● 25.5% savings in media spending ● 3 million more people reached without extra budget This partnership proved that smarter media planning beats bigger budgets. Fortune Foods is now rolling out this framework across all their campaigns. The lesson for anyone running marketing campaigns: efficiency isn't about spending less, it's about spending smarter. Have you unified your media buying across platforms?

Most teams think “budget cuts” = do the same with less. That’s a fast way to burn out your team and your results. Here’s a better (less obvious) approach I’ve seen work: Run a “Free Wins Audit” Instead of trimming blindly, look back and ask: - What organic post actually brought in a lead? - What video got unexpected shares? - What outreach email earned replies? ➡️ One startup I advised cut paid ads. But they found a hidden gem: A webinar Q&A clip (38s long) had 3K views on LinkedIn. They turned that clip into: + A carousel + A cold outbound hook + A reply-worthy email P.S. Zero cost. 12 qualified leads. Reallocate time, not just money Your team may have lost budget… …but they still have attention. ➡️ Another example: Instead of more campaigns, a SaaS firm trained customer support to drop value-based LinkedIn comments under competitor threads. Result? They started conversations instead of cold messages. Here’s the mindset shift: Stop asking: “How do we do more with less?” Start asking: “What did we do for free that actually worked?” Audit. Double down. Multiply. What was your most surprising “free win” this year?

Budgeting season starts and someone says "let's just add 3% across the board." Then someone else pushes back: "no, this year we justify every line from scratch." Both are about to make the process harder than it needs to be. The problem is rarely Excel skills. It's using one technique for every line item, when different costs call for different methods. I've led 11 annual budgeting processes at P&G, Unilever, and Squarespace. Here's how I decide which technique goes where. 📌 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 (use sparingly) Best for stable, predictable costs like rent, insurance, and utilities. Take last year's number, adjust for inflation or any known change, and move on. It's fast. But the trap is using it everywhere. It's shallow, takes historicals for granted, and it rewards sandbagging. People spend money on unnecessary things at year-end so their baseline stays high for next year. 📌 𝗭𝗲𝗿𝗼-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 (use selectively) Best for discretionary spend like marketing, consulting, and T&E. You justify every dollar from zero. That's how you find the 20% of activities driving 80% of the results. The cost is time. Run it on stable line items, and you'll burn hundreds of hours for almost no payoff, so save it for the spend that's actually worth interrogating. 📌 𝗗𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿-𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (use wherever you can) Best for revenue and any variable cost tied to a business driver. You link inputs to outputs. When your model says 10% more site visitors means X more revenue, you're ready when actuals come in differently. And they always do. You already know which lever to pull. What it needs is data. You have to know the real relationship between the driver and the outcome. That's what brings you closer to the business and strategic decisions. So the call is simple, even if the work isn't. Match the technique to the cost. Stable costs only need a percentage bump. Use zero-based scrutiny for discretionary spend where you know there is fat to trim. And anything that moves with a business driver should be modeled as one. Which technique does your company overuse? Tell me below 👇 -Christian Wattig 📌 P.S. A forecasting method I haven't mentioned: 𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗜. I'll cover that in-depth at my upcoming free live training. You'll walk away with a step-by-step process not only to create a forecast with AI, but also to test its validity. Register here for "From ERP Data to AI-Ready Forecasts" (free): https://lnkd.in/gN_HyMqJ

Cost-cutting has a bad reputation. Most leaders think layoffs are the answer. But $100K+ in savings is hiding in plain sight. I’ve led dozens of cost-reduction projects and saved companies millions. Here’s what I’ve learned: You don’t need layoffs to cut costs. The proof? Companies waste 30% of their budget long before even looking at headcount. Here’s the cost-cutting framework that saves big—without layoffs: The 4Cs of Strategic Cost Reduction: 1/ Cancel: ↳ Audit unused tools, licenses, and low-ROI expenses. ↳ Cut what doesn't deliver 2/ Consolidate: ↳ Merge overlapping tools, processes, or contracts. ↳ One tool, one vendor, one contract 3/ Control: ↳ Create spending guardrails: limits, approvals, and audits. ↳ Track expenses over $500 to stop leaks early. 4/ Collaborate: ↳ Use fractional experts or outsourcing for specialized work. ↳ Pay for outcomes, not hours. 10 Proven Tactics to Cut Costs and Save Big: 1/ Audit Quarterly Subscriptions 2/ Renegotiate Vendor Contracts 3/ Reimagine Office Space 4/ Simplify Tech Stack 5/ Audit Marketing Spend 6/ Extend Payment Terms 7/ Automate Manual Tasks 8/ Use Fractional Experts 9/ Tighten Expense Policies 10/ Focus on High-Impact Areas The truth about strategic cost-cutting? You can save more by optimizing systems than By cutting your greatest asset—your people. What’s your favorite tactic—or what would you add? ♻️Share to help other leaders And follow Mariya Valeva for more

Last year, we helped a client save RM40k in media spend (and still hit their annual sales target). For context: Our client was a third generation F&B owner. He needed to improve his company’s profitability as they were gearing up for an IPO. That meant slashing 25% off their typical RM 2 million marketing budget - without compromising on sales performance! Now RM500k is a lot of money - you can get two packages on TV3 (i.e. 6 weeks worth of valuable air time). Our client knew this too and was bracing himself for a bad financial year. When we were brought in, we decided that we won’t use across-the-board cuts. Instead, we helped him to: 1. Hack the media system by combining strategic spot buys with packages 2. Identify non-compromisable touchpoints (like sampling at point-of-purchase) 3. Optimise billboard placements 4. Restructure influencer marketing spend How did we come up with this strategy? By focusing on the following: 1. 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬  Every business has non-negotiable elements. For F&B, it's product sampling. For auto dealers, it might be test drives. For fashion, it could be fitting rooms. Identify yours and don’t compromise on those when doing budget reallocations. 2. 𝐖𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞  You don't need to outspend the giants but you can be louder in a smaller segment. Can't win the entire chilli sauce market? Dominate the ultra-ultra-spicy chilli sauce segment first. Can't own all of retail? Own the specialty boutique space that caters just to pregnant Muslim ladies before you scale. 3. 𝐃𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭, 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫  It’s rather ironic of me to say this (since I’m a branding expert) but when resources are tight, prioritise immediate sales. Use those profits to build your brand over time. 4. 𝐊𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐬 Different businesses have different metrics. Cafes for instance need to know their per-ticket value, party size, turnover time. The data you get from this is critical in knowing where to pour your resources into. * By the end of 2024, our client not only saved RM40-50k in media spend but also surpassed their sales target. Although I should note that this wasn’t just our doing. It was a combination of smart media planning, excellent sales execution, and great product quality! But it is proof that there is a silver lining for businesses facing budget constraints. You just need to come up with the right strategy! 𝐏/𝐒: Struggling with your marketing budget allocation? Happy to chat - just DM me! Sometimes all you need is a fresh perspective on where and how to invest your marketing ringgit.

Disney just spent $1 billion on AI. Not to replace animators. To solve a problem most studios ignore: variations cost almost as much as originals. Creating 10 variations of a marketing asset used to require full production cycles. Review meetings, approval chains, render time, team coordination. Now: prompt-driven generation from existing asset libraries. Cost per variation dropped from thousands to dollars. Here's how to do this in your business: 1. Audit where you're manually creating variations Pull reports on content production for the last quarter. Filter for derivative work: social posts, email variations, ad formats, localized content. Calculate hours spent on variations vs original content. Most teams waste 40-60% of production time on derivatives. 2. Build pre-approved asset libraries Create folders of brand-approved visuals, copy templates, and style guidelines. Get legal and compliance sign-off once on the entire library. Tag assets by use case, audience, and channel. This eliminates per-output review cycles. 3. Use APIs, not standalone AI tools Connect AI directly into your CMS, DAM, or social scheduling platform. Avoid tools that require exporting and reformatting outputs. Integration should remove steps, not add them. Test: if AI adds more than one click to your workflow, it's wrong. 4. Constrain before you scale Limit which assets AI can access in phase one. Start with lowest-risk content: social variations, email subject lines, ad copy. Expand permissions only after you've proven the review process works. Constraints reduce verification overhead by 80%. 5. Shift from per-output to per-library review Stop reviewing every AI-generated asset individually. Review and approve the source library once. Monitor outputs with spot-checks, not line-by-line edits. Your team should validate systems, not outputs. 6. Measure marginal cost reduction Track cost per variation before and after AI implementation. Include team hours, tool costs, and review cycles. Target: 70-90% reduction in marginal production costs. If you're not seeing this, your integration is wrong. Why this works: Creative teams aren't threatened, they're empowered to experiment more. The bottleneck was never ideas. It was the cost of executing variations. Solve execution cost by removing production barriers, not people. Found this helpful? Follow Arturo Ferreira.

5 things you can do today that cut campaign waste by 40%. None require new tools: After managing $20M+ in ad spend, I've learned that prevention matters more than any optimization we currently have. The data is clear on what works: 1/ Protect your audience quality ↳ Audience fatigue doubles your costs ↳ Use frequency caps on all campaigns   ↳ Address overlap issues early with exclusions ↳ Your budget works harder when targeting is precise 2/ Prioritize creative testing ↳ 3-5 creative variations minimum ↳ Dark, clean creative without cluttered text ↳ Address creative fatigue before it hits ↳ Poor creative prevents campaign scalability 3/ Monitor performance regularly ↳ Daily optimization checks (key is consistency) ↳ Budget reallocation counts if metrics shift ↳ Automated rules for basic adjustments ↳ Monitoring increases campaign growth factors 4/ Stay data connected ↳ Guessing increases campaign risk by 50% ↳ Regular performance analysis matters ↳ Use analytics, test hypotheses, maintain insights ↳ Quality of data beats quantity 5/ Manage your bidding strategy ↳ High bids without strategy damage campaign performance ↳ Target optimal CPC ranges when possible ↳ Testing, patience, and strategy when needed ↳ Smart bidding feeds performance centers Why these work: Each prevents a different path to budget waste. Which of these 5 areas do you want to focus on first? #MediaBuying

If you're running sponsorship campaigns on YouTube and still buried in spreadsheets, chasing last-minute requests, and stuck in contracting back-and-forth, there’s a better way to operate. At Adhesive Media, we’ve aired 2500+ sponsorships, worked with 150+ YouTube creators, 50+ brands per month, all with a small team of under 10 people. So we know a thing or two when it comes to running an efficient operation… Here are 6 proven ways to save time, cut costs, and eliminate bottlenecks in your creator workflow: 1️⃣ Move Your Ops to Airtable: Google Sheets might work early on, but it doesn’t scale. We use Airtable to connect creators, campaigns, payments, contracts, and performance in a single, dynamic system. Airtable lets you: -Link creators to campaigns, contracts, and deliverables -Automate contract sends, ad tracking, and reporting -Build dashboards to track performance and ROI We’ve invested over $10K + hundreds of hours building and optimizing our Airtable setup. If you want access to it, shoot me to a DM! 2️⃣ Require Standardized Creator Submissions: Don’t waste time chasing info or reviewing unqualified pitches. Require creators or reps to use a structured form or spreadsheet. You can even use Airtable forms and hook in filters and/or Airtable AI to auto-pass pitches that don’t meet your criteria (e.g. low U.S. audience, wrong demo, genre mismatch). This cuts down inbox noise and helps you review 10x faster. 3️⃣ Set Expectations Before Creators/Managers Pitch: The easiest way to cut bad-fit pitches is by setting clear expectations up front. Send a 1-pager with: -Your ideal audience and brand fit -Off-limits genres or content types -Talking point examples -Your sample process and timelines -Payout terms and usage rights When creators and reps have clarity, they self-filter before wasting anyone’s time. 4️⃣ Add a Briefing Video in Your Talking Points / Brand Guidelines Once a deal is signed, don’t just send a static brief. Record a short Loom walking through: -Key talking points -Successful past ads -What to prioritize This helps creators focus on what matters and reduces rounds of revisions. Clearer communication = better content. 5️⃣ Streamline Contracting: Create a contract template per agency or manager that you reuse. Set expectations around: -Who sends the contract -Average approval turnaround -Redline process Keep contracts simple and readable. You can even track average time-in-contracting in Airtable and set internal goals to reduce it. 6️⃣ Plan Campaigns at Least 4 Weeks Ahead: Last-minute campaigns lead to missed samples, rushed revisions, and stressed-out teams. When you plan sponsorships 4+ weeks ahead: -Creative is better -Samples arrive on time -There’s room for revisions -Everyone’s operating with clarity These changes compound over time. They save hours every week, help you scale faster, and improve your working relationships with creators and reps. DM me if you need help setting any of these up!