Three steps to selling online in small papers

AMERICAN small-to-medium size newspaper consultant, Gary Sosniecki, has written a useful column about selling ads on your community newspaper’s website.

We found the article on the e-newsletter of another US newspaperman, Ken Blum (blummer’at’aol.com)

Your web site should be a revenue stream, not a revenue drain, even for the smallest weekly newspaper.

Even in a recession.

The keys are for you to be passionate about your newspaper’s web site and to have a plan that turns that passion into dollars.

Online advertising isn’t charity. Advertisers can and do benefit from advertising on web sites of community newspapers – the stats from your own web site should prove it. The day you convince yourself of those benefits is the day you’ll have the passion you need to sell online ads.

Next you need a plan.

NZ property sites hit the street

THREE of New Zealand’s key real estate sites have embraced Google’s Street View technology.

Realestate.co.nz, Nz.open2view.com and Fairfax-owned TradeMe.co.nz are now offering the functionality to would-be buyers. Previously, TradeMe had a similar service that was provided by a Wellington based company, called Project X. However, after two years of trials, the site management has now switched to Google and more than half its listings are already accessible through Google.

Photos of the outside of each house are taken by contractors to Google. Cameras are mounted on the cars and the snaps are taken as they drive by. Major cities in New Zealand, Australia and the central suburbs of Singapore and Hong Kong have all been catalogued in this way.

Some real estate agents have resisted the StreetView technology, believing that buyers would see the properties promoted and deal with the owner directly, cutting the agent out of the loop and denying them their 2-3 percent commission, according to aimgroup.com.

Newspaper ads due for a shape-shift

IF you haven’t read about News Ltd’s new ‘Think Outside the Rectangle’ creative book, it’s worth catching up on our news blog here.

To summarise, they have produced a high-quality publication that showcases innovative ads that have featured in their newspapers. They’re issuing a challenge to creatives to use new techniques that extract more value from the newspaper medium.

By Brett Taylor, Editorial Coordinator, PANPA

I, for one, commend the publisher for putting this together. It’s an impressive product and I’m sure they’ll get some benefit from it.

There’s no reason why the rest of the newspaper industry can’t benefit from it as well, should it help spark a bit of an industry wide re-think of advertising in newspapers.

Check out the Caxtons

THE Newspaper Works website has this year’s Caxton Awards winners and images available, for those who haven’t seen them.

Even The Newspaper Works themselves won an award in the copywriting category, for an ad promoting the power of newspapers to tell a story.

http://thenewspaperworks.com.au/go/news/caxton-winners

Video games play host to Need For Spend

THERE’S a story on The Australian’s website today that any newspaper sales executive should be aware of.

The Transport Accident Commission (TAC), which is the road safety body for the Australian state of Victoria, has signed a deal to spend $A100,000 on in-game advertising.

By Brett Taylor, editorial coordinator, PANPA

The TAC is trying to reach its target audience or males aged 18-30 with its anti-speeding campaigns. That audience is spending less time watching TV and more time in front of the X-Box or PS3 (I know I am).

At this year’s PANPA conference, our CEO Mark Hollands showed an IBM-sourced slide in his State of the Industry address that showed in-game advertising had a forecasted compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of around 19 percent for the period 2006-2010.

The TAC deal is a major real world example of this predicted trend.

(For the record, newspaper advertising had a forecast CAGR of 2 percent. Mark’s slides are available from Factiva’s PANPA conference page)

Some of the ads will appear on virtual billboards in the racing game Need for Speed, which features car chases through city streets.

It would be interesting to know whether ads in this location are likely to have a greater mental effect on young men than other channels, or whether the TAC just sees this as the most viable place to reach the right eyeballs – regardless of the context. What do you think? Leave us a comment below.

Caxton keynote now available online

The Caxton Committee and The Newspaper Works has announced that Droga5 founder David Droga’s keynote 2008 Caxton speech is now available to download as a video/podcast from the Caxton website at www.caxtonawards.com.au.

Droga was the keynote speaker at this year’s Caxton Seminar, held at the Sea Temple Resort, Port Douglas from 24 -26 October, 2008.

“David Droga has created one of the world’s most respected organisations in Droga5. He has rewritten the book for contemporary ideas development and he is possibly the most successful Australian creative export. David often speaks in Cannes and is a real coup for the Caxtons,” Caxton chairman Rob Belgiovane said.

“David’s speech was inspiring and truly wowed the Caxton audience with his philosophy and approach turning traditional creative models on their heads.”

Other speeches from the Caxton weekend are also available on DVD from The Newspaper Works by emailing admin@thenewspaperworks.com.au.