In the small city (population 100,000) of Odessa, the multi-media sales department of the Freedom-owned newspaper includes product managers who go on sales calls and report to the ad director. The results in 2010 were 60% year-to-year online sales growth which more than offset declines in national print revenues, and sell-through is in the 70% range. Here is how Director of Advertising and Marketing, Stacey Ream runs his departments.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
9/25/10
|
One of Chron.com's two most successful niches is a non-denominational religion site driven by bloggers and forums: Houston.com. Topics run from the racey (A photo gallery of Famous Ex-Catholics, like Palin) to the cerebral (Can atheists be good?). Besides adding breadth to the moral and ethical debate, the site commands $20 cpm's from an under-served market: Churches who want to communicate to a diverse audience of local believers.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
9/19/10
|
One media executive in Omaha, Nebraska is challenging Groupon's dominance in his hometown. Pat Lazure, president of World Herald Interactive, has a late start with just 36 daily deals under the corporate belt. But the same deals are selling as many vouchers with his program as they have with Groupon's and his daily grosse revenues from the program are averaging $3000 so far. Here's a step by step of his month old daily deal launch, including new metrics, revenue projections and his insights about running the program.
more
|
Concerned about sustaining the daily pace and organizational strain of a daily deal program? What about a weekly deal? DiscoverSD.com's Insider Hook Up does exactly that. After five weeks of a weekly "deal" the program is a solid home run, in spite of having Groupon, Living Social and SignonSandiego.com - all major daily deal players, in its market. Here's how the site carefully differentiated itself, acquired great deals, established a brand and scored a profit in just 5 weeks. (Note: This site was acquired by San Diego Union-Tribune in early 2011)
more
Alisa Cromer
|
9/14/10
|
The Bangor Daily News' newly consolidated sales team retrained and launched its digital sales using a step-by-step approach starting with simple SOV packages, and "sold out" the first 20 packages in two weeks. Here's how the team, which included Online Sales Manager, Nicole Stevens, and Consultant, Jane Bogue, put the initiative to work.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
9/8/10
|
We took a look at a well established stand alone local sports site that is generating $40,000 a year in Brazos Valley Texas. The editorial formula relies on extensive coverage of university teams. Here are the basic elements of the site, Aggie Sports, and revenue sources.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
9/8/10
|
Chris Edwards, VP of Sales and Customer service at Source Media group, had no direct background in media. But in 2009, he was tasked with organizing a multi-media sales organization (broadcast, print and online properties) to achieve 60% year or year digital growth. Here's a case study on his approach.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
8/28/10
|
The (Pittsburgh) PostGazette.com's PG+, members-only club, includes extra local coverage, access to writers and a discount club. Here's how refinements to the site doubled members plus two new revenue streams targeting its avid sports fans, from Pat Scanlon, Director of Interactive Media.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
8/21/10
|
The (Pittsburgh) PostGazette.com's paid members site, PG+, launched in September 2009. The unique membership package includes extra local coverage, access to writers and a discount club. Sports chat threads can run 400 to 500 comments long. The initiative is part of an aggressive strategy by Chris Chamberlain, president and Pat Scanlon, Director of Interactive Media, to create a new business model for the company by focusing heavily on user-generated revenues.
more
Alisa Cromer
|
8/16/10
|
When a survey of advertisers told the Palm Beach Post "stop pitching us products" and help us go digital, Palm Beach Post decided to create an internal ad agency. In its first quarter of operations, the "agency" conducted 55 "brain-storming sessions" for clients that resulted in 22 advertising campaigns and a collective growth rate of 90%. Here is how the department was put together:
more
Alisa Cromer
|
8/15/10
|