Dialing up revenue: Conference explored opportunities in mobile, social media, video

Though newspapers must often fight the image of being a medium well past its sell-by date, they actually have many advantages as they move into the digital era, experts agreed at the Mobile and Social Solutions Conference held in Chicago June 26-27.

Co-sponsored by SNPA and the Inland Press Foundation, the conference attracted presenters acknowledged as among the best in the social media, mobile publishing and video spaces. "You should be kicking yourself if you thought about going to the mobile/social conference and didn't," tweeted one of the speakers, Canis Digital CEO Ray Marcano, the former director of digital audience growth for Cox Media Group.

Alan D. Mutter, the influential Reflections of a Newsosaur blogger, University of California, Berkeley lecturer and consultant, kicked off the conference with a presentation combining the more doleful facts of the newspaper industry – the plunge in newspaper advertising revenue from $49 billion in 2005 to $21 billion last year – with observations on its potential strengths in digital.

Big Data, for instance, is essentially simply a super-sized version of the deep knowledge of its audience that community newspapers have always possessed. "If you know more about the people in your community than (pure-play digital) competitors – then you have the power," Mutter said.

Similarly, local SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses) are pre-disposed to continuing to advertise or market through newspapers' mobile and social media initiatives, according to Charles Laughlin, the senior vice president and managing editor for BIA/Kelsey.

The consultancy surveyed SMBs who are current newspaper advertisers and found they "over-index" in their use of Facebook, Google+, Twitter and digital video. "Newspaper advertisers tend to have a higher level of engagement than SMBs at large," Laughlin said. SMBs are also increasing both their online presences – opening up an opportunity for newspapers to provide digital marketing services – and the budgets for digital.

"Newspapers, we think, are well-positioned to serve this marketplace," Laughlin said.

But newspapers will have to change the way they do business with these SMBs, Laughlin and Shannon Kinney, the founder of Dream Local Digital, told the conference. "Social and mobile have put the consumer in control, not the brand," Kinney said. "And it may be hard for newspapers to hear, but the fact is, people trust user-generated content more than traditional media."

As newspapers' traditional advertisers pivot away from advertising and toward marketing through these new media, newspapers must make the same move. "You're not selling digital ads," Kinney said, "You're selling solutions and audiences."

That message comes with a powerful selling point when it comes to mobile publishing, Kinney noted: 90 percent of people take action within 24 hours of searching for something on mobile, and 59 percent show up in person at a retailer. The good news, too, is that digital marketing does not appear to cannibalize print advertising.

BIA/Kelsey's Laughlin highlighted some best practices for sales forces in two important areas, accountability and metrics. At Tribune Co.'s digital services agency, 435 Digital, new salespeople sign a "performance accountability agreement." They are given five weeks to make their first sale, with the goal increased over time until at least one sale a week is required. "If you miss the goal, you're out," Laughlin said.

At Austin, Texas-based Main Street Hub, the agency is constantly searching for the data that best correlates to closing rates. Their key finding: Increasing "dials per day," the number of sales calls attempted, leads to increased sales closes. "So put on your lab coat because sales is now more of a science than an art," he said.

At the same time, newspapers should not ignore the intangible benefits of becoming involved in social media, Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing told the conference. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram increases brand awareness and the success of future communications from the paper or its SMB client.

The success driver for both social media and digital video is compelling content, the conference was told by several speakers. Rich Forsgren, chief technology officer for Times Publishing Co., for example, said the flagship Erie (Pa.) Times-News found a big audience for video, but only after it improved its presentation on its website by implementing the short-form video platform Tout.

"With the new widgets, our views went from 2,000 a week to 8,000," Forsgren said. Tout is expensive at about $1,000 a month per video platform, but it gives the Times-News a new advertising revenue stream.

Christy Ogelsby, Cox Media Group's project manager for external audiences, also emphasized presentation in video. Headlines should be compelling, triggering the audience's curiosity. "And always remember, video is for watching," she added. "The video can be raw and raggedy, but as long as it's visually compelling, it will work."

Cox is able to get $25 to $35 CPMs on its video content, Oglesby added.

Across the digital platforms, newspapers can draw on traditional strengths to create content that attracts audience and revenue. Canis Digital's Ray Marcano, for instance, suggests recruiting local journalism schools to research data on crime, property taxes and similar local topics. "You don't have to be the Brookings Institute or The New York Times to do this stuff," Marcano said. "Having reporters on the street gives newspapers an unfair advantage over any digital site."

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