local media insider
Case study

Belo scores new revenues from hyper-local event listings

Alisa Cromer
Posted
Datasphere has evolved this platform to monetize hyper-local events.

Media: ABC-affiliated WFAA-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth Texas, and 19 other Belo TV stations

Owner: Belo Corp.

Market:  20 stations in 15 U.S. markets in 9 states. 

Key executives: David Karabag, Belo Interactive Group, Director of Product Development

Initiative:  Neighborhood event content with telesales by Datasphere

Roll-out:  Late 2012 to early 2013 

Summary:  Datasphere is one of the more interesting opportunities for monetizing hyper-local community sites; the vendor/partner brings not only the platform but also its own telesales team to the partnership. Dataphere's partnerships can include content for  a variety of channels or strickly events content. Both models rely on sales of  category exclusiive neighborhood specific ad units. 

This case study looks at the events partnership with  Belo Interactive Group.  LMI estimates this initiative will generate $500,000 plus in new gross revenues in its first full year. Components of the initiative include a platform which targets users and ads by neighborhood, exclusivity for advertisers, and sales produced by Datasphere's team of telemarketers. Legacy multi-media reps are virtualy unaffected by the initiative, another plus side for this program.

Challenge:  Monetize hyper-local small and medium sized businesses that typically would not advertise on Belo stations

Strategy:  Create a  hyper-local events platform around local neighborhoods, then telemarket surrounding local merchants to purchase exclusive posiitons. Belo selected Datasphere, a company that supplies both the hyper-local events platform and the telesales department on a turnkey basis to execute the strategy.

1.  Content and platform

The hyper-local events platform is similar to the broader neighborhood content: Each local community has it's own channel, and the platform resides on the media site.  Visitors who come to channel site for the first time choose their neighborhood, after which only geographically-relevant events and ads appear automatically. The only difference is that the content is specifically events oriented and supplied by Datashphere, rather than more general and collected from press releases. This change makes this platform partnership more efficient  and turnkey for broadcast sites, who need almost no editorial involvement.

With the former, more generic model, Datasphere partnerships  required partners to collect and input hyper-local press releases on a variety of topics. In this model, Datasphere compoiles the events content  via promoters, other events databases and self-entry. 

“We list events from Farmer’s Markets to the local Brittany Spears concert,” Gary Cowan, Datasphere SVP product and marketing said. Featured events sold by station reps are moved to the top of the site. Smaller neighborhood events self enter. Events upsells and local merchant upsells  are sold by Datasphere telemarketers. 

The graphic below shows the events calendar for WFAA in Dallas / Fort Worth. It is viewable in full at http.events.wfaa.com.

 

3. Sales.  Datasphere has an inside sales staff of ten, who work out of offices in Tempe, AZ and Bellevue, WA. Datasphere's  telesales force calls on the most likely  advertisers in categories that want to target specific neighborhoods.  Telemarketed ads run in geo-targeted featured spots on the website's home page and internal channel pages.

WFAA or other tv stations’ sales staff continue to sell the top banner ad to larger advertisers, promoting the reach of each station’s entire DMA.

The legacy multi-media ad staff is virtually unaffected by this program, as they have no interaction with Datasphere or its inside telesales department. The station's "do not call list" also protects against account disputes.

Advertisers also have access to a Datasphere back end that allows them to quickly design and schedule their own ads and also shows them the audience for each ad:

Datasphere's reps make recommendations and communicate with clients via the platform.  The sales are consultative and reps can assist clients who need help with ad design or simply don't want to do it themselves, or use Datasphere’s ad design as a spec ad tool for solicitation to prospective advertisers:


Cowan considers the model disruptive to Google AdWords, since it is both more highly targeted but creates a better yield for media partners. 

 “The ads we sell are far more relevant than what most of our (broadcast) clients had been running there, such as Google AdWords. Now there are no more belly fat ads on their sites. All the work the client does is to put tags in for the calendar widget. We do the rest, including the billing.”

4.  Pricing and packaging 

 A key to the sales is industry exclusivity by neighborhood. Each neighborhood advertiser is given exclusitivity in its immediate target market. Additionally, only two to four ads will run in the same spot. 

 “If you’re a landscaper and you buy Greenville, you’re the only landscaper advertising there. That ad rotates with other industries in that neighborhood, but they limit it to two to four rotations depending on the size of the area.”

Promotions outline the targeting aspects: 

The partnership model has also evolved from a revenue share to a high CPM model.  Ad prices vary considerably by market and by neighborhood, depending on size of audience. The revenue share between Datasphere and the media company is negotiable. 

“Historically we’ve had a couple of different business models,” said Cowan.

“We started with a revenue share concept but we’ve moved to a model where we pay our partners an agreed CPM for inventory used, which is significantly higher than CPMs available through traditional models. The specific number does vary somewhat depending on the particular attributes of the partner. There is no install fee or other upfront cost – it’s all upside for our partners."

5. Roll-out strategy:

The  Belo roll-out was  gradual, from station to station until all markets were covered.  Datasphere works directly with Karabag, and his team at Belo, for both content and technical implementation. Karabag sets up training and information calls with station coordinators as needed.

Most featured listings are new advertisers to the stations – smaller merchants such as real estate agents, landscapers, and dry cleaners, who only want to reach prospective customers in their neighborhood.

“It’s been terrific working with Datasphere,” said Karabag. “They have their process very well vetted, and do a very good job of helping us set expectations. Datasphere does a really nice job of customizing how many ad rotations based on size of each area.”

According to Karabag, the advertisers love the share of voice sponsorship model, and users welcome the relevant advertising.

Results:

·  While results vary considerably by market, Belo station SMB advertisers sold by Datasphere number 200 to 300 in smaller markets, and 600-900 in larger markets.

· With a medium price of $200 to $400 a month per ad, LMI estimates that small markets earn in the range of 10,000 to 20,000 annually, with larger markets ranging at 60,000 to 80,000 annually. Companywide, Belo is grossing approximately $45,000 each month, or $540,000 annually from the initiative. Karabag confirms that the Datasphere relationship was bringing “significant revenue” to Belo Corp. 

 Lessons Learned:

·  Smaller and medium sized mom and pop businesses will advertise given an affordable hyper-local advertising option

· Users  and advertisers want ads that are geographically relevant.

· Industry exclusivity is a strong selling feature for hyper-local advertising sales.

· Analytics – i.e., proof of ad effectiveness, is very important to advertisers.

Our take 

Datasphere is worth watching as an opportunity that larger newspapers and even radio sites may have inadvertently passed on. The Arizona Republic is the only major newspaper to have taken on this model and is showing promising results.  For broadcast sites, this is pure plus-side and market-share side  revenues.

Many thanks to Gary Cowan for showing us around the Datasphere product, and David Karabag for illustrating success of this initiative. 

Alisa Cromer

The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and  MediaExecsTech,  developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine,  to showcases perspectives from around the  world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.


 

datasphere, gary cowan, events, david karabag