One of the most common complaints I hear from digital ad directors is that local sales representatives don’t ask clients the right questions. Relationship builders like golf are no longer enough to seal an advertising deal. Sales representatives have to have a different kind of conversation. more

We almost didn't promote one of this week's reports, "The best versus the rest," taken from a presentation at the Borrell 2012 Local Online Advertising Conference, because it restated some oof what appears to be "the obvious." However, I have gotten a number of phone calls in the last few weeks from mid-level execs at small and large companies, concerned that very top people in the company are still on the fence about shifting resources to digital as significantly or quickly as they feel is required to keep up. So we are promoting the report this week on what key initiatives five companies who lead in market share think are most important. A key element in all five "best" companies is that digital leadership at the very top levels is committed, evangelical and backing that commitment with attention and resources. more

It still surprises me how few local media sites offer simple conversion tracking tools to advertisers. For years large and small companies have deployed a variety of lead gen and data capture tools on the internet. But thousands of local media companies still don't offer advertisers this capability. What are you waiting for? Even advertisers in love with their web sites don't always get excited over a few dozen clicks. Or even a scintillating CTR of .24%. My sources often sound apoligetic when relaying the puny post decimal number that describes a terrific, high performance campaign: "That's actually a decent number." Of course we work on setting up advertisers expectations (a click is an action, kind of like a walk in, right?) But merely pointing out that anything above .04% click through in a banner ad is a success, can just devalue banner advertising as a viable platform in general. Show the real value by capturing the more significant "next" action. more