Hindsight and adaptation: How local media is rethinking digital advertising

Local advertisers need marketing consultation, and local media reps can provide that service. Unfortunately, the media hasn’t embraced this role fully. There are some sales stars at most companies, but overall, it’s a huge missed opportunity at many companies.”

Shannon Kinney, founder and client success officer, Dream Local Digital

Hindsight is 20/20, but there’s the rub. That perfect vision clearly reveals the mistake you made or the change you dismissed as unimportant. But it was quite significant, even historical, impacting you, your business and your community. For several decades, such has been the tale of local legacy media — a story often told and widely understood.

“The web and social media are for social chit-chat. Digital media and digital advertising will always maintain our decades-long relationships with local advertisers and positively affect our bottom line. We are the voice of the community, the ultimate source for local information.”

Of course, hindsight tells a different story. As local advertisers’ attitudes about digital media and digital advertising changed (often 180 degrees), new and established businesses decided that having a web presence and adding digital advertising to their marketing mix was a priority. As local media observed advertisers’ increasing attraction to digital advertising and how it could help them engage more directly with their customers, local media outlets discovered they weren’t prepared to compete for digital ad dollars.

To their credit, much of the local media responded with energy and effort, knowing survival and the future were at stake. They’re generally still in a reactive mode. However, there is evidence that the news industry and all local legacy media are reinventing themselves to be better positioned to battle for their share of digital ad dollars.

• Entrepreneurs new to the news industry are revitalizing news deserts.
• Established news outlets are reinventing their business models.
• Journalists have expanded their reporting to new topics and issues.
• Ad teams are recognizing the value of first-party data.
• Legacy media ad reps are learning how to sell digital advertising, often as the first choice on the menu.

The local digital advertising picture is quite clear: Borrell Associates forecasts that local media companies’ share of local digital advertising will only be 15.2% or $16.1 billion in 2024. The remaining $89.5 billion will go to out-of-market pureplay platforms. The goal of local media is to increase their share — and even a modest increase would boost their ad revenues and bottom lines.

Shannon Kinney founded Dream Local Digital in 2009 on the cusp of local advertisers’ switching more ad dollars to digital. During those 15 years, she and her team have served thousands of businesses as they made that switch. She has also witnessed the negative impact on local legacy media companies.

“Local advertisers need marketing consultation, and local media reps can provide that service. Unfortunately, the media hasn’t embraced this role fully. There are some sales stars at most companies, but overall, it’s a huge missed opportunity at many companies. Media companies are increasingly facing competition from local agencies because businesses need consultants who understand how all these elements work together versus just selling them ads,” Kinney said.

“I’ve been saying for more than 20 years in media that the game in digital was media’s to lose. Media dominated advertising spending at the local level when I started educating media companies about Google and Facebook, and now most local ad dollars go to those two companies.”

Charity Huff, CEO, January Spring agency

January Spring is a Denver-based marketing agency working with approximately 170 newspaper publishers, magazine publishers, niche media and direct mail associations across North America. Charity Huff, CEO, agrees with Kinney that local media still needs to catch up to make a digital transformation and help their advertisers do the same.

“We talk to many publishers who are still concerned that advertisers’ budgets will move from print to digital. We explain that transition is already occurring. Publishers are in a better position when they offer multiple advertising channels. They can still present print but also serve advertisers’ digital needs. Publishers’ business models must evolve according to where customers are going because that is where the advertisers will be,” Huff said.

Targeting an unlimited audience

Michael Martoccia, vice president of digital sales and marketing at Adams Publishing Group

According to Michael Martoccia, vice president of digital sales and marketing at Adams Publishing Group, targeted display and targeted pre-roll video are among the top products Adams reps sell. They are just two of the targeted ad products in Adams’ “unlimited audience” approach.

“When I joined the company four and a half years ago, we weren’t selling many targeted solutions. At that point, we decided to invest in those solutions and to change the company culture. By doing that, we were able to steer the conversations between our reps, our business owners and all our markets towards digital,” Martoccia said.

Martoccia said the senior leadership team's progressive and entrepreneurial mindset has driven the expansion of more than 220 brands and marketing solutions across 19 states. Those solutions include virtually every type of digital advertising, including search engine marketing (SEM) and digital out-of-home, streaming TV and even ad platforms Adams doesn’t own.

Borrell’s annual surveys of local ad buyers in 2023 revealed that 20% said they never deal with media sales reps, compared to just 7% in 2019. The surveys also found that local ad buyers are dealing with fewer local media companies, with the average decreasing from seven in 2010 to six in 2016 to four in 2023. The median for 2023 was two local media companies, and the most frequent answer was one.

The implication is local media companies can only increase their share of the billions in local digital ad dollars when they sell digital advertising, including targeted display and digital marketing services, such as website design and programmatic advertising. Only then can local media companies declare and prove to local advertisers that they know the local advertising environment better than Google, Meta and the other pureplay platforms.

Good data ensures the accuracy of targeted digital advertising

Local media companies have a critical advantage over digital media: They have more information about their readers, listeners and viewers. Local news outlets enjoyed the biggest advantage with the first-party data they collected from subscription lists, classified ad buyers, letters to the editor and other interactions with individuals. Some of those interactions, however, have disappeared (classified ads) or contracted (subscribers). As local news outlets have expanded their delivery channels to include a web and social media presence, they have also added new ways to interact with their readers, such as paywalls, paid and free newsletters, events, podcasts and more community involvement. This has enriched their first-party data, which is essential for any targeted digital advertising to hit their targets accurately and satisfy the advertisers paying for it.

“Our company and other marketing agencies use local news media’s first-party data to target their readers and find them everywhere they visit on the web. Those readers are very important to the local businesses where news media reps sell advertising. We coach our news media clients about building their first-party data with newsletters, events or contests,” Huff said.

Kinney finds she must also coach her clients, who are local advertisers, about the value of first-party data. “Most of them have the start of an email list, and in many cases, building that list becomes a primary goal. If building their email list isn’t important to customers, then we explain why it should be and why they should solicit positive online reviews, social interactions, proof and testimonials. We show them how to take that information and, at a minimum, personalize campaigns — especially email — to increase conversions. We also upload customer lists to Meta and other platforms to target advertising and build custom audiences.”

The precise metrics may be the greatest benefit to local media companies and advertisers in having good first-party data and applying it to targeted digital advertising. “What is causing many of our business owners to start reinvesting their ad dollars to the digital side is the metrics and reporting. For years, it was difficult for legacy media to show attribution, but now attribution is easier because of the supporting metrics. We can show business owners that we’re generating leads and conversions, and they can see the results,” Martoccia said.

Educating advertisers; training ad sales reps

Educating advertisers and training ad sales reps has been critical for local media to add digital to their advertising offerings and services and even prioritize it. Kinney said most of Dream Local Digital’s clients have developed a digital advertising mindset.

“When I started the business 15 years ago, we had to educate almost all clients about the value and importance of digital. For the past several years, however, that’s not the case. They all know how important it is,” said Kinney.

During the pandemic, Kinney launched Dream Local’s SkillsBuilder Marketing Coach program to educate advertisers who prefer a self-directed digital marketing program. Understandably, many local advertisers needed to resume or expand their online presence to attract customers who couldn’t visit their businesses or stores.

Huff and her team at January Spring have found that targeted display advertising is a good transitional offer to guide publishers into using other digital advertising products. Targeted display is often an easier digital product for traditional media reps to sell because they understand how display advertising works.

“We teach those traditional reps that they are offering a targeted digital version of display, but the added benefit to advertisers is that targeted digital display reaches those businesses’ ideal buyers and will follow them wherever they go across the web. Once reps introduce targeted display in this way, business owners typically understand the value of targeted display and digital advertising in general. Now, they want to learn more, which is an opening for educating them and offering additional digital advertising services,” Huff said.

During his interview for this article, Martoccia was in the middle of a nine-week road trip he takes every year from mid-August to late October to every Adams Publishing market to conduct live sales training, which includes digital advertising trends and topics.

“We have many business owners who are still overwhelmed by all the digital advertising platforms and opportunities. We overly train our 300+ ad reps and sales managers to help business owners feel less overwhelmed. Business owners respect those who offer to educate them about digital advertising instead of just selling off the cuff," Martoccia said.

Martoccia also emphasized the importance of changing the culture of the sales side at local media companies and evangelizing that culture throughout the year and long term.

Bob Sillick has held many senior positions and served a myriad of clients during his 47 years in marketing and advertising. He has been a freelance/contract content researcher, writer, editor and manager since 2010.  He can be reached at bobsillick@gmail.com.