Newspaper nightmare continues

Today an Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) report cited the average sales of newspapers overall declined 7.1 percent between October and March compared to the same six-month period the previous year. Of the 557 U.S. newspapers reporting their Sunday numbers, average circulation fell 5.4% in the March 2009 period, to 42.1 million.

According to the MarketWatch article linked here "The last six months have been nightmarish for the newspaper industry."

Given the dire conditions in the newspaper industry ABC is canceling its annual conference in Toronto. It promises to reschedule in 2010. My guess is they'll need a smaller hotel.

Large groups of local advertisers have taken notice as well. At a recent meeting I heard that the share of co-op spending on local newspaper advertising has slid in a few short years from 70% to half of that figure. Where is the money going in this case? Broadcast TV and radio -- likely because its easiest to buy among the traditional media.

Why aren’t more dealers spending more on local Internet search? After all it is more measurable, lower cost and can zero in on only those consumers searching for specific products and services. Well, local Internet search is still mysterious to many local dealers. It contains new terms and acronyms like CPC, CTR, Keywords, Quality Scores and more. Dealers don’t have a secret decoder ring (i.e. a local sales rep) to guide them through a myriad of choices and make the right decision. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the “Internet guy” to show up in your retail store to help. That won't happen. Until brand marketers deploy automated adbuilder systems that make it easy -- to take the mystery and guess-work out of the process – don’t look for any large co-op funded dealer groups to leverage the power of local search.

Recessions are Good?

Now we all know that economic cycles go up and down. Today we are in a down cycle on our way up. While painful, recessions do force organizations to rethink how their money is spent and prompts cost cutting and greater efficiency. “We’re all trying to do more with less” is the mantra spoken almost universally.

One way companies are doing more with less is to automate their marketing support using an online adbuilder system. Adbuilder systems simply take templated marketing and advertising materials and allow instant localization by channel sellers – all online with no special software. These smart companies see an immediate return on investment vs. manually responding to requests to modify ads and marketing materials for each channel partner, and they protect their brand in the process! Here’s an illustration of the costs and benefits of this approach:







As you can see, the MyAdExpress adbuilder system reduces cost vs. hiring more staff to support marketing activities. The system also is available 24/7 to help channel partners when the corporate staff is busy, on vacation or otherwise unavailable.

Certainly recessions don’t feel good, but do force some much-needed change and improvement in our processes. Cutting un-necessary marketing support costs now allow for more investment in product development, advertising, research and other advancements that will spur business growth in the long term.