Future of News As Mobile Absorbs Ads

Projections over the next few years for spending by advertisers look rosy until you dig into the details.  The proportion spent on outdoor billboards, newspapers, radio, magazines, even TV, will continue to fall.

The increase is due to mobile, which will overtake radio, newspapers and magazines by the end of the year,

In desperation, outdoor billboards in third world countries are trying to pose as a means to provide water, even homeless shelters, a reminder of when that industry, already in disrepute, masqueraded as art galleries in the 1920s.

Weekly business journals across the country have resorted to producing frequent awards luncheons where they count attendance as a way to prop up severe declines in readership.  Some even claim to mask them from advertisers.

The practice also dilutes recognition earned from far more rigorous and scientific diagnostics.

Of course the sheer ubiquity of advertising long ago reduced its effectiveness into negative territory, well before every American was subjected to nearly 10,000 ads a day.

While some channels, roadside billboards for one, have or will soon be obsolete due to newer technology making them unsustainable compared to what they cost in desecration to the planet, consumption of news and information is at an all-time high.

Leading the way in transition from hard copy to digital are The Atlantic, the New York Times and Forbes.  Currently, the NYT has 50 times more readers on desktop and mobile than it does print.

In the U.S.A, Newspapers in print form are projected to become insignificant within the next four years but that doesn’t mean extinct.

For an excellent overview of the future of newspapers, I recommend this slide show by Dominique Delport, Global Managing Director of Havas Media Group.

Advertising revenue in daily newspapers is half of what it was just nine years ago at its peak, and that represents nearly 60% of all known advertising tied to daily newspaper journalism compared to 6% in weekly newspapers, 20% on local television and 4% on talk radio.

Compare that to audience revenue with 69% going to daily newspapers, 6% to weeklies, 2% to local television.  Non-commercial news pulls in 3% of industry-wide audience revenue.

Many businesses, particularly those in the business of providing new content, may be being held back by owners and governing boards according to my reading of a survey of executives and governing board members by McKinsey Global.

Two-thirds think that current investments are enough when it comes to innovation of new business or operating models, and that seems to have changed very little.  Only a fourth even rank that as a top priority, 6-in-10 even in the top three.

Under David Bradley’s ownership, The Atlantic took the opposite paths after he bought it in 1999, a decade after the Internet became commercially available.  It has gone from traffic of half a million over all of its platforms to more than 25 million.

He doubled the size of the writing staff since 2009.  It has made money since 2010, up 25% last year and then up again this year.  Atlantic has boldly moved to brand or re-brand spinoffs such as The Atlantic Cities, now Citylab, #2 among c-suite readers, and away from just print circulation and advertising to gain revenue.

The company has also gone aggressively into mobile and video and innovated new marketing techniques.  But it began by doubling the size of the writing staff while others chopped staff, cut sections, and hunkered down with dwindling ad revenues.

It can’t be easy owning or running a news outlet these days but the lesson for future sustainability is “content, content, content.”

The Future of Newspapers from Dominique DELPORT

Creating Interest or Influence - Digital Channels Pull Ahead

An Experian Marketing Services report this year shows that 89% of U.S. adults now use a mobile phone during the course of a week compared to 97% who watch television.  The gap is only two percentage points (96% to 98%) for individuals in households making $100,000 or more.

The report is quick to point out that Americans spend three times longer watching television.  But parity is obviously in sight, and when weighted for fragmentation, mobile may, in fact, already be in the lead.

Globally, across marketing channels, nearly half of marketers no longer use television.  Only 1-in-10 see television as an “influencer” to generate interest and only 5% see it as a “closer.”

They didn’t even bother to measure outdoor billboards which now influence less than a fifth of one percent to purchase, while generating a 7-to-1 adverse reaction.

Email marketing, unpaid social media, online display advertising, print advertising, direct mail, mobile app, search and radio, in that order, all are considered to have more influence than television.

By far, websites are now viewed to be the best bet for influencing and closing sales.  They have all but closed the gap with advertising as a means of creating awareness, and coupled with search marketing they stand alone as the best way to create awareness.

But any marketer today must be cognizant of not only how we use our time but also for what is collected and detailed in a report entitled, The American Time Use Survey.  A visualized report of some of the basic activities is shown by age group on the website Datawovn.

A new report by Digitalsmiths, a Tivo company, illustrates the dilemma of using television.  It shows how many used streaming services and/or pay-per-view but also how much time is spent surfing, how few people know what they are going to watch when they first sit down to watch and how few channels they use regularly.

It is also important to know when people are on the Internet, broken down by device or when smartphone users check email during the day.

Compare these charts back to the one linked above showing when they watch television or listen to the radio and it becomes clear how mobile offers more accessibility and is better across all measures.

Mobile also requires new metrics.  It isn’t just about eyeballs but engagement.  Adobe has provided an excellent primer on those metrics in its periodic Social Intelligence Report.

In fact, Adobe has transformed itself into one of the most savvy content marketers when it comes to useful webinars, reports and white papers for marketers.

These are challenging times for marketers.  Many have been left behind, using obsolete channels because they are too lazy or can’t keep up, while others seem overwhelmed by the pace of change.

The paradigm has shifted.  Hopefully these links are useful.

Infographic - Value of Local Search

For a link to this infographic, click here.  For a link to the full study, click here.  To read a recent blog post on local search, click here.

Local Significance of Mobile Searches Overtaking Apps

Last year analyst BIA Kelsey projected that local mobile web searches will surpass those performed on desktop PCs by 2015.  This further builds on analysis a year earlier that noted HTML5 technology will mean that mobile websites, such as Durham, North Carolina’s will soon outpace apps.  In a new survey marketers agree.

Local searches are important because Google analysis revealed they make up 70% of all online activity and a joint study just released by Google and Nielsen reveals that for many categories, the shift to mobile may be accelerating even more quickly than could be foreseen just last year.

These searches are important to communities because because nearly all business travelers including those attending conventions and 72% of the much larger leisure travel segment use mobile devices to obtain information during visits.

Unfortunately, less than 6% of the websites for small and medium-sized businesses and organizations are currently optimized for mobile. Nationwide, the 94.5 that don’t are losing out on an estimated $24.3 billion.

Those located in communities such as Durham are fortunate because the DMO’s mobile website provides easy access for residents, commuters and visitors to comprehensive, curated information on thousands of businesses, organizations and facilities even if they do not have a mobile site of their own without the need to search category by category.

But the sea-change to mobile searches is becoming even more important to a community’s business climate because the new Google-Nielsen study shows they are more likely to be followed up by immediate action, as high as 55% within an hour.  Other studies have shown mobile searches are twice as likely to result in action but that gap appears to be rapidly widening.

Businesses at one time relied on 800 numbers as a means to make access convenient for those without access to phone books etc. but today, more than six out of ten mobile searches result in a phone call, according to Google.

Local phone numbers are now more likely to get a click through than national or toll-free numbers and yet even on their regular websites, 49.4% of small and mid-sized businesses and organizations fail to have it on their home page.  Nearly 94% fail to display a contact email address.

Here again, those based in communities where they are listed on a DMO desktop and mobile optimized website are sure to have local numbers listed and the DMO serves as a concierge to answer questions and to facilitate referral.

The Google-Nielsen study doesn’t appear to include visitors to a community unless they are shown under “on the go use” outside home and work.  But the study does provide insight into how visitors may be using local searches.

As examples, I’ll highlight findings for restaurants and shopping, by far the two areas with the most visitor activity participation, along with arts and entertainment, one of several activity areas important to visitors.

Local searches involving restaurants are 53% initiated via web browser and via an app 43% of the time.  Nearly 80% are purposeful vs. random searches.  More than half click on links or then visit to a restaurant with 30% making a purchase.

Local searches for shopping occur via web browsers 56% of the time with 38% accessing via an app.  Nearly 68% are by intent and 21% random searches.  More than half result in click-throughs with 24% visiting a store and 25% making a purchase.  Mobile shopping queries are twice as likely to be in store.

Local searches for arts and entertainment are done 56% of the time via web browsers 56% of the time with 38% accessing via an app.  Nearly 30% came on the item randomly and 28% out of need.  More than 60% clicked on links, 11% visited the physical location, 21% shared the information and 9% made a purchase.

Sites such as Durham’s mobile-specific aggregator make searches more convenient, with the added benefit that searches for one purpose such as an arts events are more likely to see other activities that are available such as dining and vice versa.

In 2012, a billion people globally used mobile devices as their primary internet access point. In the U.S., 95% of smartphone owners conduct browser-based searches, 82% once a week or more.

The new study emphasizes again that regardless of how visitors or residents initially access content, e.g. a print visitors guide or a desktop, they want that information to be portable and accessible across other platforms including mobile.

The shift to mobile search also adds to the importance of community buy-local efforts.  Eight out of ten dollars in household budgets are spent within 50 miles of home.  It is estimated that US firms lose $50 billion a year because of problems with localization.

The genius of the web is that localized planning can be spontaneous and activities tangential, which is more the way people live even when they are visiting a community.  This also results in more spending and a more authentic experience.

With the migration to mobile web searches from apps underway, it makes sense both for travelers and communities for DMOs to create a mobile-optimized website rather than an app.  Even frequent travelers to a destination can simply add a mobile website to their home screen so that it appears much like an app for ready reference, but forwarding the website and selecting home screen.

Savvy community-destination marketing execs are taking heed.