Having been in the trenches for the past year talking about multiproduct selling and how a consultative or collaborative sales process is a key component for selling multiple media, I keep hearing over and over again “I’ve been training on consultative selling for years so why should we rely on it to take us into the next era of selling?” Having been involved in local media sales for more than 10 years, I’m going to take the unpopular stand and say that the current local media sales process is transactional product selling in consultative selling clothes. In short, many sales organizations have embraced aspects of consultative selling but in large it is being used as a sales tactic to get …
Click here to read the full story »
By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey
For broadcasters, it is an article of faith that “localism” is a point of differentiation that adds value to their operations. Localism tends to mean local news, sports, weather, traffic, local events, coverage of local government and other promotional and volunteer involvement in the community. There’s a lot of chatter about what it takes to succeed with true “localism.” This past year has seen some notable localism failures. Other efforts are in a nascent stage
One case in point is Allbritton Communications, based in the Washington DC-area. Its television stations are affiliated with ABC, with the largest property being WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in the Washington, DC market.
Our primary interest was the …
Click here to read the full story »
Local radio stations continue exploring for effective ways to grow and diversify revenue by developing and selling cross-platofrm sales packages. It’s tough trying this on your own, so many stations are working with vendors and in partnerships to extend business models beyond the over-the-air platform in ways that leverage radio’s core assets of brand, localism, locally deployed sales force and existing client relationships.
Colin Pape, Co-Founder/President of ShopCity.com, an early stage Internet company, has a vision, “imagine finding prices for any product or service offered within your community all on a single website.” That’s what he’s doing with his company. ShopCity’s business model is working with local businesses and putting, pricing, availability, hours of operation and methods of payment in the …
Click here to read the full story »
Media companies, publishers, advertisers, agencies and brand managers all are struggling with their approaches to most effectively leverage consumer mobile platforms.
On the media side, key issues include finding viable business models; understanding the mobile ecosystem well enough to make informed decisions regarding content, revenue models, technologies, services, partners and market opportunities.
On the advertising side, brand managers, agencies and small and medium business (SMB) operators are trying to be smart with their media plans and spending allocations among multiple media platforms to drive the purchase funnel. Making the mobile platform even more challenging in the consumer environment is the fast pace of evolution not just in technologies but also in how consumers and businesses are adapting to the mobile …
Click here to read the full story »
John Kelsey, having sold The Kelsey Group a year ago to BIA, has stepped down from the company after helping us all with the transition.
John has been a remarkable force of innovation in the Yellow Pages industry. He anticipated the rise of electronic media and its impact on the Yellow Pages and small business marketing around the world. He worked tirelessly to help incorporate Yellow Pages into the world of contemporary online and mobile marketing. And, he created a community that brought traditional media and new media together.
John and Pam Kelsey have been very good friends and mentors to many of us at BIA/Kelsey, and they will be missed. But they are as pleased as we are about all the …
Click here to read the full story »
New Year’s Greetings from BIA/Kelsey
So, the good news.
2009 is over. Thank God.
We head into the New Year severely chastened by the historic revenue declines of the current one. The numbers for 2009 don’t bear repeating. They were several shades of awful.
There are signs of a modest ad economy recovery as we enter January 2010. The broadcast networks are reporting an active scatter market. This makes the network execs that decided to hold back inventory at the upfront look like good market callers. Some of the larger radio groups are reporting a decent December assuming that flat is the new up! Online ad activity is regaining …
Click here to read the full story »
Microsoft’s new MSN Local preview site is set to launch in 2010, Scott Moore and Cyrus Krohn announced on their “localizing the portal” panel at ILM:09. MSN Local will leverage Microsoft assets like its 100 million U.S. MSN users, Bing, Hotmail, and its new partnership with NBC-U and Hearst for 3,000 video clips in 36 markets. Moore says the overall goal is to add value to local by going beyond restaurant reviews and events to include content that drives frequent visits (news, weather, sports, traffic) and deeper content like that offered by Microsoft’s acquisition of EveryBlock, which aggregates publicly available local data like restaurant inspections, police reports, etc.; normalizes it; and serves it by neighborhood. MSN Local will offer its …
Click here to read the full story »
At the ILM:09 session on “Localizing the Big Sites,” Cory Bergman of MSNBC; Jim Pastor of ESPN Local and Kinsey Wilson of NPR Digital Media tackled issues related to how local “local” must be and what’s the best mix of national brands and platforms with local news and info.
As Kinsey said, it’s making sense for the national brands to lead with identity and offer thought leadership, infrastructure, platforms and tools for the sake of efficiency and consistency but let local information drive incremental value. That’s where the NPR local member stations will add to the formula for expected success. Kinsey said NPR sees more immediate opportunities in the larger markets because that’s where newspapers are failing fastest and that’s where …
Click here to read the full story »
