Local media moving onto your turf

4 replies
As media companies, especially print, experience continued downward pressure on their traditional revenue streams, they have started offering digital services to pick up the slack. Websites, reputation management, SEO, SEM, all the services you offer, are or will be offered by the local newspaper, radio, TV, cable and Yellow Pages sales staffs with the support of third party services providing the backend.

"The result is a big-money competition for local digital advertising dollars, with legacy publishers, national pureplays, small-town startups and local search providers jumping in with both feet. It's too soon to say who will be the most successful, but one thing is certain: Digital marketing services will be a big part of the local media business for years to come."

http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/...gital-services




The good news for you?

Most of these traditional sales teams have no idea what they are doing with digital services.

But that will change with training and time, especially as younger, more digital savvy workers come into the work force.

More here in a special report:
Part 1- http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/...gital-services
Part 2- http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/...eting-services

Why now? Here's some history:

"Like online video, virtual communities and many other aspects of modern publishing, the concept of digital marketing services has been around for nearly 20 years. When local newspapers and TV stations launched their first websites in the late 1990s, many also hired teams of tech-savvy developers in hopes of providing Web design and other services to advertisers.

Those efforts were stymied, though, by financial and technological obstacles. It was expensive to maintain in-house development squads, Web publishing was still hard to streamline and too few local businesses were interested in the new services. But all that has changed in the last two years."
http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/...gital-services

Here's an idea...

Many of these stations have white label services available from their corporate office. (If you've ever worked in a large company, you know how that can go.)

And some of these media firms are set up where the traditional media rep turns over any leads or prospects for digital services to a separate unit of geeks who take over the sale.

You could be that geek!

You are much faster, smarter and have lots more digital services experience.

You might consider offering your services as a partner with local media. Many have long relationships with local SMBs. Could me a good consulting gig or lead source for you.

By the way, here is the potential market we are talking about:

"A report from Borrell Associates released in October concludes the average U.S. business spends $17,000, or 72%, of its online marketing budget on services. The total size of that online services pie, Borrell reports, is $390 billion."

http://www.netnewscheck.com/article/...gital-services

Cha ching!
#local #media #moving #turf
  • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
    I have seen this already here in Hawaii. There are a couple and what I have discovered so far...

    Their cost structure is so high that to justify the business they have to charge a minimum of 6K dollars for a website to even take the business and usually want $10 - 15k. They offer nothing additional compared to what I others offer and in some cases they offer even less.

    This is also happening with the managed service providers (people who manage your IT infrastructure) and from what I have seen, they are even worse then the media companies that at least know layouts and ease of navigation. Every MSP site I have seen is horrible.

    They hire designers and usually these designers (from what I have seen) are horrible at maintaining their skills or keeping up with changes in the marketplace. I have picked up several clients that had an "established" web designer create a site that was 5 years out of date when it was delivered to them or my personal favorite, no don't worry, mobile is not important.

    I met one company that is trying to set up an in house internet marketing shop for new restaurants in the area. I kinda smirked when he told me about it because most restaurants are poorly capitalized to begin with so can't afford the fees these supply companies want to charge. All these guys see is the "social media" consulting they want to get a hold of not realizing the holistic approach we take with our customers that drive results.

    In my eyes, welcome them in with open arms since they can not compete with you on both price and overhead and when you get beat out, head back 6 months later and pick up where they dropped the ball.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Rivers
    I completely agree with the concept of being a white label partner with bigger agencies, but I also think that for us small one or two man shops, it's a long shot to get into these lucrative type of opportunities.

    Honestly, it's very difficult to nurture the types of relationships that it takes to get the bigger agencies to send us those type of deals. In my experience, it's just so much more effective to focus on direct advertising to get clients.

    But I do agree that it's a great idea and concept if you can pull it off.

    But more importantly, I believe our advantage as the "little guys" is that we can go deep into niches and provide custom marketing plans and strategies at affordable prices.

    Most big agencies that I know of don't take the time to immerse themselves in any one niche, so a consultant that comes along and takes the time to build a niche specific front-end lead generation funnel can have a fighting chance at beating one of the big boys.

    To me it gives a consultant a much more secure place in their prospects and clients mind when they are known as a niche expert even if in reality that niche specific funnel is just one of dozens of various niche specific funnels that all lead to the same service on the backend.

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Arzak
    There's a national telecom company here that started offering SMBs lead gen and SEM. Among cable, home phone, internet, and wireless services, they now offer PPC and SEO!

    They already have quite a reputation for (lack of) customer service, as you'd expect from most similar companies, so I cringe at the thought of trying to communicate with them and resolve issues. I've read reviews and complaints about them and they aren't pretty. I expect most of these services will be similar to Yellow Pages where you'll be paying exorbitant amounts for poor-mediocre results and the customers will be tech-unsavvy people who just don't know any better.

    So don't worry too much about them.

    If you're up for it, you can try to poach clients, but most of the time you'll have to follow up again when it's nearing the end of their contract. They'll find it worthwhile when 50-75%+ of their ad spend isn't going to fees, and the rest is spent on irrelevant keywords (maybe an extreme case, but you get the idea).
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Lafuddy
    Great thread!

    The big guys jumping in on all aspects of online marketing, is exciting. They'll create opportunities, for those paying attention, to walk in and scoop up a lot more than online business.

    This is a great time to partner with those who offer things that you don't. They can bring you into opportunities and you can do the same for them. By working together and offering strong customer support, you can lock out the "bundled services" crowd.
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