Conference helps publishers connect changing reader behavior with new sources of revenue

Newspapers aren't the only businesses struggling to adapt to the Internet.  Many advertisers, especially local small businesses, know they need to reach their customers online but don't know how. 

If newspapers don't step up to help their advertisers, someone else will.  "You're leaving money on the table," said Penny Abernathy, Knight Chair of Journalism and Digital Media Economics, on the second day of the conference "From Disruption to Transformation: New Strategies for Prosperity in a Digital Age."  The event is a collaboration between SNPA's Traveling Campus and the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

The goal of Tuesday's five sessions was to connect changing reader behavior with finding new sources of revenue.  A large part of the discussion revolved around developing an in-house digital ad agency to complement and add to a newspaper's sales effort.

Steve Gray, director of strategy and innovation at Morris Communications, says that in a typical newspaper market, newspaper advertising departments reach only about 4 percent of available businesses. Many of these are local businesses that need help with digital, he said.

For example, retail stores have seen decreasing foot traffic for 30 consecutive months.  But small businesses don't have the time or resources to figure out how to reach their customers online.  "They need help we can give them," Gray said. 

Newspapers can offer a range of digital services.  "This is about redefining ourselves to be a local media company," Gray said.

According to a national survey, speaker Bruce Kyse said that 75 percent of small-to-midsize businesses are contacted at least once a week by an Internet marketing or search engine optimization company. Instead, these businesses should be hearing from their local newspapers, he said.

Kyse was publisher of The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif., when the newspaper created one of the first in-house digital ad agencies in 2011.  He said that new department allowed the newspaper to offer services such as search engine optimization, creating and maintaining an advertiser's website, and content marketing.

The goal wasn't just to sell a rate card, but to create a customized digital advertising plan for each advertiser. "Customers don't want to be sold something on digital, they want a plan," Kyse said.

JoAnn Sciarrino, longtime advertising executive and currently Knight Chair of Digital Advertising and Marketing, is researching in-house digital ad agencies in rural markets.  She said that about one-third of small-to-midsize businesses in the country don't use any digital, online or mobile marketing – a prime opportunity for newspapers in a growing pool of money.

People used to believe advertising was a zero-sum game, Sciarrino said.  If someone spent one dollar in digital advertising, that was one dollar they weren't spending in print advertising.  Instead, people are now spending more money on advertising than in previous decades. "The pie is increasing," she said.

Speakers also discussed:

• The decline of inserts revenue, which could mirror the rapid loss of classified advertisements.
• How to create a new one-page rate card that combines print and digital rates.
• A workshop on calculating the lifetime value of each customer.
• A framework for creating new, innovative products.

Paula Seligson

The conference concludes on Wednesday with a series of Lightning Round presentations.  Each attendee will give a three-minute presentation about their newspaper's major business challenges and then receive feedback from panelists.

You can follow tweets from the conference at #snpaUNC.

Read coverage from Monday

Read coverage from Wednesday

Paula Seligson is a research specialist at the University of North Carolina's School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has worked as a reporter for a community newspaper and currently researches trends in the news industry for Penny Abernathy, Knight Chair of Journalism and Digital Economics.