At just about the same time, online revenue, as reported by Emarketer, is forecasting continued growth. Of course this is for ALL online revenue and not just from newspapers. Still the contrary trends shown for online revenue from newspapers, and online revenue in general are striking. In fact, overall digital ad revenue growth is expected to average in the double digits yearly thru 2013.

Emarketer Onlilne Revenue Forcast thru 2013

So what’s the difference…how come these pictures are starting to look so different? One of the answers lies in the chart below showing Emarketer’s forecast for online revenue, by digital type.Ok, so the graph goes up, what else does it tell me? It tells me that there’s more than one way to advertise on the web, (understatement intended.) Search, video, lead generation, email marketing…how many newspapers are actively selling these?  Some are, but many are still emersed in trying to save classifieds and bundling banner ads in with print contracts when there are other ways to provide digital value. It’s a good effort to increase awareness of display ads using new tools such as Yahoo and behavioral targeting, but that just scratches the surface.

What to do? There’s a great deal of room to grow, but it may need to come in areas that newspapers are not currently playing, but can.

• More emphasis on display ads (banners, preferably behavioraly targeted) and less on forced upsells of classified listings
• More serious attention to working with search partners and less on forcing less effective banners when they are not targeted
• More fact finding about customer audience and applying marketing tools with a quantifiable ROI and less focus on forcing our own products into solutions.

All of this can be changed when newspapers have a full product portfolio of digital value that is available to any customer, combined with an ability to understand and articulate the value…whether or not the printed product is part of the solution. And don’t get me wrong, print still is not out of the picture, it just doesn’t have to be front and center all the time.

If you’re selling newspaper advertising this sounds hard to believe. But these were the findings earlier this year. (Yes it was a few months ago, and the economy has not performed well since, but the trend is still holding true for this category of business.)

The Local Commerce Monitor, an ongoing study of SMB (small to medium sized businesses) advertising behaviors conducted by The Kelsey Group and ConState, 81% of SMB’s surveyed expect to maintain (47%) or increase (34%) their ad spend on over the next 12 months, with only 9% planning to decrease.

Even further, SMB’s surveyed stated the primary influences on their ad spend decisions are:

• Performance/return on investment (31%)
• Business partner or competitor (25%)
• Information from media such as newspapers, TV and trade publications (14%)
• Friends or family members (12%)

The fact of the matter is that newspapers were not offering solutions that SMB’s seemed to be having success with. But that no longer needs to be the case as newspapers partner with emerging digital media concerns. In a recent post to MediaShift.com, a strong case is made for repositioning newspaper sales channels as indepenent agencies for loca businesses. The entire post is here.

What this really means is that the local newspaper sales channel does not have to own the “product” that local businesses find successful, but they should be in a position to own the “relationship” with the local business. This is already starting to take shape as newspaper sales staffs are adding products such as Yahoo inventory, Behavioral Targeting technology, local business listings and local search, (offered by independent 3rd parties with expertise in the field.) In all cases, the local newspaper did not bring specific media expertise to the table, but it does bring the ability to conduct the local relationship. In the end, that is what the local staff has to offer that is irreplaceable…for now.

None of this spells the end of newspapers, but it does mean that newspaper sales staffs need to take a different perspective on  the benefit they serve local customers. Some are already shifting in this direction, others are only now beginning to see it. What’s your take on this? Have you had luck in becoming a more independent advertising consultant to your local customers?

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Yahoo’s CEO, Jerry Yang is stepping down amid considerable turmoil and criticism. Members of the Newspaper Consortium that have a close dependence upon technology that Yahoo will provide will, no doubt, start to feel rumblings.

It’s interesting to note the recent feature in Ad Age touting the marketing and brand strength that Yahoo has amid all the mixed discussions. See the feature here, http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=132588

While the Yahoo story still has pages to turn, there is no evidence that consortium members will have anything less than the products they’ve been promised, with the support to back it up.

One of the burning issues multimedia sales folks have in determining the success of their Multimedia sales efforts, is selling more of the “multi” stuff. If we can only put everything into one big happy meal, (heck I’d be satisfied with a “moderately pleased meal” at times) and make sure all of our print customers has a digital component we’d be in a great spot. But who’s we?

It’s interesting to see some trends (operative word here is some, not all) emerging from larger advertisers and agencies. Ad Age has an interesting report on digital ad agencies competing with, and winning against larger traditional agencies for total control over marketing campaigns, http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=132026. This article caught the eye of more than one leading local newspaper sales executive grappling with the same multimedia question. Their consensus… training to be multimedia is not training to sell bundles; instead it’s training to be fluent in interactive as well as print, the end result being more customer focused when proposing solutions. Going even further are the difficulties with gathering research that can reliably measure combined audience delivered with multimedia products. And this doesn’t even touch the subject of whether or not the campaign sold actually is consistent in all the multimedia, thus actually reaching an aggregated audience. This subject continues to be a vexing problem that a number of research experts are trying to solve.

Fluency in interactive as well as print is not forcing interactive with print. This does not always make “happy media meals” a bad thing, but it does mean they are not the only thing. And many time, they are not as customer focused as we would (and the customer) would want them to be.

I’d be interested to hear back from anyone regarding their feelings on newspaper bundles of multimedia products, interactive or not. They’ve been around for a long time now, maybe still serve a purpose. Feel free to share your stories.

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Welcome to Print2Web. This blog is meant to be a communication tool, and not a personal forum. Rather than send emails that disrupt your day, I’ll be posting to the blog. You can reach out and access on your own schedule. I’ll be trying to provide insight and info that may help us be more effective in managing our transition to an ever more multimedia world…sales, marketing, communication, and audience engagement. This is about improving communication, and offering outside insight. It’s also about input back from you. Feel free to comment directly back on the blog (one of the benefits and curses of the media.) Also feel free to let me know what types of things you want to see here.

Now, back to the tree…and this is from a well-known sales trainer in the media world, having worked with newspaper companies like Morris, Lee, Gannett, Freedom, etc. I’ll paraphrase.

Hundreds of years ago, when a farmer wanted to sell a cow, he nailed a note to a tree. Today, we still have farmers, we still have cows, but we have to find a new note and a new tree.

Very simply, (and I don’t do this as much justice as my friend the trainer does,) it means that only a piece of the sales equation has changed, we still have farmers and cows, we just need a new note and a new tree. And this doesn’t mean we have to print up multiple notes, and nail them to multiple trees. But we do need to be able to know the options and propose the best way for the farmer to reach as many potential cow buyers as possible, (and no, www.cows.com is not currently under development.)

Newspapers are not the only media looking in this direction, radio is also articulating the move to multimedia. It’s interesting to note the similarities stated in how things are changing for this media, http://www.bia.com/webinars/Revitalizing_Radio_11122008.pdf. The ability to be Multimedia is not defined by adding products, as much as it is the ability to understand the value of multiple products, and provide the right one, or the right combination, achieving the right solution.