More E&P Revenue Exclusives
Ad Sales Life
Richard E. Brown, senior director of retention for The Daily Beast and a columnist with Editor & Publisher, is convinced that 2024 will be a year dedicated to strengthening the bond between advertisers and audiences, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration. He says this commitment will ensure that "the future of local news media remains vibrant and aligned with the diverse needs of the communities served. Furthermore, emerging trends complement this dedication, promising continued growth and a positive, sustainable trajectory."
E&P's January "Revenue Roundup"
If a picture is worth a thousand words, newspapers have delivered both types of content for over a century. Television took content one step further with motion, sound and color. Today, video content has exploded across multiple TV platforms and escaped from the TV environment to be available almost everywhere and created by almost anyone.
Ad Sales Life
2023 has been a year rife with layoffs, buyouts and a continuation of a difficult media sales environment. It takes resilience, grit and out-of-the-box thinking to succeed. The 2024 class of E&P Media Sales Superstars stand out in their ability to stand up against these challenging times, stay focused and get the job done for their customers, their communities and the companies they represent.
Advertisers, especially local advertisers and local media sales teams, must understand consumers' spending priorities. However, it is equally important to know where those local advertisers spend their ad dollars and plan to spend future dollars. Without these insights, media ad sales teams can’t help local advertisers maximize their sales and gain a greater share of their ad spending.
Although daunting for some, budget season has always been a therapeutic and comforting time for me. It’s when our focus shifts to the outlook for the upcoming year. This is when we create comprehensive game plans involving contingencies, market nuances and gap analysis and align projects to meet potential objectives and stretch goals. We diligently put everything in place to view things in three dimensions: mitigate risks, address issues head-on and navigate relationships that contribute to the community's perceived value of the organization.
Revenue Roundup
Once upon a time, newspapers had an easy-to-work gold mine: classified advertising. Then, the internet and new technologies made the recruitment process more accessible, and suddenly, the gold mine’s ceiling collapsed, and newspapers lost a lucrative revenue source. Fast-forward to the 21st century, and there are more sophisticated technologies and opportunities for newspapers and all media to re-open the recruitment gold mine with a robust job board.
Industry executives in circulation audit and data mining say ZIP code-level data tied to e-editions have sparked more advertising interest. Newspapers armed with the correct data can report larger penetration numbers in crucial ZIP codes and recapture national advertisers who dropped their inserts.
Ad Sales Life
Throughout my career in revenue generation, I have analyzed this situation from various perspectives, encountering both benefits and challenges. The print versus digital argument in local news media revenue has posed challenges for decades. However, one positive aspect has been the ability of any advertising to generate desired outcomes, including customer conversions, business transactions and income generation for local advertising sponsors. It is crucial to incorporate more impactful digital advertising that can replicate the sense and experience of a print ad.
Ad Sales Life
To brand themselves as a primary voice in their communities and appeal to the broadest audience, newspapers have included games and puzzles in their entertainment content for over 100 years. Readers continue to enjoy games and puzzles, but now there are opportunities to monetize that content.
Ad Sales Life
The path to revenue growth lies in mastering the strategy behind renewals, whether in advertising sales or subscriptions, while driving new acquisitions and assessing their long-term impact on the bottom line. It’s an area that combines strategy, sales and financial analysis and presents a compelling model for outlining the foundation of revenue growth in news media organizations.
Ad Sales Life
The circus is coming to town — to every city in America. And only the donkeys and elephants will be performing in the center ring. It’s America’s quintessential, quadrennial big show — the 2024 presidential, congressional, state and local elections. Despite how little attention and money print media and newspapers receive from many political campaigns, there are still opportunities to generate additional revenues — especially suburban and small-market newspapers with hyper-local reporting.
Ad Sales Life
Merchandising has become a valued revenue stream for many newspapers and news outlets to generate new subscriptions, increase awareness of their quality journalism, promote community identity and boost the bottom line to expand newsrooms and coverage. Although the purpose of merchandising promotions is extra revenue, they are also often fun — for the community and newsrooms.