The Midwest Newspaper Summit 2 held Feb. 4-5 in Des Moines, Iowa, sought to find answers to the challenges facing newspapers. Here are a few of the comments made.
William Grueskin
The Wall Street Journal is perhaps the only major newspaper that has successfully implemented an online pay model. William Grueskin, a former WSJ editor, said he thinks part of the newspaper’s success is that it has been “utterly consistent.”
Grueskin was the first speaker at the Midwest Newspaper Summit 2 co-sponsored by the Illinois Press Association earlier this month in Des Moines, Iowa.
The problems facing newspapers today are not new nor recent, Grueskin indicated. “The seeds of this erosion were planted many years ago before the Internet was invented.”
He said newspapers have been complacent. But this is not the first time the newspaper has had to adapt to changing technology. He read from a book chronicling competition from radio in the 1920s and 1930s. He said the doom and gloom written about newspapers then was “almost identical to what we’re hearing now.”
He talked about how newspapers are changing saying that they are being atomized, measured, re-aggregated, socialized and democratized. He said he thinks the industry will see a lot more experimenting in the near future and that those succeeding will be engaging readers, building communities and offering databases of information.
Adam Penenberg
Journalist Adam Penenberg, author of Viral Loop, said that newspapers must change with new delivery methods.
He compared the shift to the Internet to the transition from horse and buggy to automobiles. The first cars were called horseless carriages, he noted, and looked like carriages. They no longer look like that, he said, suggesting that newspapers of the future will not look like print newspapers.
He talked about how print ads do not translate well online and how newspaper Web sites need to engage readers so they spend more time with the ads.
He suggested that newspapers use the Internet to create niche Web sites that can be sold on a subscriber basis. “Cover Little League like ESPN covers the NBA,” he suggested. Run box scores, loads of photos, interviews with players, and offer products such as mugs and T-shirts. He suggested that high school students could be tapped to help with content on such a site.
Do the same thing with basketball and other sports, he suggested. Create a social network for local farmers. “Nobody can compete with you on that,” he said. “Relying on advertising alone is foolish today.” He added that he thinks a paywall will not work.
He said social networks are popular because people have a biological and physiological need to network. But they’re not in the mood to be marketed to when they’re using social media. The click-through rate on ads on social networks is 0.02 percent, he said.
“If someone came up to you on the street and started shouting at you, ‘Buy Pepsi, buy Pepsi, buy Pepsi,’ you would get annoyed,” he said. He suggested one might buy Coca-cola just for spite. Some online ads have the same annoying effect, he indicated.
Viral Loop is a book about the explosion of social networks online and compares them to Tupperware parties, Amway and similar sales systems. Tupperware parties worked, he said, because people bought within the trusted environment of their home or friend’s home. They were entertained as well. And each party led to two or three more parties.
Social media online is similar because each user begets other users. Success is driven by the consumers.
He pointed out that Web sites like Google, Yahoo, Drudge Report, Huffington Post, etc., really don’t create anything. What they all have in common is that they organize content.
“Journalists are the ultimate organization people,” he said. “They organize the news.”
Mike Blinder
Mike Blinder is a sales trainer for Florida-based The Blinder Group. He provided a number of sales tips including the concept of helping small businesses grow.
The strongest growth in business will come from small- to medium-sized advertisers, he said. If the newspaper loses a large advertiser, it should try to replace those dollars with lots of small advertisers.
Parting from some of his colleagues, he suggested that ad reps should be allowed to sell both print and online. Success has more to do with goals, he indicated. “Something good has to happen if all goals are met. And something bad has to happen when all goals are missed.” He added, “If you don’t have hungry sales reps, you’ve got the wrong people on the street.”
He opined that reps selling print only and Web only will tend to compete with each other instead of working together.
He said advertisers are interested in the Internet but they don’t really know what that means. Still, online advertising continues to grow. He suggested selling “the audience, not the technology. … You don’t sell inches; you rent eyeballs.”
He noted that only 7 percent of sales occur online but that 89 percent of consumers research purchases online before buying. So those advertisers who say they don’t sell online still need an online presence.
Blinder offered his prediction for where the best prospects for advertising currently are. His picks are as follows:
Aftermarket auto
Auto parts
Tires
Tune/lube
Body repair/painting
Transmission specialists
Windshield/glass
Healthcare
Diet/nutrition Surgical/non-surgical weight loss
Cosmetic surgeons Dermatology
Sports medicine Private imaging centers
Private surgical centers Cosmetic dentistry
Chiropractic centers Urgent care
Hair replacement Lasik specialty clinics
Addiction centers Sleep disorder clinics
Home Improvement – anybody with a white truck and a ladder (they have co-op)
William Grueskin
Adam Penenberg
Mike Blinder