Beth Handrigan, CEO of St. Louis-based Lean Media, has been nominated for the Pipeline Innovator Member Growth Award.

The Pipeline Innovator Awards gala is coming up this month on January 24 and 25, right here in Omaha.

Handrigan was a Pipeline Fellow in 2017 and a member in 2018. Her husband Brian (CEO of Advocado) was a fellow in 2016 and has been a member since 2017. You can read more about the duo here: https://spnewsnjt.wpengine.com/2017/02/spouses-brian-and-beth-handrigan-are-both-pipeline-fellows/.

Handrigan met her co-founder, Matt Jeter, while working together from 2012 through 2014 at a full-service digital media and marketing agency that ran media and website development. The two crafted a vision for digital advertising with far more precision than what they were able to achieve in their previous roles.

Together they founded Lean Media and brought their vision to the market. A critical step for Handrigan in successfully navigating the growth challenges along the way was her participation in Pipeline.

“Knowing that this remarkable group of mentors, advisors, and other entrepreneurs will have my back as I work to bring Lean Media to the next level is one of the most empowering things I have experienced as an entrepreneur,” said Handrigan.

SPN first met Handrigan and Jeter at the Startup Connection Showcase in St. Louis in November 2018, at which Lean Media won one of the evening’s top prizes – $6,000 of data and IT storage sponsored by Datotel.

Lean Media is a programmatic media company that places advertising on behalf of brands or on behalf of agencies of record for larger and mid-sized brands. The company provides a delivery mechanism for messaging to the right audience at the right time. The flexibility of Lean Media’s data-driven algorithms enables customized targeting of specific audiences that saves brands money and avoids wasteful spending.

Handrigan described how Lean Media has found its niche in agriculture. A typical programmatic media company might broadly target “farming” for example, but Lean Media’s technology can target producers by crop or animal type, and acreage, for example.

She discussed how Lean Media’s enhanced precision is critical for big brands such as John Deere, one of Lean Media’s earliest adopters, through its agency Sandbox.

“John Deere’s large assortment of products necessitates a great deal of specificity and precision in advertising to match the farmer to the relevant equipment,” said Handrigan. “John Deere is just one example of a big brand that requires the type of precision in advertising that Lean Media affords. We can target ads based on a unique combination of data inputs, and we are reaching farmers where they are online such as through news, weather, and sports media.”

“Our agricultural brands recognize the great value that Lean Media’s targeted marketing provides them,” said Handrigan. “We see ag as an underserved customer set. We began with seed and chemical, and crop insurance companies, but we are expanding to ag associations; we are breaking further into direct-to-brand marketing and are also targeting a subset of brands that handle marketing inhouse. We’re considering the whole ag value chain as we continue to scale.”

Handrigan went on to describe the culture of discovery that drives Lean Media’s interaction with customers. Lean Media is growing and currently hiring, and is looking to fill several roles in development, sales, operations, and others.

“We really focus on getting at the root of each brand’s audience and what they are seeking to accomplish – and then we use this to deliver those ads with more precision, frequency and control.”

She added, “We look to add people to our team who have analytical minds, are data driven, enjoy solving problems, and are constantly searching for better ways to serve our clients. Everyone on the team contributes, and we share a passion for learning and building together. We look forward to everything on the horizon for Lean Media as we continue to grow.”

Visit http://www.lean-media.com/ to learn more about Lean Media.

Visit the website for more information about Pipeline Innovator Awards and to purchase tickets: https://www.pipelineinnovatorawards.com.