Good article from Poynter Online about how companies are spending money to create unique content for their websites to try and attract readers. The author refers to this as “below the line” spending.

Here’s an example he cited:
“PepsiCo, which spends many millions of dollars on marketing every year, is just one example. During Internet Week in New York, I helped lead a project for which we hired nine “social communicators” (some of whom were traditional journalists) and built out a suite of blogs and social media tools, including a Twitter feed, a YouTube channel and a proprietary app, to cover the week’s events and, PepsiCo hoped, reach an audience of influential people in digital media and marketing. PepsiCo has done similar projects for the SXSW festival and said it is planning more in the future.”

The representative from Pepsi went on to say, “we are going to shift the mix of dollars from what might be a hundred percent paid advertising to something less traditional.”

The author gives a couple of other examples, and there is no doubt that he has spotted a growing trend. While he sees this trend as a threat to traditional media, I see it as an opportunity.

Later in the article he says, “I believe the trend will extend to local merchants, too. What happens, for example, when a local business that might have spent a few thousand dollars a month to attract customers via local circulars or news blogs instead decides to spend some or all of that money on its own digital media, attract its own audience, and glean all that data for itself?”

The problem with this is most small business owners we talk to have neither the expertise nor the time to pull this off. If they decide to go down this road they are going to need help from credible marketing services companies that can develop and optimize websites, create copy, provide social networking services, etc. That’s where we come in. We are doing these things for scores of customers as we speak and our client list continues to grow. And from a business model perspective, it gives our company access to “below the line” marketing dollars that we have never been able to vie for in the past.

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=174032

Interesting article about how IBM completely transformed its business. They went from a hardware company to an IT services company. The author believes that newspapers are at that same crossroads but he doesn’t offer much insight into how newspapers are going to make this transition.

Fact is, we are already doing it.

Our digital agency, 1100 Broadway, opened for business a year ago and the lessons we have learned running a digital agency have taught us so much. The original idea was to provide digital and direct solutions for our customers. We have certainly done that. We have served 126 customers so far through 1100 Broadway and the list grows every week. 1100 Broadway revenue will be twice in the fourth quarter what it was in the first quarter. Most importantly, our customers are getting results. With a vastly expanded product line we quickly have realized that we have the ability to sell broad-based marketing solutions to customers. We have gone beyond our own products and services and we are now buying media for our clients, helping them with social networking and helping them track their results. Just this morning, we met with a client in an attempt to sell them our “agency of record” services for their ten-state operation. The customer was quite impressed with all of the services we can offer. We are finding ourselves having these types of discussions more and more with our clients. While we have a long way to go to diversify our company we are more confident than ever that we are on the right track.

Wouldn’t it shock some people if we were the next IBM?

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/dchase/200911/1794/

Throughout the month of September I reported that Sunday home delivery numbers in the 17 counties of middle Tennessee were exceeding last year. Last week, not only was home delivery up but so was single copy. In fact, total circulation in middle Tennessee was up 5,386 copies versus last year!

That’s right. GM’s market share is expected to grow three percentage points in October and when consumers were asked how they heard about GM’s 60-day money back program, 52% said the newspaper (combination of newspaper advertising and newspaper articles).

http://www.autoremarketing.com/ar/news/story.html?id=10257

Here’s a great article about providing excellent customer service. I think the most powerful sentence in the article is this one:

“Engage in something far more powerful than a vendor relationship by transitioning to a collaborator.”

World class customer service means providing our customers with excellent solutions that solve a problem – in our case – that means helping them sell products or services or getting their phone to ring or improving their brand or hiring employees, etc.

Let’s be honest, this has not been a hallmark of the newspaper industry. Yes, I think we do a good job building relationships with many of our customers. But those relationships must be focused more than ever on providing our customers with well thought out plans and ideas. We want them to like us, but more importantly, we want them to view us as a business partner that is looking out for their best interests.

Our focus on broad based marketing solutions means we are better poised than ever to provide the type of service described in the article. My responsibility is to make sure we do this effectively.

Read the article on providing excellent customer service now.

The stories have been reported for awhile now – Facebook is getting older. By now, most people have heard that the fastest growing group is women 55 and older. For many, this signals the beginning of Facebook’s downfall. When a middle age uncle is commenting on his teenage niece’s page, that’s sure to drive the kids away.

But I don’t see it that way.

What makes Facebook in particular, and social media in general, powerful is that you choose who is and isn’t in your network. The growth of older adults doesn’t need to have an effect on younger users because they don’t need to interact, if they don’t want to.

I know what you may be thinking – that’s not what’s happening. Almost everyone I know who uses Facebook has received friend requests from bosses, co-workers they never talk to, people they’ve met twice in their lives and so on. In short, people who are not their friends.

Like so many other things, it’s not the tool, it’s how you use it.

I think it’s likely people’s behavior on social networks will change. For many people, social media is like a new toy. You want to see what it can do. But in the future people will do what is useful to them. Reaching out to everyone you ever met may not serve a purpose. But being more engaged with the most important people in your life, or continuing to develop a relationship with an old friend you reconnected with, may be.

The same thing is true in using social tools for business. What is useful for your business? How does it enhance your ability to serve customers, find customers, increase customer satisfaction? The race for more fans, followers and friends will abate. While the focus on how it helps you create value will be critical. As it always is.

This article discusses the trend toward marketing automation. Many companies are able to use some very good self-service tools to help market their products. So, it will be more important than ever for marketing companies (like us) to sell their expertise, local knowledge, customer service, etc.

We believe that we need to offer BOTH good self-service tools along with customized programs developed by local experts. Agent 1100 is a good example of this and we will be launching more new tools in the coming months.

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/innovation/article/are-you-ready-for-the-trend-toward-marketing-automation-anita-campbell