Can traditional media survive without social media?

https://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/10/25/Can-traditional-media-survive-without-social-media

The headline, like it was designed to do, caught my attention. "Can your publication survive without Facebook?"

So this is what we've come down to, can a local newspaper, radio or TV station even survive without the audience generated by the social media giant? Maybe I'm in a fantasy world, but to me there is no doubt the answer is yes. Hell yes, maybe even.

The article chronicles a Danish publisher, TV Midtvest who went dark on Facebook for two weeks to see what the impact was to their website for their eight regional TV stations in Denmark. Their head of digital, Nadia Nikolajeva spoke about their experiment at the INMA Media Innovation Week in Amsterdam in late September.

They went cold turkey, no Facebook posts for 14 days, having only a post that invited people to go to their website instead. What happened is a little alarming. Site visitors dropped 27% during the two weeks, and that's a lot. But page views only dropped 10%. People still found their way to the website, without the prompting from Facebook.

Facebook for most websites provides a lot of "one and done" traffic, meaning they come for the story that showed up on their feed and never click on another story while visiting your site. Every page view is important, but to me this shows one of the problems with social media. Is social media traffic coming to your website really meaningful traffic? I haven't seen, but wonder if there is research that shows how often visitors to a website click on local banner ads compared with visitors who came to the site by other means? The bounce rate is so high for social media generated traffic, I would bet very few interact with anything else on the site, let alone banner advertising which pays the bills.

I look at results from my own site, and I believe you can survive without Facebook. Given all the recent news about the US Supreme Court Justice hearings in Washington, DC, one of our state's US Senator's announced he would not vote for confirmation. This story broke on a Friday midday, and we immediately put a story up online about this decision. We also posted about it on Facebook, and the reaction exploded.

The Facebook post about the story blew up. We had a lot of reactions, comments and shares of this story which produce a very high reach on the platform. This post was one of our better performing posts on the site in some time. Hundreds of comments on Facebook, yet barely a whisper in terms of traffic on my site. People react on Facebook, but they did not read the details on the story online. We did a great job of creating content and page views for Facebook, but what did we do for our own site? Very little, it turned out.

The same was true with a several Facebook Live projects we've tried. Our most successful Facebook Live broadcast was with a local singer that made it to the finals of NBC's The Voice. Our views on Facebook were very strong. Doing Facebook Live, you could make the case, helped make our brand stronger and more top of mind. But there was immediate impact on our revenue or bottom line. We were generating page views and revenue for Facebook.

Publishers  need to stay focused on driving traffic to their site. It is going to be difficult enough making enough money on digital based products with dwindling cpm charges, let alone if publishers end up generating traffic for social media instead of themselves. Using Facebook and other social media outlets as a source for traffic instead of being the source for them may end up one of the industry's biggest challenges in the near future.

My example of the story on the Supreme Court shows that the habits of readers has changed. The headline sufficed, and they did not bother to actually read the content. What started at USA Today by giving us snippets of content has been reduced to simple headlines as all consumers want. That is scary for the news business, and for the republic in which we live.

So the answer is to innovate; something most media outlets talk about more than doing. In the case of TV Midtvest, they did take action. As the article wrote, "TV Midtvest realised they can innovate and develop in-house tools that will allow journalists to communicate with their audience while retaining control over users data. They even took a step further and developed new services like a streaming app, that saw 20,000 downloads since its launch in spring."

Developing an app might not be within the grasp of all online publishers.  But there are things that can be done to help drive traffic. To me, one of the most obvious is to use Facebook to promote your brand, and ways for consumers to interact.

If you do not have a email database, then start one. Use Facebook to promote its existence and help convert those Facebook likes into deliverable email addressed. Then you can sell your email newsletters to advertisers, making money from the email. Those emails sent daily, weekly or whatever works best for your news cycle, will help drive traffic back to your website. And not to Facebook.

I'm not anti-Facebook or anti-social media. There's a decent chance you made it to this post from a social media post. But I'm using social media to promote my website, not as a substitute for my website. I think a lot of websites, particularly those from media outlets, have forgotten that point. We need to use Facebook to promote our site, but figure out ways to drive web traffic to our sites and not Facebook.

Newspaper advertising remains relevant but most adapt for advertiser's needs

https://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/10/02/Newspaper-advertising-remains-relevant-but-most-adapt-for-advertisers-needs

Going to a really good conference for me is like getting an infusion of energy. Whenever I get a chance to attend a industry conference, my goal is to walk away from the meeting with at least one idea or kernel of knowledge that will pay for the time away from the office.

The annual conference for the Hoosier State Press Association provided me several good ideas and some great knowledge that will more than pay for the trip. Hopefully you were there and experienced the same results as me. For those that weren't able to make it, here are a couple of my take-aways that might help you too as you strive to end the year on a positive note.

Ryan Dohrn from Brainswell Media was one of the main speakers, working with advertising managers and sales reps. One of his quotes from the conference has been repeated numerous times by me since returning to the office. "If we sell traditional media in traditional ways, we will get traditional results." How you change things up depends on your market and your resources, but the reality is we have to change how we are doing business. Media outlets cannot do the same promotions this coming year that they were doing 5 years ago. Just as the businesses in small town - Main Street America have to change, media must also adapt and change.

Newspapers still remain a great option for creating brand awareness for advertisers. A business builder or frequency program where an advertiser runs a series of smaller ads on a consistent basis provides you with a much needed base of ads in the newspaper,  and provides your advertiser with better awareness with consumers in the marketplace. Advertisers can growth their brand and their business by associating with the local newspaper. Growing a business's reputation by affiliating with the trusted source for local information, which in many cases is one of the oldest  businesses in town, is very real and we as publishers often forget that value.

Building top of mind awareness through the newspaper is not new, but I believe it is something that many have lost track of as a valuable marketing asset to our customers. Consumers need to see a message 10 times before they act. Through newspaper frequency programs, the advertiser is building that awareness and developing an intent to buy from its customers. That awareness drives people to their store and to make purchases. It also helps with online search engines  like Google. When you are searching online, you are typically not searching generic phrases. Consumers are searching what is familiar with them, so a stronger brand equals a stronger presence online. Traditional media can help digital media's performance.

Newspaper advertising still performs. Hopefully that is a statement that you know and absolutely believe, and didn't need to go to a conference to have that reaffirmed. Sabline Carbaugh is the owner and COO for Golden Web Marketing, and her article titled "5 Reasons Print Advertising Works" offers some quick hit nuggets for your next sales meeting. My personal favorite is a Penn State University study that showed that readers retain newspaper advertising better than other marketing options. This is a point that gets illustrated every year for me, the Monday after the Super Bowl. Companies spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads. Yet hours afterwards, only one or two of those messages are remembered and associated with the brand they are promoting.

There is plenty of negative in the world. It is important that the newspaper industry continues to find and promote the good things that are still being said about it. For me, the words of Dohrn and those that came and shared their ideas at the annual HSPA conference provided me with fuel to attack fourth quarter.

A quick note of thanks to my friends in media

https://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/09/21/A-quick-note-of-thanks-to-all-my-friends-in-media

September, 2018 -- I have been truly blessed. Luckily, I am smart enough to realize that, and that has been very evident to me in recent weeks. The older I get, the more I appreciate family. Having lost both my parents and my oldest brother, the family that remains remain very dear to me. Never would I have ever expected to get as much joy as a hug from my son at the end of a bad day at work.

While work remains work, I'm lucky enough to have fewer bad days than good. And that isn't easy when you work in media. This industry continues to lurk, jerk and contort in ways never before imagined as traditional media tries to adapt to the new digital world. 

Working in media, and newspapers most of my career is indeed a blessing. I have managed to feed, clothe and put a roof over my family's head for several decades. Because of that fortune, I always try to give back. I have made presentations for many organizations, I write a monthly column for a state press association and work when possible with students who are the next wave of media moguls through work with local universities.

So when I was presented with the Distinguished Service Award from the Hoosier State Press Association, I was beyond flattered; nearly speechless! It is the highest honor handed out by HSPA to an individual that has helped the association and the newspaper industry throughout the state of Indiana.

What makes the media business so amazing is the people that are dedicated to it. I still have friends from my radio days, and of course a ton of friends from my newspaper days. The common denominator of all of them is passion and creativity with a desire to serve the markets in which they are working. For me, I was fortunate enough to be with many of them at the HSPA awards presentation in Indianapolis earlier this month. I had a chance to thank them personally. For those that I didn't see, let this serve as a personal thank you for sharing your creativity, your passion and most of all, your friendship.

Time for newspapers to start thinking like Veeck, as in Bill Veeck and become marketing disruptors

http://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/08/26/Time-for-newspapers-to-start-thinking-like-Veeck-as-in-Bill-Veeck-and-become-marketing-disruptors

Bill Veeck was a market disruptor. They didn’t actually call him that at the time. They called him crazy. Looking back now some 32 years after his death, you might hear him referred to as a genius.

Veeck as in wreck is how people described him, and it also happens to be the title for his autobiography. A baseball hall of fame inductee, Veeck owned three different baseball teams including the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. Though he won a World Series in Cleveland, he was a small market, small budget owner before they were referred to as such. This forced Veeck to innovate just to survive.

What made Veeck a genius is he actually thought about the fan experience at the game. Every baseball game you attend that has a special promotion attached to it, from fireworks to bobble heads, exists because of him. Veeck had to create fans of his product just to survive, and that is the lesson we need to learn in the media industry.

Fans of the game of baseball in Chicago have options for their entertainment dollars, including other places to see major league baseball. In Veeck’s era, there were the Cubs on the north side playing at Wrigley Field, and the White Sox with a much smaller following in a dump of a ballpark in a suspect neighborhood on the south side. To gain attention from fans and sponsors, the White Sox had to think differently. Thus they came up with things like exploding scoreboards when a home run is hit, having a crazy radio announcer Harry Caray sing a song with the crowd during the seventh inning stretch and have promotions like “Disco Demolition Night.” Innovative at the time, two of those three examples are now mainstays at ball parks today. “Disco Demolition Night” actually caused the White Sox to have to forfeit a game.

Newspapers should think more like Bill Veeck, incorporating promotions with an underdog mentality to attract fans and revenue. I worked for a couple years for John Dille, who owned The Elkhart Truth. In addition to owning that newspaper, Dille owned several radio stations, and he challenged me regularly to think like a radio station and develop promotions. From special events to contest, the goal was to attract attention to the product and associate good feelings towards it all the while earning revenue.

As an industry, we need to challenge ourselves to make the move from disrupted to the disruptor. One way to do that is to think like a radio station like Dille challenged me. Or Bill Veeck.

In my career, I’ve dreamt up promotions where I hid $1,000 somewhere in the market and provided clues so readers would find it, had a half dozen people live in a travel trailer in the middle of a mall for a week in a Survivor style promotion, among other things. Those were relatively high budget promotions, though I will say neither cost very much compared to the publicity earned. I’ve done many low budget promotions too, which any market at any size can pull off. There is no magic formula. You just have to try!

John Senger, the ad director at Greenfield, Indiana’s newspaper did a scavenger hunt for their readers. Called the “Ultimate Scavenger Hunt” this promotion was a great example of audience engagement, innovative thinking and revenue generation. This was a daylong event promoting the newspaper, its sponsors and the community they serve while generating revenue too.  

Small group of participants in The Ultimate Scavenger Hunt, presented by The Daily Reporter in Greenfield, Indiana.

Innovation often comes from necessity. As the media world changes, we have to think differently to keep the audience’s attention, and to keep our sponsor’s money. Pushing the limits of thinking, and finding promotions and contests that will work in your market will help you do both. If Bill Veeck owned a newspaper today, I have no doubt they would be doing wacky promotions, engaging with their audience, making money and still providing quality content for its subscribers.

Bill Veeck’s son is carrying on the family tradition of amazing promotions and profitability, now for an independent minor league A few weeks ago, they decided to celebrate the 40^th anniversary of the movie Animal House with the world’s largest food fight. More than 8,000 people showed up for the game, and the video as of this writing has been viewed over 150,000 times.

OK, so maybe the world’s largest food fight isn’t your cup of tea. I get it. The point is, like Bill Veeck or the St. Paul Saints, to survive in the long term, newspapers are going to have to get creative and become a disruptor.

Hitting the target with targeted advertising

http://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/08/06/Hitting-the-target-with-targeted-advertising

I had never heard of Peppa Pig when I received the announcement in my inbox that Peppa was coming to town. Lucky me, I had just scored the opportunity to get pre-sale tickets to the big upcoming performance in early December.

The problem was I had no clue who or what Peppa was. The normally targeted email marketing messages that I receive in my email had missed the mark. I have since found out that Peppa Pig is a British animated TV show designed for pre-schoolers.

I'm a frequent buyer of tickets from Ticketmaster, so I think they have a pretty good profile on me as a consumer, and my buying habits. They are sophisticated enough that I think they pay attention to that information, especially based on other offers that I have received from them over the years.

Aside from the laugh I had trying to determine if Peppa was some kiddie show or possibly a strange punk rock group, it was a good reminder to make sure our marketing message is the right one for the right audience.

Newspaper sales reps don't always think about the audiences within the big readership numbers for their products. What is forgotten is opportunities to reach different segments of readership with the newspaper; male, female, young, old, affluent, business owners and more.

Pending on the size of your newspaper, you have different sections that offer a targeting opportunity. If not full sections, in many cases special pages with different content is available. Sales reps don't always do a good job of trying to match up the various sections of a newspaper with their customers. At most newspapers I've worked at, the reps try to jam all their ads into main news or around obituaries. Certainly there are benefits to those two positions, but there are many others that can be just as valuable to customers.

High school football is starting up now, and reader interest is definitely there. Sales reps do a great job selling the preview section, but are they also tapping into the power of that audience to sell a combination ad for Thursday and Saturday, the days of the game preview and recap?

Many newspapers still run a syndicated weekly NASCAR page during the racing season, which goes from February until November. This is another content page that allows newspapers to offer targeted content to readers. In the case of NASCAR, while the sport has dropped a little in popularity, fans tend to be fiercely loyal to drivers and the brands they represent which opens up ad dollar opportunities.

Local business news, the weekly food page, religion page and special pages for seniors are regular content in many newspapers. Yet ad departments are not always seizing the opportunity to take this targeted content and turning it into dollars. 

It doesn't even have to be special pages to become a premium position and targeted content. I've been working recently with a customer who has to have their content either next to the weather or lottery numbers. In that customer's mind, those are high traffic areas for the customer they are trying to reach. We are accommodating their request, and gaining revenue as a result. Beyond the weather and lottery numbers, both good spots, there are others that can be utilized. Every market has special content, including things like the police blotter, the local school lunch menu, court information especially bankruptcies and divorces.  

Take inventory of your content that runs daily, weekly or monthly. Determine what might be of interest to a specific segment of your readers or advertisers and see what you can generate as a result. Every newspaper has limited resources, so you need to maximize what you have, and that is especially true with content.  If your readers see value in the content, then it is very likely that your advertisers will as well. 

Screen health concerns could help traditional media, especially newspapers

http://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/07/03/Screen-health-concerns-could-help-traditional-media-especially-newspapers

"I'm a digital explorer in analog roam, and everybody's on the phone."  -- Jimmy Buffett from his 2006 song "Everybody's On The Phone"

On more than one occasion, I've been accused of spending too much time staring at my phone screen. Guilty as charged. While I'm not ready to call it an addiction, the phone has turned into an important tool in how I manage my life.

Between my phone and my tablet, I regularly visit four or five newspaper websites, and that is beyond the sites for where I work. Those sites are a part of my regular routine, much in the same way that my morning newspaper still is today.

Jimmy Buffett was a futurist when he wrote that lyric, but that has become reality, as we it played out in society today. In 2017, comScore's report on Cross Platform Future in Focus estimated that the average adult spent just shy of three hours a day on their smartphone every day.  I'll do the math for you; that's about 23 days a year.

The old adage about too much of a good thing is a bad thing comes to mind regarding the amount of screen time in people's life, and that is starting to be discussed when it comes to digital consumption. A few weeks back, I read a couple articles on screen health. While a new term to me, screen health is quickly becoming a concern for some people.  Too much time staring at a screen is having negative impacts on people's lives.

In early June, Apple announced in early June that their new operating system for their iPhones and iPads would incorporate a screen health app. It is designed to help people spend less time on their phones. Google has already incorporated this into their system.

People deciding that they are spending too much time on their phones is not enough to cure the ills of traditional media. But to me, this does provide some optimism for the future of traditional media including newspapers.

Others share that optimism, including Angus Campbell. He published on LinkedIN an article titled "Why print will never die". Campbell offered three solid reminders of the importance of traditional print as a marketing tool that, coupled with the increasing concern of too much time in front of a screen offer opportunities for audience and revenue in the future.

In his article, Campbell pointed out that print is more satisfying for the recipient. It engages more senses for the reader, which subconsciously makes for a better experience for the reader. Print can be trusted to deliver. The long history of the newspaper industry is still on our side, and people have a higher degree of trust for the content within those printed pages, editorial and advertising, which helps deliver results. As fake news continues to make headlines, print outlets - especially local newspapers - remain the trusted source.

His last point was his best point in the article, I believe. Print is a tremendous compliment to digital. The fad of using QR codes in newspapers has come and gone largely, but emerging technology like augmented reality and virtual reality is creating new opportunities for readers to engage with print going forward. And even without the interaction between print and a digital platform, the fact remains that a marketing campaign that includes digital and prints - especially print's target audience with a lot of disposable income - works better than a digital only approach.

The struggle is real. Fighting customers that want to place their dollars strictly on digital marketing opportunities is a daily fight. Tell them about screen health, and how a properly managed campaign with traditional and non-traditional media will bring a healthier result to their profits.

First impressions are critical in new business development for media companies

http://www.petevanbaalen.com/single-post/2018/04/30/First-impressions-are-critical-in-new-business-development-for-media-companies

I’ve recently spent some time on vacation, getting away from the normal routine and enjoying some warmth and sunshine in Florida. I’m like everyone else in that vacation time is precious andI want to make the most of it.

Deciding where to eat on vacation is a big decision. Once the destination has been determined, we start in on doing our research. We search online, look for new or different foods we want to try, and ask friends who have vacationed there previously for recommendations. This has been a formula for success for me with many previous vacations.

And you know what, your advertisers are doing the same thing to select where to spend their marketing money.

Advertisers are searching online to see who are the local marketing experts. Business owners are looking for new options to try that might help build their customer base. And they are asking friends what has worked for their business. So what are you doing to make sure you are providing business owners and marketing managers meaningful information for their searching process? The likely answer is you are not covering all of those areas currently, which gives you a chance to implement a quick improvement plan.

On your website, make sure you have updated information about all of the advertising segments you offer. Make sure your information is up to date, and that the contact emails are current. Too many times, this page on your website is set up and then forgotten. If you quote circulation or web traffic numbers, make sure those are current. Your website is often times the first impression to a business owner, and that website should set you up as a marketing expert locally. Local research and market expertise should be on display, to show a business owner they need to work with you instead of your competitor or an advertising agency.

If you’ve started offering new services, make sure you mention them. The business owner is looking at your website thinking of you strictly for your core competencies. They will think you are strictly a newspaper, so if you are also offering direct mail, commercial printing, digital display programs across the internet, you must tell them. The more problems you can solve for an advertiser, the more likely you get that initial inquiry call first. But to get that phone ringing or email sent, your site has to provide the information at a high level.

For vacation planning, getting recommendations from friends that have been there before is the most important segment for me when making a decision. You can use apps like Yelp to get reviews and recommendations, but I prefer getting feedback from friends that I know and trust. Your local market is no different.

At every sales manager position I’ve held, I’ve asked for testimonial letters. And at every position I’ve held, getting those testimonials has proved difficult. The business owners aren’t usually the hold up; it is the sales reps. But getting testimonials is very important to help sway people making buying decisions and you need to make it a priority with your sales team.

Making a marketing buy can be expensive and funds are typically limited. Providing assurances that investing those dollars with you is a good decision, providing a solid return on investment. Getting that assurance from a local business can help sway that buyer and help remove buyer’s remorse.

Providing a preponderance of evidence with a dozen or so testimonial letters from a variety of business types should be a part of your marketing portfolio. If you have five people in your sales department, you only need three letters from each rep, so this isn’t a burden on the sales team. Don’t let the thought of writing a testimonial letter become a burden on the advertiser either. The number one reason your customers won’t do it is the lack of time. So offer to write it for them. You know the highlights you want to feature, and the ways the advertiser used your products to achieve their success.

Media companies are experts in marketing, but rarely do a great job of marketing themselves. These tips can help change that narrative for you in your local market.