Topping Papers Using Web, Mobile, Apps

In most U.S. markets, the online audience for local newspapers far exceeds those for the local TV stations. Last fall, TVNewsCheck found only 19 markets in which a TV station consistently beat the local paper. Today, we’ll hear from two of those stations to find out how they did it.

“It’s a different world,” says Marsa Jarrett, creative services director for Hearst Television’s NBC affiliate WYFF Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C. (DMA 37). Jarrett’s been working at the station for 24 years.

“The business is evolving.” Jarrett’s talking about the emergence of the station’s digital platforms — Web, mobile and various apps.

WYFF: Platforms

“To stay relevant, we have to be competitive on the Web and on mobile. We live our brand — Live, Local, Breaking News — everywhere and must perform across all our platforms,” Jarrett says.

Like many local TV marketing executives today, in addition to promoting the daily TV newscasts, Jarrett must not only create the advertising for these platforms, but balance the pressure that promoting these platforms puts on her on-air inventory.

What’s more important?

“They’re all important,” she says, “but during sweeps, we might point people more toward TV and our on-air news. Out of sweeps, it might be more our on-line platforms.”

Jarrett says when talking about their brand now, they show all the devices.

“It’s more seamless that way.”

WYFF: Anywhere, Anytime

WYFF:  It’s Easy

Jarrett adds that it’s important to show the end user in the promos. She says it helps that WYFF has been “the news leader in the market for years so we promote from a position of leadership.” 

Sherry Carpenter, the creative services director for Post-Newsweek’s NBC affiliate WJXT Jacksonville, Fla. (DMA 50), says the key to marketing her station’s various platforms “is to think of people’s behavior and how they use the product.”

WJXT: Football

WJXT: Wedding

Carpenter also says she tries to use her on-air personalities as spokespeople because “people know them. Newspapers can’t do that.”
She adds that after airing the campaign for their morning wake-up app, “the morning newscasts also had a slight bump in the ratings.”

WJXT: Wake Up App, Spot 2

WJXT: Wake Up App, Spot 3

As for guidance in balancing the various multiplatform product messages in her on-air inventory, Carpenter says: “Our TV newscasts are still the top revenue maker. But surprisingly, research says 50% of those watching TV use a second screen as well.”

While both Jarrett and Carpenter juggle their respective stations multiplatform messages as best they can, they emphasize, along with Stephanie Moore, WYFF’s digital media manager, that Facebook has become the daily driver to their various platforms.

“Facebook is the new news lead-in,” Carpenter says.

“We can see they come from Facebook,” adds Moore, “so we hit Facebook hard with constant updates.”

Moore says it starts the minute their reporters leave to cover a story.

“I want a picture of the reporter along with their photographer in the car leaving the station,” says Moore, who posts the picture and a short description of where the reporters are going on Facebook.

“The reporter’s goal is to tell me about what they’re covering from the moment they get in the car until they wrap it up.”

Jarrett says viewers love that connection with the on-air talent. “They love the feeling of covering the story as if they’re standing next to the reporter.”

“People love the behind the scenes, it shows the audience you’re there,” Moore says.

Moore tells the story of one reporter taking a picture of her photographer holding an umbrella over her in the rain which she posted to her personal Facebook page. Moore suggested she also post it on the station’s Facebook page.

“The process of gathering the story becomes as important as the story itself.”

Carpenter says: “It’s critical we post pictures and tease the story as it’s being covered.”

She says their research shows Facebook users are most active in the morning, at lunch and then after work into the evening.

Jarrett says WYFF’s goal is to be “the No. 1 source for news everywhere on every platform — TV, the Web and mobile.”

But to do that takes a total station commitment. “Everyone is ‘all in’ in our newsroom,” Jarrett emphasizes.

Market Share by Paul Greeley is all about marketing and promotion at TV stations and appears every Monday. Read other Market Share columns here. If you have some ideas or stories you want to share, please let me know. You can reach Paul Greeley at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.