local digital advertising

In a nutshell, small and medium-size businesses want to see well-educated sales reps that understand both the customer they are pitching and the variety of solutions they have to offer. SMBs are not looking for someone to sell against digital, or to try to convince them that one medium is better than another; they are looking for sound advice — a marketing expert they can trust.

The analysts say that’s up 2.4% from this year’s projected $145.2 billion. Digital ad revenue increases are driving the growth, they say, up 13.5% to $50.2 billion. Broadcast and print revenues will take a 2.4% dip, however, to $98.6 billion in 2017.

New info from Standard Media Index goes a long way to solving one of the biggest quandaries that TV networks currently face: proving the full extent of their importance to advertisers in comparison with digital competitors. The new data show how TV can increase advertiser sales volume when budgets removed from TV to fund digital are returned even partially to TV.

A new report from MFM and Borrell Associates, Benchmarking Local Media’s Digital Revenues, examines the contributions of digital ad sales to total sales efforts at TV stations and other local media properties. And, an upcoming MFM webinar will address the question of how stations can attract more of the $50 billion projected to be spent next year on local digital media.

Deseret Digital CEO Clark Gilbert, speaking Tuesday at the Borrell Local Online Advertising Conference, urged legacy media companies to shift their thinking from a sense of what they yet have to lose to a view of what they have to gain in the digital sphere. Gilbert said media companies need to be generating 25% of their total ad revenue from digital.

The media company has created ScreenShot Digital targeted at local and regional marketers with a data-driven approach that goes beyond initial audience targeting and draws heavily on analytics.