Digital Marketing Ideas

In this article from eMarketer, The Kelsey Group & BIA Advisory Services LLC are projecting a 13.2% drop in local print advertising spending in the next 5 years.

This is huge for the newspaper business.  Over the last several years, as national advertising dollars have moved online they’ve increased their focus on their traditional strong point, local & small business advertising.

What is causing this shift in ad dollars from offline to online?  Well, the increasing ability of marketers to geo-target their PPC advertising.  PPC (both display based and text based) are far superior to offline print advertising competitors in their ability to geo-target, demographic-target, and, in general, perform far better from a conversion perspective.  Now, with PPC advertising, you’re not locked into a click through to a web site and then having to convice a user to fill out a form, no, you can have that add drive directly to a phone call to your business or call center.  Something that print definitely can not do.  This makes the impulsive click a definitive lead generator for both small and large businesses alike.

We’re seeing not just a shift in small businesses, but other, larger, more traditional print advertisers, your regional businesses like car dealers and their networks, medical groups, and other regionally focused (and traditionally print based) advertisers.

Click on over to eMarketer and read the article, it’s a short, but informative piece.

US Local Ad Market Shrinking – eMarketer.