New Report: Newspaper struggle to grasp the web

New Report: Newspaper struggle to grasp the web

A new report was released by the NAA in their september '05 magazine issue. It details how many newspapers have struggled to leverage the web for ad sales opportunities.

The report, produced for the Association by The Digital Futurist Consultancy, www.digitalfuturist.com, examines whether newspapers are using their sites to promote print advertising, to share their marketing and pricing data, and to provide customer service to new and existing advertisers. The report’s findings include:

• 55 percent of the sites reviewed have an area for marketing the print edition. That still leaves lots of sites without any marketing information for potential advertisers.
• 60 percent provide visitors with advertising rates and information about deadlines, terms and ad sizes.
• Less than 10 percent provide a self-service area for advertisers. The report defines self-service as the ability to schedule and upload an advertisement

The entire report can be downloaded here. I've included some of the highlights (or lowlights) below:

Maybe it was the remote control. Maybe it was the ATM. Whatever it was that kicked it off, at some point in the second half of the 20th Century, customers started taking control. And, in concert, responsibility for service began to shift away from businesses to customers.

The Internet arrived and multiplied the change, speeding it up and deepening its reach. Now, all businesses have to contend with two linked trends:
1. We want more control over the services we use.
2. We want to exert that control through electronic, not human, intermediaries.

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Because media is digitally transferrable—the product itself, as well as the service that surrounds it, can be provided online—it has changed the fastest.

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The boundaries between industries are breaking down. When everything’s online—all contained in the same browser frame—expectations bleed from industry to industry, site to site, experience to experience. When people get used to a certain level of choice, control, freedom and flexibility in a particular domain, they begin to expect it in others—even when the domains are as disparate as music and propane, or car insurance and newspaper advertising.

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Newspaper companies will need to continue to evolve not only the classifieds-business models but also to restructure their classifieds section to be the “starting point” for consumers.

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In the 2004 Newspaper Monitor study done for the NAA by The Advantage Group, advertising agencies were asked about their impressions and feelings about newspapers as a place to do business. Among some of the findings:

• “No other medium is so complex to do business with.”
• “No other medium has such a complex pricing model.”
• “No other medium is collectively less sophisticated when it comes to selling their products.”