Mel Taylor Media » hyper local

INMA Audience Summit; Mel Taylor PPT

MelTaylorMedia — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:18:42 +0000

Here’s my presentation deck from the INMA Audience Summit, Las Vegas, Oct. 24, 2011. Session was called: State of Circulation; Monetizing the Online Audience . Special thanks to Earl Wilkinson, John Newby and everyone who gathered for this outstanding event.

Mel Taylor INMA Vegas 10.24.11

Las Vegas Sun Patient For Web Profit ? Can great online editorial survive without a strong sales effort? How patient can Greenspun Media be, as they pump financial support into the LasVegasSun.com? This is quite possibly the only...
NENPA; Newspapers Win w/ Digital The New England Newspaper & Press Association had a great turn-out in Boston on Feb 11 & 12, for their 2011 convention. Here’s the deck I used for the Internet...
Digital Threats to Radio: PPT deck New Digital Threats to Radio 1.26.11...

Digital Diagnostic for Radio Websites

MelTaylorMedia — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:37:05 +0000

Can Radio beat Newspaper in the online news space?

Here’s part 1 of last week’s webinar we did for a group of Radio executives. Merlin Media and Genesis Communications are featured in this session. We focus on the issues affecting Radio’s ability to build sustainable, online business models.

Radio Websites, a Hyper Local Opportunity? Warning: If you have responsibility of managing the station website and you think web sales is un-appealing, or just not worth the time and effort……you may not want the big boss to...
NAB Radio Show, Web Revenue Chokepoints NAB and RAB Radio Show 2010. Digital still being given lip service by Broadcasters? Maybe, since Radio barely pulls 2% of online revenue share. Cool websites are not enough &...
The Digital Threats to Radio Terrestrial Radio has survived a variety of digital threats over the years. Can it keep the winning streak alive? Abacast and Radio-Info present a free webinar on January 26. Competing...

Newspaper’s Digital Competition

MelTaylorMedia — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 10:45:32 +0000

How Newspaper Can Beat Digital Competition. UPDATED for Oct 2011. Slide deck from this week’s webinar. Some competitors are familiar, others are not.

Inland Press; Patch & Hyper Local

MelTaylorMedia — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 23:30:53 +0000

On March 18, Inland Press responded once again to the newspaper industry’s interest in hyper local competition and the growth of Patch. They invited me to do an encore of the session that was originally presented in St. Petersburg, Florida a few weeks ago, at the Key Executives conference. See presentation below.

Attendees heard our message loud and clear. Run your website like your newspaper….profit must come first.

Key take-aways that seemed to resonate the most:

Whoever acts as Web general manager, VP Interactive/content, editor, etc….must have their compensation tied to digital profitability and local market share….NOT page views or other soft metrics.
CPM selling at the local level is no longer effective, and is only getting worse.
Ad units and page layout need to be cleaner and more advertiser friendly. ( just like the newspaper )
Reliance on 3rd party ad or remnant networks need to be reduced or eliminated.
Newspapers need better awareness of the new, digital competitors like Groupon, Patch, Reach Local, etc.
Patch may not be a newspaper killer, but they do execute local tactics that newspapers should adopt.
Compensation, management structure and work flow must be re-aligned to embrace a digital first culture.
Let’s stop talking about, or over-researching the problem. Let’s put sales & business 101 into action.
Print is never going away. Yet digital will be the one tool that helps our industry the most.

INLAND PRESS: New Digital Competitors 3.18.11

Valuation of Digital Assets. Inland Press Local online news & info is about to enter it’s next phase. Newspaper, TV, Radio and hyper local operators can no longer run digital with their fingers crossed. Having editorial execs drive...
Hyper Local Purists Steamrolled by Patch? The hyper-local gathering called 'Block by Block 2010' was held recently. Revenue & business models were a top concern. Will these, and other online news orgs be able to compete...
Radio vs Patch, Groupon, Hyper local Can Radio win against Patch, Reach Local, Groupon and Hyper-local competitors? Click below to view the training presentation given to 200 Radio broadcasters on August 10. In this session, we...

Remnant Ad Nets; Auto Pilot for Sales

MelTaylorMedia — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:28:34 +0000

Remnant ad networks can be a deadly revenue stream for local media.

It’s understandable that broadcast, newspaper and hyper-local websites love these money makers for their ability to put local sales efforts on auto-pilot.

Unfortunately, 3rd party selling can turn your valuable ad inventory into a commodity that’s priced and traded in bulk with little regard for your site’s ad environment, readership, engagement and other qualitative features.

ESPN, Turner, NBC have already reduced their reliance on these 3rd party ad nets. They can sell their premium inventory better than any outsider. Why sell out to middle men who essentially put your inventory up for auction? Why not offer your premium audience…. at premium rates?

Watch the video below to see how many mis-use Google Ad Sense, Ad Blade, Centro and other 3rd party sales representation.

Moneyball: Fixing Newspaper Web Sales Traditional Newspaper management is just like the old guard in Baseball. That’s what you’ll think after watching Moneyball starring Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s general manager; Billy Beane. Based on...
Inland Press; Patch & Hyper Local On March 18, Inland Press responded once again to the newspaper industry’s interest in hyper local competition and the growth of Patch. They invited me to do an encore of...
Recap: 2011 Key Executive Conference Here are some prime take-aways from the 2011 Key Executive Multi-media conference, held in St. Petersburg, Florida, Feb 21-23. Take your foot off the brake. You can’t make meaningful web...

Patch Not-So-Secret Plan

MelTaylorMedia — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 18:08:09 +0000

We often hear hyper-local journalists and newspaper publishers scoff at the Mc-cookie cutter and corporate approach of Patch. Too much aggregation, editorial missteps and the lack of advertiser support…..all early critiques that provide some level of comfort for those that hope Patch will fail, and fail fast.

Patch does share a few traits of other struggling or dead local initiatives that adopted a ‘build it and they will come’ strategy. In these plans, editorial & tech execs take the lead and burn through cash to build traffic. THEN… they retro-fit a semi-realistic sales strategy and hire a VP Sales. Ask San Diego News Network and NYT’s The Local, whether that model worked out for them. (hint: it didn’t) We can’t imagine that AOL Patch chief; Tim Armstrong is overlooking the lessons of these past stinkers. We also don’t think he’s doing Patch for purely altruistic reasons like saving journalism or winning journo awards for his mantle. Clearly, he’s wants ROI. And why not? That’s job #1 for any CEO.

Patch using smoke screen & red herrings? To my non-journo hairy eyeball, much of Patch’s current content & editorial efforts are being mis-interpreted by those who feel threatened. Editorial, massive page views and community engagement is not the ultimate end game here. Rather, the real M.O or modus operandi of Patch is to steadily build relationships with local advertisers, then offer a portfolio of digital marketing solutions. And we’re talkin’ more than just banners.

More than just banners. In other words, Patch is just starting to get cozy with mom & pops….getting them ready for a sweet and more profitable up-sell consisting of events, video, sem, web development, social & reputation management, database, etc. Friendly Patch folk stop by local retailers to ‘help’ them with their free online profiles, take some pics, and stealthily update the Patch smb databases. Smart.

Using free-mium model, Patch cuts through clutter and aims to be a primary partner with local business, something traditional media had a lock on for decades. That’s the holy grail. The life blood of local, online news & info, is local advertiser support. Without it, Patch and others like it, fail.

Market incumbents fighting back. Sort of. In Seattle, KING-TV and cross town competitor; The Seattle Times, have formed an un-holy union with their hyper-local ad network plans. In this scheme, they hope to attract indie bloggers by offering the digital sales acumen & relationships of their ‘ace’ TV and Print sellers. Since The Seattle Times has dabbled in hyper-local for the past year, one may assume their solo plan wasn’t working, so they needed a partner. To see the ‘newsroom & editorial only’ perspective on big media & hyper local, watch these very telling interviews of Seattle Times execs. This video clearly highlights the lack of any sales or local advertiser influence and understanding. Also watch for the knucklehead that states: ‘this helps the newspaper’. (why do bloggers want to ‘help’ the newspaper?)

To date, we haven’t seen this kind of plan work out so well for the blogosphere. Especially in the revenue department. That’s why we patiently wait…and wait…..for good hyper-local sales reports from TBD.com, ChicagoNow.com and MiamiHerald.com. Can a TV or Print rep properly represent the unique properties of an indie website? We still think that’s a long shot, as many reps and their ad directors, still struggle to sell their own big media sites.

Journalism’s two masters: reader & advertiser. Which one do you think ROI-focused PATCH is putting first in line? Distasteful as it may sound to some, sales & revenue need to take a front seat in every local news and hyper-local effort. Without sound financial footing, community coverage & engagement are non-existent. Journalism is a means to an end for corporate media. That end is profit. We know this is tough to swallow for newsroom vets, after decades of insanely profitable newspaper domination.

Getting hooks into local smb’s. If Patch can accomplish this, don’t be surprised to see an upgrade in their editorial & staffing. Not only will this will be tough for indie bloggers to compete against, it might just be the final nail in the coffin for Newspaper.

Inland Press; Patch & Hyper Local On March 18, Inland Press responded once again to the newspaper industry’s interest in hyper local competition and the growth of Patch. They invited me to do an encore of...
Hyper Local Purists Steamrolled by Patch? The hyper-local gathering called 'Block by Block 2010' was held recently. Revenue & business models were a top concern. Will these, and other online news orgs be able to compete...
How To Beat Patch. SNA Webinar How To Beat PATCH and Other New, Local Web Competitors Tuesday, December 14, 2010 1:00 PM Eastern Time From Suburban Newspapers of America website: An overwhelming number of SNA members...

Old School Media Execs: Digital Drag

MelTaylorMedia — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 14:02:53 +0000

Last week, traditional media execs got another digital wake call with the demotion of a well respected newspaper editor in Philadelphia.

Bill Marimow was re-assigned as an investigative reporter. Philadelphia Media Network CEO; Greg Osberg, publicly stated that Marimow, though a Pulitzer Prize-winner, ‘did not have the background in digital media necessary to lead the paper going forward.’ This announcement was a biggie. If you listen very close, you can almost hear the sound of old school media execs scrambling to finally start their Linked-in profiles and Facebook pages.

In other ‘That Won’t Ever Happen Here’ news….Deseret Media in Salt Lake City, lead by innovation pioneer Clark Gilbert, purged 43% of his print staff in order to grow the ‘digital first’ team. While the plan was painful to execute, Deseret smartly merged the remaining print staff with their newsroom at KSL-TV. This resulted in a 200-person newsroom, the largest in the state. In addition, Deseret plans to also tap the indie blogger space. Overall, this may be the finest model of local media-disruptive innovation in action, influenced by the business best seller; The Innovators Dilemma.

Hey Look, I’m Digital..…NOT. It’s easy to see why a newspaper technophobe could get the boot. You could also make the case that a sales manager who hits his broadcast budget, while allowing a client to place their web budget elsewhere, could also be shown the door. But there’s another way to win some walking papers, while ‘looking’ like you’re digital. In this smooth move, the media exec outsources key sales activity to 3^rd party vendor. It shows corporate a quick boost to the interactive bottom line, with little or no investment. In reality, this faux-digital exec just let the wolves into the hen house.

The Yahoo Consortium; and Other Deals with the Devil. This might be one of the most visible examples of traditional execs letting those wolves in, and keeping them warm and well-fed, too. In order to shore up their weakening web efforts, newspaper execs trained their own reps to pitch the virtues of Yahoo, in exchange for getting access to the national web giant’s cool new ad serving software and audience. The revenue split did bring in some new cash, but at the huge cost of letting Yahoo build a relationship with local print advertisers. On the flip side, this might be Newspaper capitulation: their strongest asset is their local sales force…. so why not leverage it?

DataSphere smart, Local TV Not So Much. This smart tech company from Bellevue, Washington has been a god-send for some digitally stressed TV execs. In this deal, DataSphere provides the station with a quick roll-out of trendy hyper local sites, complete with outsourced cold-calling of local business owners. Sure, it looks brilliant: nothing but profit for the TV station, while keeping the traditional sales staff focused on selling on-air commercial time. But the creepy facts of DataSphere keeping over 50% of the revenue, pimping out the station’s call letters, and having a primary relationship with the local business… is like killing your last chicken for the meat, at the loss of your egg supply. Providing access to local advertisers, and sharing revenue with those who want to eat your lunch, is not a digital revenue plan you want your name on. We suggest that this reveals limitations of digital business savvy at best and poor fiduciary oversight at worst.

Think it’s Tough for Newspapers? It’s even Tougher for Local Radio as they hang their hat on being a platform for content they don’t own… music & syndicated talk. At a recent gathering where execs convene to network and debate the future, many put blue-sky spins on their squishy web results. The most glaring example was how they shared their digital results: revenue & web traffic increases described in terms of percentages. These numbers, coming off low comparables, won’t even impress a rookie Wall Street or private equity analyst. Recent research shows that Radio gets less than 2% of local online advertising spends.

The World of Safe & Old School Media Management is Over. It’s now being replaced by execs with a DNA infused with entrepreneurial & turn-around expertise, combined with serious biz-dev skills. Much of this evolution will start at the top.

Local media can learn from other mature industries. It took guts, humility and foresight for the great-grandson of Henry Ford to step aside, and let Boeing airline veteran Alan Mulally take hold of the automaker. Bill Ford knew current management and the insular culture had too much to protect. Similarly at General Motors, former AT&T CEO; Ed Whitacre, was hired to rip out the diseased and dying heart of GM. Whitacre, with no experience in cars other than to drive one, wasn’t looking to win any popularity contests. Lacking the motivation to protect the way it’s been, he immediately dealt with the 800-pound gorillas in the room. ‘Big Ed’ helped turn around the company in double time. An insider with too much legacy baggage could have never accomplished that.

Like the necessary & dramatic change at GM and Ford, local media will also go through this gut wrenching change as well. It’s already happening as the above examples in Philly & Salt Lake city can attest to. To be sure, we’ll hear NO WAY, THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN HERE. The incumbents will take a stand and dig their heels in. They’ll tell you a million different reasons why there’s no need to change, and why those in charge have decades of superior results, and YES, they can be digital enough!

Creative destruction is accelerating in Detroit, Philly, and Salt Lake City and other cities yet to be announced. There is proof that the most entrenched corporate cultures can and will be blown up, with little regard for ‘the way it’s always been’.

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Starting Hyper-Local News and Ad Networks

MelTaylorMedia — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:04:23 +0000

Whether you’re a big media company, or an indie-journalist/content creator…. participating in or forming your own Hyper-Local Advertising & Content Network could be critical to your online success.

Some examples: the independent effort of SLOAN in Sacramento, and the ‘big media’ initiative from Journal Register in Philadelphia.

FACT #1: Small businesses are quickly moving their ad budgets to web. In addition to your own direct sales efforts, there are substantial revenue & cost reduction benefits when you take part in the efficiencies of a shared sales and service “Co-operative”, or ‘Hyper-local incubator’. (see below)

FACT #2: Your work as a writer/reporter has incredible value. Especially to big Media. Why ‘donate’ it or sell it for peanuts? Understand online journalism business models, before you act.

Local online competition is on the rise….and now, at a much faster pace. Don’t be fooled into thinking that hyper-local news doesn’t work. Those early journalist-lead experiments from CUNY, New York Times and ChicagoNow still struggle for financial stability due to this common flaw: revenue & sales expertise seemingly took a back seat to editorial & tech in the start-up phase. Indeed, ‘build it and they will come’ does not work so well on the web.

Today, a growing list of hyper-local news efforts are being lead by those with deeper revenue & business experience. It’s about time. Well-funded projects from Patch, Main Street Connect, DataSphere and Reach Local, are proof of the substantial opportunity that exists in local markets. Even though these bigger dogs have financial muscle, indie-journos from the neighborhood still have an excellent chance to own this space. Who wins the local, online revenue game? The winners could likely be those organically-grown websites and independent content creators from the community. These online publishers take their efforts seriously, and are exploring realistic plans for revenue. These future, local online titans are not encumbered with legacy business concerns that need to be ‘protected’.

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Hyper Local Business Models for News Media What’s the best business model for a newspaper, broadcast or hyper local news site? What if the answer was as simple as running your website like a real business, with a...

Hyper Local Purists Steamrolled by Patch?

MelTaylorMedia — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 16:08:33 +0000

Last week, Chicago’s Loyola University hosted Block by Block 2010; an invitation-only gathering of indie website owners, bloggers and online news hounds. They came to talk hyper-local, how to save community news and possibly make a buck doing it. Following along via video stream and tweets, I had to double check the date on my calendar.

Unless I’m imagining things, the topics and concerns being discussed seemed to be essentially the same as they were in 2007. Geez. Anybody wonder why the hyper-local revenue needle has barely moved over the past 3 years? This uncomfortable issue is the 800 lb gorilla in the room and is why every local, online news site is vulnerable to getting steamrolled.

The summit was hosted by a bevy of smart editorial & academic folk. Yet, if cracking the business model code is challenge #1, we wondered why a new biz-dev exec with local sales chops wasn’t on the steering committee. Maybe a sales pro to moderate the sales-focused panel? A critical error of many online news conferences is assuming this problem can be solved from the newsroom. It can’t. This begs the question: is the phrase entrepreneurial journalism an oxymoron?

Early during the panel session devoted to sales, attendees enjoyed a pop quiz. “Who are your customers?” Many squirmed hearing the correct answer of ‘advertisers, not readers’. Funny how some of those audience members forget how Newspapers are actually run, and how their journalism has always been subsidized by advertising and other non-news monetization.

Pegasus News pioneer Mike Orren was a wise choice as a sales session panelist, and has the scars to prove it. The Dallas based hyper-local platform & strategy he developed then sold, is always one to watch.

Unfortunately we had to witness business savvy publishers like Sacramento Press‘ Ben Ilfeld, and Howard Owens of TheBatavian being relegated to audience status during the ‘sales’ session. That little oversight did make me throw up in my mouth a little. Those two could have shared reams of real world examples & and sales case-studies all day long.

Special shout-out to those who graciously shared: “advertising is evil” and my personal favorite: “I’d rather chew on broken glass than sell an ad”. What nice, encouraging words to say in front of financially strapped bloggers. Not like they need more, but this kind of public airing of blogosphere dirty laundry only provides additional confidence to the new local competitors of Patch, Reach Local, DataSphere and Groupon.

Pure-plays like Patch love to see paralysis and the regular pissing and moaning from local news orgs. Intellectual theorizing and to-do list creation from the incumbents only provides Patch more time to marshal small armies of sellers to get in front of every mom and pop business in sight. Since small business owners are the financial life-blood of local news orgs, close relationships with them should be viewed as the ultimate end game for all for-profit news efforts.

It did occur to me, that if Patch execs were watching, they could be thinking: ‘sweet, these poor souls have no idea we could steamroll them if we wanted’. Surprisingly, Patch was rarely brought up and when it was, summarily dismissed. Instead of trying to understanding the Patch business strategy and how to compete, they were immediately described as a drive-thru experience with little chance of being a dominant news org.

Dismissing Patch is death defying puffery from those who can’t imagine losing control of local info & advertiser streams. Imagine a professional business not wanting to understand a fast moving, well funded competitor? Indeed, it speaks volumes to the ‘smarter than thou’ and academic ‘class project’ vibe of some hyper-local efforts.

Love em or hate em, Patch is one of the more potent threats to local media to date. Will they succeed? Who knows? But the one thing they will certainly do is inflict pain on the local media incumbents, forcing some to eventually throw in the towel. Patch could easily play a waiting game similar to when a Wal-Mart sells items at a loss in order to vaporize the small shop owner.

AOL /Patch’s; Tim Armstrong, recently made a TV appearance on CNBC. Tim touched on his general strategy with Patch. On the Business Insider site, reader comments slammed Tim. “Armstrong has no clue” on Aug 17, 1:24 PM said: “do you really think local media outlets are going to let you come to their town where they employ professional journalists and let your rag tag bloggers take-over?”

We think that answer is yes if revenue doesn’t become job #1 with local website operators. As the ancient warrior; Sun Szu, explains in the ‘Art of War’: know thy enemy…

…and as I say: Your cool site sucks cuz it can’t make money, and it scales like shit. Now take control of that steamroller before you get flattened.

Inland Press; Patch & Hyper Local On March 18, Inland Press responded once again to the newspaper industry’s interest in hyper local competition and the growth of Patch. They invited me to do an encore of...
AOL PATCH: Hyper-Local Sales a Priority Patch; AOL’s bet on hyper-local news, is now executing the next phase of their highly anticipated roll-out. Many markets have reported recruiter inquiries, private meetings, and attempted poaching of traditional newsrooms. Some local bloggers are saying...
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Sustainable Business Models: Online News

MelTaylorMedia — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:03:24 +0000

Editorial leaders like Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen & John Paton have lead the charge to create powerful, online news organizations. Now we need specialists in local revenue & sales models to step up and take all of this great work to the next level. These 3 slides provide some insight on how to develop sustainable revenue models, that support much needed local news gathering.

Sustainable Revenue Platform for Online News 8.30.2010

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