BNET recently featured Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati, who wrote a new book titled “Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business.” In his book, Gulati points out:

“In a marketplace like today, customers have more choices and more information, and services start to look like each other, in what we call a sea of sameness. If you don’t have an ability to transcend beyond the features and functionality of my product versus yours, then you have a problem.”

Gulati points out the fallacy of the notion that media companies are currently consultative and customer focused. Many media sales teams feel if they are asking a few questions about the business and their expected ROI from their marketing efforts that somehow this constitutes consultative selling. Put simply, salespeople are saying “I’ll talk about your needs so long as it leads to you only buying my portfolio of solutions.” Gulati’s point of view is “Most organizations believe they are customer centric when they are asking questions, but they’re communicating with customers through a product lens (with a pre-determined end in mind).” Instead, Gulati says “companies must ask deeper questions such as what problems they are dealing with and what issues are happening in the life of my customers regardless of the solutions the sales person is offering.” The goal in asking probing questions is to help the advertiser better articulate his or her needs so sales can get them met.

Consultative or collaborative selling is about transparency and building solutions that fit the customer’s needs and not necessarily the media company’s balance sheet. If a salesperson is aiming to sell a specific product set, and is willing to un-sell other potential solutions, then this version of consultative selling is merely disguised as the same transactional selling of old — all paths lead to a limited solution. Media consultants recognize there are many media options available to advertisers and that at times their portfolio of media offerings has to co-exist or complement other media and at other times they must fight to win budget from media that may not be as effective or is receiving too large of a share of an advertiser’s budget. Being able to counsel local advertisers on media strengths and weaknesses means salespeople must learn about all types of local media to be effective in selling their own portfolio of media options.

Local advertisers are much smarter about where they spend their marketing dollars because they have access to more information than ever before and have tighter ties to peers through social networks who can offer additional guidance. Salespeople used to be the source of information about what was happening in the local marketplace but now they are one of many sources available. If a salesperson cannot deliver value beyond what an advertiser can access on his or her own, then he or she has very little to offer. True media consultancy is the path where more peer-to-peer relationships are developed. Based on BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor study, 48 percent of SMBs want their media rep to help them understand their media options and make the best choice for their budget among the confusing array of new media choices.

While many media sales organizations are looking at incremental changes to their sales processes, those that are savvy and understand that local advertisers have changed and that the sales role must change are the ones that will thrive. The reality is the market has already changed and it is up to each media company to understand how to recraft its sales strategy and put together a consultative media sales team that understands local media and can be the media guide local advertisers are seeking. It’s time to stop making consultative selling a sales tactic for getting the advertiser to talk and use it as a means for building a relationship, creating value and developing media plans that work for the benefit of the advertiser and leverage their existing marketing activities. If consultative selling fantasy can be turned into reality, media outlets stand to make significant revenue gains and gain a larger, more loyal base of advertisers.

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 fall 2009 announcement of Allbritton’s plans to launch a Washington, DC focused news site that will combine with the WJLA and NewsChannel8 television and web operations. To launch this new local news site, Allbritton hired Jim Brady, the former editor of Washingtonpost.com, The site is set to launch in Spring 2010 and will have about 50 more news staffers on hand.

We recently talked with Allbritton’s SVP of Legal and Strategic Affairs Jerry Fritz, who supports Robert Allbritton (the family-owned company’s Chairman and visionary) and Fred Ryan. These three executives are the key architects of this strategy. Fritz has a long history with the company that spans more than twenty years.

While the timing seems very fortuitous, Jerry Fritz tells us it’s really the culmination of a plan that was devised back in the late 1980s, when Allbritton (who used to own The Washington Star) saw an opportunity to build a strong local franchise to compete with the newsgathering prowess of the Washington Post.

The first effort under the plan was the launch of NewsChannel 8 distributed over local cable systems. NewsChannel 8 was, at first, a separate operation from the local broadcast television station. A truly, locally focused news operation; NewsChannel 8 broke down its news for the area’s three separate and distinct geographies with a mix of local, lifestyle and political programs. It was a pioneer and in its early days, NewsChannel was a tough sell for audiences and advertisers. Its programming and appeal have grown as the product has matured and its mix of local news and lifestyle shows (Political talk to local golf) now attract larger audiences plus a mix of larger and smaller advertisers. NewsChannel 8 also has benefited from the growth in the news product on WJLA. WJLA has completely rebuilt its local news operations following a downsizing many years ago.

From its base in local television, Allbritton leveraged its core assets across media platforms to exploit some of the unique attributes of the DC market

That included developing an online newspaper to address the market opportunity of providing news, commentary and an advertising vehicle to government contractors, lobbyists, trade associations and others seeking to influence the nation’s seat of government.

Politico.com, designed to be the ESPN of politics, was Allbritton’s initial online effort under the new strategy. While Politico was designed around the Web, readers and advertisers clamored for a print counterpart. Allbritton responded with a three times-a-week print product that was quickly ramped to five days.

Since then, Politico has created a national network of newspapers and websites that share Politico stories in exchange for web ad avails, which Politico sells to national advertisers. It is a classic win-win.

In fact, Politico’s timing has been perfect. Many newspapers have closed their DC news bureaus, and local newspapers are struggling to fill the news gap. Recent filings with the SEC have detailed just how successful the operation of Politico has become in a relatively short time as revenue has topped the $20m mark and cash flows have reached seven figures.

Now, both WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 share facilities and some staff members as they gather, collect and present local news and information to the DC market. Adding Politico, the Allbritton operation finds itself as one of the country’s leaders in the gathering and dissemination of political news. That has positive rub off impacts on both WJLA and NewsChannel 8. Washington is still very much a company town.

So, it’s in the same vein that we look at this soon to be launched local news oriented website. Adding fifty journalists to an operation that already includes a prominent local television station and its cable news spinoff plus the acclaimed Politico gives Allbritton’s operation one of the largest news gathering operations in the market. As the company focuses on enabling its journalists to file news across any platform, it’s easy to see the combined Allbritton portfolio giving some heartache to the Washington Post (and few know that property better than Jim Brady). The company just recently brought a senior sales executive to lead the advertising sales effort for the new metro new site.

Allbritton already has a deal in place with the market’s leading news/talk radio station as well to share content and to provide weather reporting from its team of meteorologists. While it doesn’t seem that Allbritton wants to get itself imbedded into the longer view stories that the Post covers, it does seem that there’s a probable audience for hurried Washington audience members who want to get the news in an easy, connected and time saving way.

The Allbritton mission is to produce and serve unique content which has appeal beyond the Washington market. The plan is to capitalize not only on local ad spend across broadcast, cable, print and online platforms but also to get access to content syndication and barter ad inventory nationwide. Allbritton understands that it can be profitable to serve not only local audiences and advertisers well with smart execution but that this entire operation can be leveraged to grow out of market revenues. Could this example serve as a possible model for other broadcasters looking for a digital strategy that actually makes money!

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 environment.

BIA/Kelsey has conducted three waves of “Mobile Market View” (“MMW”) which is a consumer study of U.S. adult mobile phone users in the fall of 2007, 2008 and the latest results released in November 2009. One of the key emerging trends we see in the latest research is a solid consumer movement toward using the mobile platform for non-voice communications including search, text messages, email, video, social networking and mobile web browsing. We see fast growth continuing in adoption of smart phones (29% of consumers now have smart phones) and data packages (37% of mobile users now have data plans).

Based on consumer trends, we see revenue growth for content, search, directory, ad networks and of course mobile service providers. BIA/Kelsey sees the fastest revenue growth occurring in local search and mobile video services. The high trajectory revenue growth model will be advertising but we also see subscription and content on demand services as strong components of mobile revenue mix.

For advertisers, agencies and brand managers, this growing use of mobile has significant implications for their media strategies. From 2007 to 2009, consumers have essentially doubled their use of the mobile platform for non-voice communications. This represents a fundamental and rapid shift in media use which needs to be considered in determining the appropriate mix and spending levels among local media platforms. Media companies that do not currently offer a differentiated mobile advertising option increasingly will find it difficult to satisfy advertisers drawn to mobile’s ability to drive brand metrics such as increased awareness of advertising campaigns and messaging. Ad messaging can include not just search and mobile web but also video as we see nearly a fifth of mobile consumers have received or sent videos each month.

The mobile platform is becoming integrated into consumer habits in a more pervasive and sticky manner than any other medium in history. It is fast becoming a mission critical part of the media industry for publishers and advertisers.

Article prepared by Rick Ducey, Ph.D., Chief Strategy Officer, BIA/Kelsey

First published in ShowSmart, a publication by NABShow, which can be read at:
http://www.nabshow.com/2010/email/ShowSmart/LandingPage/ShowSmart_issue2.html#3

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 exciting new things we are doing in the new era of BIA/Kelsey with mobile, marketplaces, local search, traditional media and yes, Yellow Pages.

John and Pam – Thank you!

Tom Buono is the CEO of 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 its health as well after a down year on the display side.

The American consumer seems to have provided the retail community some good news in the recently concluded holiday shopping season. The longer term outlook on consumer spending seems a little mixed but let’s take the good news for what it is.

We’re also coming up against weakened 2009 comps but that’s a mix of good and bad news. So, upward pacing cheers will be balanced by the knowledge that these positive pacings are for revenues more reminiscent of the late 1990’s. Depressed ad rates could be bolstered by some advance in demand but how much remains a mystery. Advertisers are still wary of the economy as unemployment will remain high for a while, and that will likely mean any advertising rate increases are going to be the result of some intense negotiation. That won’t be a change from 2009!

A lot of businesses large and small decided to cut back and/or sit out advertising in 2009 but it seems that more positive psychological changes are present in this community. Business owners know that they need to re-invite consumers through advertising campaigns into their showrooms in order to generate sales. The survivors of the Great Recession need to let consumers know they’re still around. There’s still business to be had but it will need to be seduced in no small part by solid and effective advertising. Can your current sales operation make that happen?

There’s some optimism for 2010 revenues as the nation prepares for its first mid-term election during the Obama presidency. Given the tenor of recent legislative battles in the halls of Congress, increased citizen advocacy, some historically poor poll numbers for this particular Congress plus an economy that is still in turmoil, this coming mid-term election is red hot and looking very competitive nearly everywhere across the country. With all 435 House seats, more than a third of the Senate and Gubernatorial races in states like California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio, it’s a big, big year. This has generated the usual estimates of billions of political dollars in play spread out over several early year primaries and the November election. This is great news to parts of the media business that have seen more than its share of suffering this year. If true, these projections can put a big 2010 Band Aid on a business that needed a tourniquet in 2009.

But what about 2011 when all that political money disappears and we’re back to the normal advertising marketplace? It would seem that the additional revenue in 2010 is a perfect opportunity for traditional media companies to address their shortcomings on the sales side of the industry with both the traditional and digital sides. If you’re not happy with the ups and downs of the odd-even year symphony that’s become our business, perhaps 2010 is the convenient time to address that. The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining!

There is an opportunity in local media markets for someone to unlock the mysteries of the new advertising universe to businesses in pursuit of customers. With all the new advertising opportunities available in the market today, advertisers are confused on how these can help their businesses grow. A number of advertisers were confused about the traditional media choices, too. As to this new mission, no one is quite there yet. Those who get there first and show meaningful and sustained results will be the winners of a large share of local ad dollars. The question for media companies is: are you going to be the first or let a competitor get there before you? With self serve advertising options now becoming more commonplace, it will be up to local sales staffs to add value and results to ad campaigns. Otherwise, local merchants will have the ability to do the work for themselves! Not a pleasing prospect.

A recent study from the ANA and b2b Magazine shows that 2/3rds of marketers have added social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to their overall media mix. Where is the budget from that coming: traditional media budgets. Only 26% of marketers indicated that they’d established a separate social media budget that didn’t come from the traditional media side of the ledger. How long before your clients do the same? The word of the day for marketers is flexibility. “As more media platforms become available, it is imperative that all marketers continue to assess their capabilities and select the platforms that are best suited to help them meet their brand’s goals and objectives,” said Bob Liodice, president and CEO of the ANA. “With this proliferation of media, marketers must work harder, survey the entire landscape available to them and create their brand’s most optimal media mix.” Hard to argue with that but can anyone explain this to local marketers? It’s time for local media sellers to step into that gap.

While we’ve all had our share of advertising agency adventures over the years, the simple fact is that your sales staffs are going to have to take more of that platform agnostic mentality to effectively service direct local clients. The days of a single platform sale will become less common as we move into the digital age. Our local sellers are going to have to be able to construct ad campaigns that make multiple platforms work effectively in some synchronicity.

Have you given your sellers the proper training to ask the right questions so they get critical data from clients and prospects to make that happen? Do you have the resources necessary to help the seller navigate the creative elements of an ad campaign that makes the difference between an effective campaign and one that isn’t? If you can’t answer either question in the affirmative, the time to act maybe right in front of you. If you can’t, then now will be the time to reinvest in that sales training. It’s not easy to commit significant resources coming off a year full of down revenues and massive layoffs but what’s the price of not making the investment?

Best wishes for a successful 2010 and beyond!

The geotargeted segment of the overall display ad market (banner advertising) will meanwhile grow from 10.2 percent to 15 percent in the same period. The highest growth rate in the forecast belongs to geographically targeted display ads bought by small and medium-sized businesses (as opposed to national advertisers targeting locally).

The SMB segment will grow from $45 million in 2008 to $565 million by 2013, a compound annual growth rate of 66 percent. This segment will also grow from 5 percent to 30 percent of the total geotargeted display ad market over this period.

“The basis for growth of the geotargeted ad market is rooted in the economics of existing search resellers,” said Matt Booth, SVP and program director for BIA/Kelsey. “The effective strategy for companies like AT&T, ReachLocal, Yodle and others will be to use geotargeting to increase margins by shifting spend from paid search to geodisplay.

Simply, if a lead from search costs $30, these companies will shift to display where similar quality leads can be obtained for less. The display ad networks have so much excess inventory; they will run whatever impressions are needed to meet reseller targets.”

This will be a prevalent topic at next week’s Interactive Local Media conference.

Discover where your listeners spend their time on the Web AND off

• Conduct research
• Listen in on social media site conversations relevant to your station
• Ask your listeners to participate in surveys via Website, phone, email and at events
• Pay attention to all of your listener feedback channels

Add appropriate social media buttons for sharing your Websites, content, apps and eNewsletters

• We know social media is popular and already exists in many places on line, but stations should leverage what’s out there and add social media icons to station sites, tools and communications to help spread the word virally and help you appear more progressive
• Add forward to a friend buttons too

Start an eNewsletter if you don’t have one and if you do

• Add an online survey—I’ve learned that listeners LOVE to give you their feedback.  99X in Atlanta once had a response rate of 60% to their email survey and that’s without attaching an incentive!
• Add links and value to give the listener something in exchange for their time and valuable sharing of their information
• Look for trends in deliverability, open, click-through and other rates of activity
• Always respond to communications from listeners, let them know you are listening to them!  AT minimum, program an auto-responder so listeners know their information is going where it is supposed to go.
• Make listener email registration consistent and use primary real estate on your home page to encourage data sharing

Add online surveys and instant polls to your Websites

A survey or poll can add engagement by asking questions and allowing listeners to answer, see results, etc. Be careful not to interpret this listener feedback as official research.  These tools are more for engagement and limited feedback.

Conduct Website usability sessions, on the cheap

We tend to program what we as a station think we should put up on a site or in our communications.  One of the best ways to gain listener perspective is to conduct informal usability sessions.  Call up some friends or acquaintances and ask them to visit your office and review your site and comment (with you looking over a shoulder).  Ask them to talk through everything they are thinking as they navigate your site.  Take notes and you may learn something new about how your site is perceived by someone outside your station.

Add an “Ask the DJ / personality” feature

• Where listeners are clicking on your site,
• Where listeners come from,
• How long are they on your site or time spent on pages or apps (are they having difficulties finding what they are looking for?  Or interested and engaged in an article or activity?)
• Are listeners reading or using your content and tools?

Add RSS feeds

Add RSS feeds to your most valuable and most often updated content. This will maximize your content and automates your continued reaching out to listeners.  Don’t forget to track which content is most popular via RSS feed.

Start a blog on your website

Blogs are a great way to see who is engaged in a topic or blogger and allows for listener generated content.  Even if a blog receives few or no comments, that doesn’t mean you haven’t added value to your site by adding a blog.  Just by allowing and asking for listener feedback, even if listeners don’t take you up on it, still makes a listener feel more empowered and creates a positive reflection of your station.

Include privacy policy

Always place a privacy policy link next to any form where you collect listener data.  Explain briefly how you will not share the listeners’ personal information with anyone without consent.

Maximize analytical tools

Don’t forget to set goals for success and determine how you will track and use this listener information to build listener engagement and loyalty.  Make sure you track

• Where listeners are clicking on your site,
• Where listeners come from,
• How long are they on your site or time spent on pages or apps (are they having difficulties finding what they are looking for?  Or interested and engaged in an article or activity?)
• Are listeners reading or using your content and tools?
• Which listeners are most active on your site and may you harness participants and encourage viral sharing and content contribution?

Some of the tactics above in and of themselves promote listener engagement and loyalty.  Just by asking a listener what they think and responding to them, help create a better relationship, even if you are not using the information as formal research.

If you don’t listen to your listeners, someone else will!

Lori Dillé is a Managing Partner of Weather Shore, LLC and a member of The Radio Workout Team

Ernie Mosteller, VP, Creative Director/Emerging Media for Brunner Digital asserted that, “most advertising is bad” and that the “formula I see emerging is people looking for a formula. He cautioned that “mobile is an extremely personal space that is opt-in and you have to give people a reason to want to interact.”

Ann Hunter is comScore’s VP in charge of advertising effectiveness product suite and noted that most failed campaigns miss the mark because clients focused on trial metrics versus product benefits. She advised that when digital marketing is targeted, creative and engaging, it works. Trialing metrics don’t deliver results, she noted. “Less than 10% of web users generate about 85% of click-throughs. These are not necessarily the people you want. Click-throughs are not an appropriate goal for most campaigns.”

GenuisRocket’s founder, Mark Walsh challenged that ads should act like the consumer knows something. They should be customized, personalized and place in an appropriate context.” He also emphasized the value of interactivity. “Brand managers fall in love with tools and statistics. But interactive campaigns offer a stunningly rich opportunity to hear directly from customers.” Hunter agreed, “You lose 50% off your opportunity if you don’t listen!”

With increasing bandwidth available to users, video is a natural outcome. In fact, Mark Zaneis, Interactive Advertising Bureau’s VP of Public Policy said that with the standards IAB helped foster for formatting and serving Internet video and increasing inventory, this is a growth area. He argued that it’s a misconception that doing web video is too complicated.

Rochelle Sanchirico, Washington Post Digital’s senior director of acquisition marketing, answered the question, “how would you spend $5 million for a GAP campaign on a new jacket” said she would consider the creative elements, campaign goals and how to leverage these across channels. She emphasized that media allocations need to be optimized through-out the campaign by reassessing relevant performance metrics. She’d split the budget equally into four categories: display ads for exposure; social networks for presence and engagement; search for conversion (i.e., consumers who want to buy just need to find out where); and the final 25% into “experimental” channels like mobile or blogs.

When moderator Paul Sherman asked each panelist to name what will be hot for 2010, the answers came back as video, social, targeting and consumer control. Earlier the panelists had also called 2010 “the year of mobile.” When asked why mobile wasn’t on anybody’s “what’s hot” list the panelists said that interactive marketing has evolved beyond focusing on individual channels and that campaigns must be cross platform to fully leverage marketing and advertising opportunities.

Rick Ducey is the Chief Strategy Officer of BIA/Kelsey.