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Robert Niles

Robert Niles: February 2009 archive

Someone's going to get rich in Denver next week...

February 27, 2009

...and then, someone else will get rich later this year in San Francisco, Seattle, Philadelphia, Miami and Minneapolis if papers in those cities close, as they are rumored.

By now, you've heard that the Rocky Mountain News in Denver is publishing its final edition today. Owner E.W. Scripps is closing Colorado's oldest newspaper, two months shy of its 150th anniversary. I write those words with a deep sigh, as I used to work for the Rocky, and consider my experience there essential to my development both as an online journalist and online entrepreneur.

For a little over three years I edited the Rocky's website, and I remain darned proud of the work a tiny staff did during that period. But what does the Rocky's closing have to do with someone getting rich? Hundreds of journalists just lost their jobs!

Yes, and hundreds of local advertisers just lost the publication that they were using to connect with local readers. Those advertisers have budgeted the money they would have spent, some have even written checks and will await reimbursement from the Rocky for ads never run.

With the economy tanking, some of those advertisers, I suspect, will just bank the money and forget about the ads. But smart businesses will not. They still need to reach local consumers.

Like lottery money falling from the sky, that advertising cash will land somewhere. More...

13 Comments | Archive Link

Journalism is the business of building communities - so newsrooms must hire from within those communities

February 20, 2009

Can democratic communities survive without a newspaper to provide them the civic information they need? That's the question on many journalists' minds these days?

But I think it more enlightening to flip that question, and ask again: Can newspapers survive without the communities they need to sustain them?

That, I think is where so many news organizations have failed over the past generation. In a drive to professionalize the journalism industry (and, then, to cut costs), we've cut our publications off from the communities they are supposed to represent. More...

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The ethical journalist's guide to selling ads on a website: Part three

February 13, 2009

I hope that over the past two weeks of this series [week one | week two], you've come to see the parallel between advertising sales and news reporting: That is, to be successful, you must do a great deal of reporting before you write anything on paper or the Web.

Now, it's time to take that next step. As we do that, let's not forget that the key to landing an advertiser is to make the case that by advertising with you, the client will be able to reach an audience of readers who are interested in the client's product or service and open to trying it.

Step 7) Create your ad sales material

You will need material that you can post on your website, as well as printed material that you can hand or send to potential advertising clients.

This material should include:

  • The name of your site
  • A short description of what your site covers (e.g. "Sitename.com covers the Widgetville community" or "Sitename.com covers the flugelhorn players, teachers, makers and fans").
  • A summary of relevant data from your readership survey and statistics
  • Your rate card
  • A short explanation why readers are likely to continue coming to your website (e.g. "Our [award-winning | interactive | daily] coverage is drawning a growing audience of readers from the [Widgetville | flugelhorn] community.")
  • Contact information where potential clients can get more information or place an order

    More...

    2 Comments | Archive Link

    The ethical journalist's guide to selling ads on a website: Part two

    February 6, 2009

    This is part two of a three-part series showing journalists how to sell advertisements on their websites.

    Last week, I urged you to select other news websites to examine and learn about their ad packages, including what those other publishers are charging for them. I also urged you to install traffic measurement tools on your site, if you hadn't already, and to start testing various network ad slots within your site templates.

    [Note: For this week's piece, I will assume that you've been using the Google AdSense ad network on your site, since that's the largest, and for many (though not all) publishers, the most lucrative "plug and play" ad network. If you've chosen to use a different ad network, just apply my references to AdSense to whatever network you are using.]

    Step 4) Price your ad packages

    Start by using the information AdSense collects for you to get a ballpark idea of what ads on your site might be worth to advertisers. You will need to create a "channel" within AdSense's reporting interface and assign a unique channel to each ad slot that you create for your website. If you move an ad slot to a different position on the page, or change a position's ad size, create a new channel to track it. Also create a "URL channel" for your site's domain.

    Then take a look at the CPM that each ad slot is earning. [Again, here's OJR's glossary if you need to know the definition of any of these acronyms.] The site-wide URL channel will allow you to track the site's overall per-page CPM.

    If that number looks real low, don't worry. Remember, Google has taken a cut from what it charged each advertiser. And those ads were sold in a real-time auction by people looking for live leads, not folks whom you've sold on reaching your site's specific readers. My rough calculation, drawn from personal experience, is that you can expect to sell ads directly to advertisers at a rate anywhere between two and six times the AdSense eCPM for the same ad slot. More...

    5 Comments | Archive Link