Category Archives: Digital Marketing Revolution

A Primer on Digital Marketing Services: The Fastest Growing Segment of Local Media

Primer_on_Digital_Marketing_ServicesIn the last 9 months, a series of reports and research have begun shining the spotlight on a segment of the Local Media market that– up until now– has been under the radar for many.  It’s called Digital Marketing Services, and as Borrell Research recently commented in their first report on the topic: “Suddenly digital advertising is yielding the spotlight to digital services…local advertisers are spending two and half times more on these online marketing services then they do on things like (untargeted) banner ads…”

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A Primer On The State of the Internet 2012

The Future of the Internet: A primer on where digital trends are movingThe analysts at Business Insider Intelligence just recently released an overview of where we are in the evolution of the Internet in 2012. The data they collected was one of the best summaries I’ve seen recently covering the shifts happening in the digital world- a great overview for newbies and veterans alike who want a high-level orienting picture of the industry.  I recommend you view the entire deck, but since it’s fairly long I’ve pulled what I think are the most striking slides and collected them below with some commentary.

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The New Multi-screen World: A Look At The Changes That Are Changing Everything

Smartphone usage is rocketing upwardsSeveral new research reports have emerged in the last month that point to the unprecedented rate of change related to consumer adoption of mobile technology.  Multi screen usage—across smartphones and tablets– is exploding, and the result is, as Forrester Research has declared, we’ve just  reached a tipping point related to the size of the consumer population who access information through many types of devices all day long, and are what they term “always addressable.”

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The Future of Local Media Sales: The Digital Rockstar

“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”
-William Gibson

Anyone who has talked at length with me knows I have a few opinions about media sales reps.  I worked at an ad agency for over a decade and had countless reps call on me. I’ve worked alongside Digital Sales reps since my ad network days at CMGI’s AdSmart in 1997.  And the reality is that today we are going through a seismic change as to what makes someone highly successful in the local media sales job. The change is not apparent everywhere yet.  In fact I would argue that there are only a few excellent examples out there right now of who this person is. But I’ll give you one prediction: given the pace of change in the media business, if within 4 years you look in the mirror and you don’t see signs of the person I describe below, you may need to think about the burgeoning opportunities in plastics.

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The Future Of Media and Thinking Small

Media Industry Analyst Ken Doctor recently wrote a piece for Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab where he explored the future of newspaper revenues in local markets. One of Ken’s ideas is that it’s unlikely media companies will be able to simply replace the one or two big revenue sources they have relied on in the past- rather he predicts success will come from placing bets on a wider range of products and services.  It’s all of these “smaller golden eggs” collectively that can build a meaningful business for media companies. I was honored that Ken cited my most recent talk at the Interactive Marketing East Conference in Boston as part of his exploration of where new revenue streams will come from:

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Businesses Used To Want “Advertising”, Now They Want Results

Businesses today are looking for results from digital advertising

Borrell Associates recently released their Annual Benchmarking Online Media report detailing shifts in local media spend.  Overall Borrell predicts that spending in local markets will jump 21% this year to nearly $20 billion, but one of the key trends they outline as part of this growth is the increase in “non-advertising” spend: comprising services like paid search, SEO, social media marketing and reputation management.  As Gordon Borrell recently commented:

“This transformation that we’ve begun to see, is that it is getting harder and harder to determine what’s advertising and what’s services…..Most forecasts call for a gradual slowdown of traditional advertising expenditures and growth in ‘non-advertising’ marketing and promotions spending. This change is based on the idea that advertisers actually want results more than they want advertising.”

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Is The Change Hitting The Media Industry Today Really A “Revolution”?

The Digital Media Revolution

Recently, we had a very interesting debate among our team about using the word “revolution” to describe the rapid shifts happening in the media landscape today.  Is the digital disruption we’ve seen from the invention of the internet—and subsequent innovations like social media—more of an evolution?  Could the word “revolution” be a little dramatic….?  How big is this whole darn social thing anyway and how much is really going to be different?

To me it’s not just an academic question. If you work in the media or advertising business, how you view the scale of change occurring today impacts what you do about it.  If you think what you see happening around you is just a slight adjustment on the road of media history– one that will leave most of the existing infrastructure intact (although maybe slightly evolved), you’re not likely to do a whole heck of a lot about it in terms of your personal commitment to preparing and developing yourself for a new world.  Change is hard- particularly when the way you’ve always done things has worked for so long.

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