Ad Sales Blog

Can “search credits” save the newspaper and magazine industries?

I have never believed that newspapers had a problem charging for their content. Newspaper content has always been free or nearly free. When I was growing up in Worcester, Massachusetts I remember being shocked to hear that the 25 cents we paid for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette barely paid for the delivery boys. It actually cost a couple of dollars to print and deliver that daily paper and money to pay for it came from advertising.

But if advertising is lacking in a newspaper’s business model why not restructure so newspapers are paid for their original content creation based on the “Internet currency” easiest to monetize; attention delivered. Simply stated, if newspapers could get more attention/eyeballs, they could get more online readers, and more ad revenue. 
The arbiter online “attention delivered” is search. Google, Yahoo, and Bing, determine where vast majority of online attention is directed. But search is blind to many things, among them, whether content is original or aggregated. This “blind evaluation” heavily disadvantages original content publishers and favors aggregators.

It is hard for original content producers to become aggregators because it is hard to aggregate content from direct competitors. Ironically, it is easier for organizations that generate no content, and compete with no other media, to be aggregators.
So here we have an unsustainable model: the people aggregating content are getting the majority of the traffic, and therefore revenue. The people creating the original content get less traffic and revenue.

Addressing this issue for the news business, media consultant, Arnon Mishkin, partner with Mitchell Madison Group, says,

 “The vast majority of value gets captured by aggregators linking and scraping rather than by a news organizations that get linked and scraped. We did a study on several sites that aggregate purely a menu of news stories. In all cases there was at least twice as much traffic on the home page as there were clicks going to the stories that were on it. In other words a very large share of the people who were visiting the site were merely browsing to read headlines rather than using the aggregation page to decide what they wanted to read in detail.”
Long term this is an unsustainable model. But I propose it can be made to work with “search credits.”

 I propose we reward original content creators with “search credits” which would raise original content higher in competitive search rankings than the same content posted as aggregated content.  

There are already people in place who could make this happen. Most original content producers have SEO staffers who would be delighted to tag their content as original if it meant higher rankings on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Search engines could adjust their algorithms to respond those those tags.

With aggregators and original content producers alike often getting a majority of their traffic from search, giving “search credits “ to original content creators would justly reward content originators and assure their survival. Their survivial is also good news for content aggregators. 

Newspapers, and other original content producers, would find their search rankings rise, their web traffic rise, and their revenues rise.
I challenge Google, Yahoo, and Bing to consider the harm they are doing to original content producers by giving the same search rankings to original and aggregated content.

Can content producers such as, magazine and newspaper publishers organize to insist that original content be prioritized higher at search organizations? I'd be willing to help out anyone at the MPA, ABM, or the NAA who wants to start the conversation.

Read Arnon Mishkin's post, "The Fallacy Of The Link Economy" on the Paid Content website

"Online media is bought on religion or politics"

Susan Bratton’s “DishyMix” podcast came up with up one of the funniest and succinct descriptions of how media gets bought during her interview with media metrics guru, Jim Sterne (photo at left). Sterne is the founder of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits where online wizards gather to interpret data from online programs and ad campaigns.

In the world on online ad metrics you would think that the numbers would speak for themselves and there be little room for the human element. Wrong. When Sterne talks about how media decisions get made, metrics and all, the human element is still very much present.  

According to Sterne media is bought on either "religion or politics." According to Sterne, “If it’s religion, your CMO 15 years ago was good at buying television. So television gets all the money ‘cause that’s what he knows. Or, she really was a brilliant “search” marketing person, so search gets the focus. She’s the hammer and everything looks like a nail.”

“Politics is where the corporate search guy is going to get more money because he has known the CMO longer or has more power.”

Sterne summarizes, "You know it’s religion if they say, 'You know I’ve always done it this way and it’s worked for me.' It's politics when they say, 'Gees, we don’t have enough resources and this seems like the best way to go."

Click to listen to or download the DishyMix podcast featuring Jim Sterne here

Are blogs the new buyers guides?

In previous posts I have stated the conventional wisdom that blogs are a tough sell as ad sponsored media goes. Unless you have a celebrity blogger or are blogging against an important event, ad sponsorships are hard to sell. In those cases, it can be argued, the celebrity and the event are bringing in the value, not so much the blogging itself. 

But now comes evidence that blogging may have value in it's own right. A study from BuzzLogic and JupiterResearch that focused on the behavior of heavy blog readers finds them relying on blogs for information previously thought to be in the benefit list of search and buyers guides. From the study:       

"Blog readers do not appear to rely as heavily on search as a means to find new blogs as compared to consumers of traditional online media. According to the survey, one in five general blog readers (defined as consumers who have read a blog in the past 12 months) use blog links to discover new blogs. Further, the study suggests blogs are not consumed in isolation, but experienced as part of a connected conversation – nearly half (49 percent) of blog readers and 71 percent of frequent readers read more than one blog per session. Key findings include:
•    Links more powerful than search: For frequent readers, links beat search as a navigation tool: 38 percent said blog links were the top tool for discovering new blog content as compared to 34 percent who voted for Web search.
•    Links signal trust: For frequent readers, blog links appear to have similar impact as a trusted recommendation from a person (a response from 39 percent of survey participants). 
•    Blog search not yet mainstream: Blog search engines received the lowest ranking from respondents: 6 percent of general readers and 11 percent of frequent readers say they use these tools to discover new blogs.

Buying Behavior: The Nature of Blog Influence
•    Blogs influence purchases: One half (50 percent) of blog readers say they find blogs useful for purchase information.
•    Blogs sway more purchases among readers than social networks: More frequent blog readers say they trust relevant blog content for purchase decisions than content from social networking sites.
•    Niche focus ups influence factor: For those who have found blog content useful for product decisions, more than half (56 percent) said blogs with a niche focus and topical expertise were key sources.
•    Blogs go beyond tech: Outside of technology-related purchases, for which 31 percent of readers say blogs are useful, other key categories include media and entertainment (15 percent); games/toys and/or sporting goods (14 percent); travel (12 percent); automotive (11 percent); and health (10 percent).

It’s Buy Time: Where Blogs Sit in the Purchase Cycle
According to the study, blogs factor in to critical stages of the purchase process, weighing most heavily at the actual moment of a purchase decision. When it comes to respondents who said they have trusted blog content for purchase decisions in the past, over half (52 percent) say blogs played a role in the critical moment they decided to move forward with a purchase.
Blog readers also replied around blogs’ influence as it relates to the following steps of the purchase process:
•    Decide on a product or service: 21 percent
•    Refine choices: 19 percent
•    Get support and answers: 19 percent
•    Discover products and services: 17 percent
•    Assure: 14 percent
•    Inspire a purchase: 13 percent
•    Execute a purchase: 7 percent

This story has some traction, here is a link to a short summary of the that study ran in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/business/22drill.html?_r=1

Read the entire Buzz Logic press release:

 http://www.buzzlogic.com/press/news.html?postdate=1225203064

Is the Golden Age of "web as direct response" over?

The "Internet advertising as direct mail" model, with click throughs the only meaningful metric, has been dealt a blow. This is great news for content publishers, whose advertising sell is based more on relevance and engagement, and less on delivering boat loads of click troughs. 

As I have said many times on this blog, if you are staking your continued online media sales on delivering click thoughs alone you are toast. For online media buyers, there is always a cheaper way to get more click throughs. But media relevancy is making a comeback. The driver? Social media that engages more and more visitors while giving them the power to  block advertising.     

According to recent post on the Harvard Business Review:  

"Early in the Internet era, it looked as if successful online marketing would follow the model of direct marketing. Data profiling and digital media would allow for deeper targeting and more intrusion into consumers’ lives than broadcast marketing. At last, it seemed, marketing would become a branch of social engineering with the marketer firmly in control. Ten years later that view looks to have been quite wrong. What we did not anticipate was that the technology that enabled intrusion would also enable defense against intrusion. From Tivo to Caller ID to social media, consumers have found ways to keep the invaders at bay. Marketers no longer rule the market. They are invited guests. If they are provocative, pertinent and entertaining they get to stay. If they are overbearing there are ways to shut them out."

The article goes on the give a terrific example of how this approach is being used to sell soap. Yup, Dove soap! 

"But some brands are cracking the code of social media and discovering how to thrive in the disenchanted environment of Web 2.0. Consider Unilever’s Dove, which has added $1.2 billion to its brand value over the past three years...

The principle made plain by Dove’s success is that in social networks brands must seek to provoke conversation not to dominate it. The locus of control in the marketplace shifts from marketer to consumer, and success is built on a model of co-created meaning. In Web 2.0, marketers accept that it is enough to rouse, to stimulate, to stir.

Dove's strategy was to move away from functional claims and to present itself as a brand with a point of view. It advocated that the beauty industry was contributing to the destruction of self-esteem in girls and young women by propagating unrealistic standards. With its Self-Esteem Fund and The Campaign for Real Beauty, Dove placed itself at odds with its competitors. Consumers loved the conflict. They lit up the digital media, generating millions of pass-along clips for YouTube, clips like Evolution and Hates Her Freckles."

See the Dove campaign website: http://www.dove.us/#/cfrb/

Read the whole post on the Harvard Business Review, "How to Build a Brand on the Web? Ask Unilever"

Should content publishers compete with search?

Maybe not. When David Churbuck, Vice President, Global Web Marketing, at Lenovo spoke at the Folio show earlier this week he showed the audience this slide showing how this major PC maker spends its ad dollars. As with many marketers these days, "search" is the largest spend.  

All magazine publishers have felt the impact of marketers’ moving their dollars online and most magazines have online products to sell. But the 800 pound gorilla online is search.

After the speech I asked Churbuck how the content publishers in the audience should pursue his online ad dollars in light of the big spend on search.

His advice was for content publishers not try to compete with search but to develop their offerings in a different direction. He uses content based media, both online and print, to brand his company while using search to drive sales. He is more interested in doing business with content publishers who offer him media to help his branding efforts than just lead generating.

Atlas study bombshell: 71% of search is navigational only

A study released from the Microsoft owned Atlas Institute says that 71% of searches are for navigation only. Why should you care?

Many marketers believe that when a customer uses "search" to visit their website they are in a critical stage of the buying process as they source, research, and evaluate products. If true, search is extremely important and deserves a huge piece of the online ad budget.  

But what if this is not true? What if most searches are just a lazy way to navigate to familiar websites? Too lazy to type in that whole exact URL? Forget it! Type a familiar few words into a search engine and you get there with less effort. This view of search sees it a lazy man's navigation tool used to get where you were already going. There is no contribution to buying decisions so it is of little use in the marketing of products.      

The Atlas study tried to figure out which of these were true. They studied what people actually type into the search engine and how often they did it. Here is what they measured: 

1. Repeat visitors
According to Atlas:
"If a user clicked on multiple ads leading to a given advertiser’s web site, we considered
each instance after the first to be a repeat visit. We considered repeat visits to
be navigational because they imply prior knowledge of the advertiser."

2. People who type a brand name, URL, or website name into search engine.
“A click was assigned to this segment if the key phrase associated with the click
included the advertiser’s brand name or explicitly matched the advertiser’s web site”

For example, if you want to go to acme foot savers at www.acmefootsavers.com you would fall into this category if your typed in:
acme foot, acme ft, foot savers, acme savers, etc.

Here is how Atlas came up with the 71% number:

Only 29% of search users were first time, non branded users.... or 71% were navigational only users.

On a sales call.

If you sell advertising for a content publisher the online ads you sell are always in the shadow of search. Nationwide search accounts for 41% of all online ad revenues. Never 'dis" search. Search is an extremely valuable service that all marketers should be using. But often search gets more credit for sales than it deserves and gets credit for the influence your publication's brand is delivering. I have called on accounts that "have no online ad budget" because all their online $ went to search. You can use this study to help put this into perspective. Search is important. Media form content publishers is important. Your online media buy should include both.    

Download a PDF to take on your next call

http://www.atlassolutions.com/uploadedFiles/Atlas/Atlas_Institute/Published_Content/dmi-NavigationalSearch.pdf

"Pure plays" beat you by loving search more

Many print publishers I talk to are surprised by upstart "web only" media companies that drain online ad dollars out of their markets. Established media should hold all the cards; an established brand, a history in the market, and access to online list development via the magazine subscription process.

How do these web only "pure plays" stand a chance? Simple, they love search more than we do. A study from Borrell Associates entitled, "WHAT LOCAL MEDIA WEB SITES EARN: May 2008 SURVEY", uncovers the strategy in the regional magazine market that should raise alarm for any magazine, anywhere.

First, some news from the survey that challenges the conventional wisdom that your print brand gives a huge advantage online: 

 "The most financially successful local Web operations are venturing into page designs and product lines that have little to do with the medium that gave birth to them. Like their “new media” predecessors in radio in the 1920s and television in the 1950s, they are creating unique identities and breaking away from their print and broadcast roots."

 On how pure plays get their traffic:

 "Part of the growth is being driven by traditional local media companies selling advertising on their own sites. Most of it, however, comes from pure-play companies delivering lower cost advertising that intercepts consumers not as they are reading news online, but as they are using the Web to research products and prices."

 "Intercept" web visitors as they "research products and prices"? That's "search." Without a print brand to drive visits to a site "search" is how they do it. Simply put, "pure plays" are playing the Search Engine Optimization game better, and are able to establish competitive brands as result. 

Download a free summary of the Borrell report

  

 

 

The Corona Beer search story

This is a great story you can use on a sales calls to put the importance of "search" into perspective, especially if you find an advertiser who is giving "search" total credit for sales that your media is helping to make. I heard this at the start of a webinar led by Young-Bean Song, VP Analytics at the Atlas Institute.

Song asked his audience to imagine they managed Corona Beer marketing and had just observed people walking by a Corona Beer neon sign on their way into a bar. Then notice these same people buying a Corona Beer. You could conclude that the sign made all the sales. Then, you might think about dropping all TV, radio, and magazine advertising to put your entire marketing budget into Corona neon signs! Sounds ridiculous. But, Song suggests, this is what advertisers do when they give all credit for a sale to "search" as they look only at the last ad viewed, or the last click made before a sale.  

On a call.

First off, don't bash search. Search is an essential tool that all smart advertisers should be using. Instead, use this story start a discussion that puts your media into perspective with search so they are both viewed as important. Then ask, "Before people go to search what media do you think are influencing their behavior? Or, what media messages do you think makes a potential customer initiate a search?      

 Watch the Atlas Webinar

 

"The Online Objection Bible (abridged)" free for download

At the City and Regional Magazine Association's annual meeting I released the first edition of "The  Online Objection Bible(abridged)." This 23 page document shares specific strategies that integrated media salespeople can use to over come the following objections:

"All our online $ goes to search”
“Not enough clicks”
“Print is dead”
“We don’t buy integrated packages”

Download it for free:

Download online_objection_bible.doc

 

Recommend a URL in the next ad

One way to sell more print ad space is to encourage your advertisers to add a campaign and magazine specific URL to their next print ad. It is one extra step. But here is what happens; a readers sees the ad and is motivated to search the Internet for more information. By using a campaign and magazine specific URL the advertiser can track which campaign and which magazine drove the reader to their website.

A post on Clickz by James Hering offered tips on how to use campaign specific URLs. Hering references research that indicates many do not like to enter long URLs with a lot of extra slash marks. As result, some marketers now favor campaign specific URLs, often based on the the tag line of the campaign:

Examples include:

Burger King: haveityourway.com and subservientchicken.com

Mitsubishi: seewhathappens.com

Subaru: need-desire.com

Universal Studios: iwantmyvacation.com

Lincoln Mercury: oneandonlyclearance.com

Dish Network: stopfeedingthepig.com

Audi: neverfollow.com

Now add the magazine initials or just a number to designate a specific media and your client can have it all. Is it better to use a custom campaign URL or extensions of the brand URL? Using the brand URL, of course, reinforces the brand. Which approach is better? The answer: the one that gets your advertiser to include a magazine specific reference so your media gets tracked!

Read Hearing's column on Clickz