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Queerency

Focusing a revenue strategy on social audiences

Queerency’s Travers Johnson makes an unconventional choice for LGBTQ+ publication

The challenge

Travers Johnson launched the MVP for Queerency, his site focusing on business and money news for the LGBTQ community, during the 2020 GNI Startups Boot Camp. Since then, he has rapidly grown his audience to 40,000 TikTok followers and almost 10,000 Instagram followers who turn to Travers to “get the tea on the queer economy.”

Travers had success in 2022 managing inbound leads and signing sponsorships, including a mid-five-figure brand partnership deal with a Fortune 500 tech company. Next, Travers needed to figure out how to best structure his sales pitch, define his advertising inventory and begin targeting potential leads.

“My Coach Helped Me To See The Forest For The Trees… The Advice He Gave Me Goes Against The Grain Of The Advice A Lot Of Publishers Receive. Now I’Ve Completely Shifted How I Even Approach Thinking About Revenue And How I Pitch To Brands.”

Travers Johnson
Founder, Queerency

The results

Startups Lab coach Scott Rosenfield helped Travers focus on developing sponsorship opportunities related specifically to monetizing his social media following, rather than trying to sell integrated campaigns that bundled his website, newsletter and social media assets into one package. This realization helped Travers tweak his media kit and create a brand-new influencer kit to capitalize on his already-monetizable success. His influencer kit focuses on Travers as a relatable content creator analyzing and explaining business trends and highlighting LGTBQ entrepreneurs for his growing audience of LGBTQ social media users and allies. Scott was also key in helping Travers develop pricing for his brand partnerships that were in line with industry CPMs.

Travers now feels confident that he can achieve his goal of earning $100,000 in sponsorship revenue in 2023. Achieving this sponsorship goal will also allow Travers to bring on two contractors to help him grow his signature content packages, like LBGTQ+ Business Week and the Queerency Guide to Fashion.

Successes:

Shifted focus to monetizing social media following

Tweaked his media kit and created a new influencer-specific deck with updated pricing

Set ambitious revenue goal for 2023

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