Entries for month: December 2011

Local is our future: treat it well and let it lead the way

When evaluating our revenue trends at Digital First Media, we look at more than 60 revenue categories in digital. These range from simple banner ads to more complex re-targeting products — all tracked down to the individual sales person level with performance analysis versus goals.

We spend a considerable amount of time at this level of detail so we can monitor what is working and what is not. Where do we need to put more focus, and in the same vane, where do we need to back off? This follows our “try fast, fail fast” mentality.

However, the real focus here is on predicting where the future digital revenue will come from. Aside from obvious product lines like mobile, video, and email, we know our future is in local digital sales. And all our digital pure play competitors know this as well. Google and Facebook are already looking at building local sales teams, but can they really compete with us?

While the brands are cool and exciting, we already have a large, local sales infrastructure in place and building a new one is very expensive.

Let’s take a look at Patch for a second. This latest attempt by AOL to build a local platform is not working. Content is adequate at best, and sales are very low. Even with the power of AOL and Huffington Post traffic, they are challenged. Why? How can one editor and one sales person compete in a market where we have five to 10 times those resources? Answer? They can’t!

In the meantime, we offer the best local relationships with businesses, strong brands, strong digital products, and, in most cases, the largest local audience. Through partnerships, we can expand that audience to reach virtually everyone in the market. Some use Yahoo, MSN, or third-party exchanges, but all offer the same audience extension model.