Editor’s note: Multimedia industry consultant Mel Taylor, president of Mel Taylor Media, this month begins a column in Newspapers & Technology discussing how newspapers can make money with their online ventures.

Taylor

Wondering how to drive some fresh online revenue? Have your sale numbers hit a wall?

And how about that pesky little challenge to increase your online revenue share? As a matter of fact, do you have any idea how big a share of online revenue you’re actually pulling out of the market?

 

Many sales managers are surprised to find that even though their online revenue has increased year over year, their rev-share; that is, the share of the total advertising revenue a market generates, continues to decline.

So while you could be doubling your Web rev, you are likely leaving an increasingly large amount of money on the table.

This is all due to the other sites (TV, pure-plays, directories) doing a much better job at ramping up their sales and editorial efforts, and going after that chunk of ad dollars migrating away from traditional media.

For now, online is still only snagging a very small part of most marketing budgets. But get ready for the spigot to open. Preparing for that tsunami of dollars is going to be job No. 1 for most media companies.

But getting that money won’t necessarily be easy. In fact, the days of relatively easy Web money are coming to a close. For the past 10 years, most newspaper publishers have done little more than dump their print content online. Yet they’ve been able to sell adjacent banner inventory — at CPMs usually in the $10 to $15 range — because media buyers found newspapers to be among the few quality sites they could use to get their message across.

Fast forward to 2008, and media buyers now have more options.

Ad networks and niche sites, geo-targeted news aggregators and local blogs only add to the inventory supply and choice, which in turn puts downward pressure on CPMs. Newspaper organizations will have to work harder and smarter in order to keep a dominant position.

What’s the upside?

Many newspapers are stepping up their digital strategies, even if much of it is still experimental in nature. Examples range from niche sites with separately branded URLs to online radio and podcasts and video initiatives that are guaranteed to make broadcasters green with envy.

The first, and best step newspapers should take is to realize they have to do much more than just post their content online. Step No. 2? Find the overlooked and underserved information hole in your market, and then fill it.

Most of the time, it’s best to do this with a separately branded URL. This unconventional strategy meshes with a growing behavior among consumers to be highly selective in the online communities with which they spend time.

It’s also a nod toward meeting media buyer demands to have their brands placed in a highly focused environment rather than a “one-size-fits-all” portal.

Here’s a revenue tip: Go after broadcast and cable budgets. For local marketers, these usually represent their biggest ad budgets. Current trends among buyers show that many are moving more of their dollars into digital platforms.

Automotive is one of the bigger categories moving broadcast dollars online. Recently, Nielsen said that GM cut its TV ad spending by 15 percent; Honda by 18 percent and Ford by 8 percent. Many of these dollars are now flowing online. Suggest to buyers they should reallocate just 5 percent to 10 percent of their TV budgets to your newspaper’s online offerings. This small percentage will go a long way online, without seriously affecting their TV reach and frequency.

How can you exploit these newfound ad dollars?

Leverage the following video-based ad units: In-banner video, where a short loop of video plays within a traditional banner ad; pre-roll, a 15-second advertising clip that plays prior to the selected editorial video clip; or lower-third overlays, where a thin strip of unobtrusive advertising is displayed at the bottom of the video player screen.

And finally, take a look at offering clients Web commercials. These could be as simple as 3-minute video clips that are like mini-infomercials.

Find video producers to create them by asking local wedding videographers. They primarily work on the weekends and would love the extra mid-week work.

While the Web commercial provides some incredible benefits to the client, it’s also a great tactic to pull dollars away from cable. Because the Web is an on-demand environment, the client only pays on actual views, and not the nebulous “houses passed” metric that cable salespeople usually tout as underpinning their rationale for pricing.

Mel Taylor is president of Mel Taylor Media. His blog “Local Media in a Web 2.0 World” can be found at www.MelTaylorMedia.com. Taylor can be reached at meltaylor2000@gmail.com.