Brainworks Software: February 2007 Archives
With terms like "click through," "PPC," "RSS," and "user generated," no wonder online seems like a foreign world to newspapers. To overcome this, and to bring news organizations' staffs up to speed, publishers are sending sales and editorial teams to intensive, crash-training sessions where they are learning the ropes of the interactive ad business. But why are editorial teams involved? Isn't this the territory of sales departments? The following article shows how editorial and sales can work together t help each other in the interactive world:
"During its Q4 2006 earnings call earlier this month, Gannett Company chairman, president and CEO Craig Dubow mentioned his own company's training plans. As part of the firm's 'audience-based selling' push, Gannett will hold four-day education sessions for its sales staff to help them understand things like targeting certain audience segments, something interactive media thrives on but which is a far cry from traditional newspaper advertising.
"The program, said Dubow during the investor call, 'pushes that selling focus to all parts of the Gannett Company.'
"Rather than offering clients old-school print ad products like full-page ads, the publisher wants its salespeople to become accustomed to selling cross-media audience segments, such as stay-at-home moms. 'It's revolutionary to ad sales people,' said Tara Connell, Gannett's VP of corporate communications, adding, 'Unlike in the past, we can say, "We'll deliver a group to you."'"
"Over the next six months, hundreds of Gannett salespeople will attend four-day training sessions, mainly at the company's Virginia headquarters. The effort complements Gannett's ongoing editorial shift from newsrooms to platform-agnostic 'information centers.' Individual newspaper teams will be responsible for delivering a plan to the publisher. Then, said Connell, 'the two initiatives will begin to merge together.' In addition to understanding how their content can help an advertiser reach specific audiences, editorial staffers can assist sales teams by providing data they use in reporting, on local restaurants for instance, to the sales department, she added."
Read the complete article.
"During its Q4 2006 earnings call earlier this month, Gannett Company chairman, president and CEO Craig Dubow mentioned his own company's training plans. As part of the firm's 'audience-based selling' push, Gannett will hold four-day education sessions for its sales staff to help them understand things like targeting certain audience segments, something interactive media thrives on but which is a far cry from traditional newspaper advertising.
"The program, said Dubow during the investor call, 'pushes that selling focus to all parts of the Gannett Company.'
"Rather than offering clients old-school print ad products like full-page ads, the publisher wants its salespeople to become accustomed to selling cross-media audience segments, such as stay-at-home moms. 'It's revolutionary to ad sales people,' said Tara Connell, Gannett's VP of corporate communications, adding, 'Unlike in the past, we can say, "We'll deliver a group to you."'"
"Over the next six months, hundreds of Gannett salespeople will attend four-day training sessions, mainly at the company's Virginia headquarters. The effort complements Gannett's ongoing editorial shift from newsrooms to platform-agnostic 'information centers.' Individual newspaper teams will be responsible for delivering a plan to the publisher. Then, said Connell, 'the two initiatives will begin to merge together.' In addition to understanding how their content can help an advertiser reach specific audiences, editorial staffers can assist sales teams by providing data they use in reporting, on local restaurants for instance, to the sales department, she added."
Read the complete article.
In the era of MySpace and YouTube, which rely on content created by users of these websites, newspapers are beginning to adopt similar features to help expand their website audiences. Recognizing that people who regularly use the Internet now expect these features, modern newspapers are providing them -- and thereby providing new ad inventory for advertisers. From the article:
"Newspapers have long been a centerpiece of local community life, but paper publishers are recognizing the need to foster community in new ways through their Web sites. Tribune Interactive, for instance, recently announced it will enable social media features on its sites through a partnership with VMix Media, which plans to announce additional deals with paper publishers in the coming month. Not only could social tools keep users coming back to check up on city hall happenings or high school sports scores; they could fulfill a dire need for new ad revenue streams and ad inventory.
"For newspaper sites in need of creating more volume, enabling user generated content 'is the cheapest way to foster bigger growth,' said Ken Doctor, lead news analyst at media market research firm Outsell. 'User-created content can double inventory volume at a production cost of one to three percent the cost of staff-produced newspaper content,' Doctor added."
Read complete article.
"Newspapers have long been a centerpiece of local community life, but paper publishers are recognizing the need to foster community in new ways through their Web sites. Tribune Interactive, for instance, recently announced it will enable social media features on its sites through a partnership with VMix Media, which plans to announce additional deals with paper publishers in the coming month. Not only could social tools keep users coming back to check up on city hall happenings or high school sports scores; they could fulfill a dire need for new ad revenue streams and ad inventory.
"For newspaper sites in need of creating more volume, enabling user generated content 'is the cheapest way to foster bigger growth,' said Ken Doctor, lead news analyst at media market research firm Outsell. 'User-created content can double inventory volume at a production cost of one to three percent the cost of staff-produced newspaper content,' Doctor added."
Read complete article.
