Over the past three years we have heard a lot about the decline of newspaper advertising revenue and falling subscriptions. Although some analysts may be predicting doom and gloom for the industry others believe there is still a lot of opportunity for newspapers, especially in the local advertising space. Newspapers have something special, especially in local markets, that other online publishers don’t have and that’s brand.
I have seen example after example of digital sales representatives pitching local businesses and failing terribly as the business owner had no idea where his ad was being shown. On the other hand most small businesses know their local paper very well and have been advertising with them for decades. This is an opportunity that newspapers are seizing today and need to continue to harness in the future and mobile could be the driving force to increased ad dollars from local advertisers.
Mobile and local advertising have been touted as the next big thing for newspapers. Smartphones are in peoples pockets/hands at all times and are increasingly becoming a driving force behind peoples purchasing decisions. Matched with to the meter location based targeting, local advertisers are moving to mobile in droves.
Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates recently predicted at MediaPost’s Mobile Summit that local mobile advertising was going to shoot up from $2Billion this year to $24billion in 2016. We highly recommend reading the below article from MediaPost on Borrell’s predictions and how it may effect your digital strategy moving forward. The important thing to note is that if you are a local newspaper, now is the time to get into mobile so that you can start building advertiser intelligence within your communities. Read more below:
Local Mobile Advertising To Reach $24 Billion In 2016
Local mobile ad revenue to shoot up from about $2 billion this year to about $24 billion by 2016.
By then, Borell estimates that 88% of all local online advertising will be delivered on a mobile device. That growth will come directly at the expense of the desktop Web, where spending will decline 76% in the next five years.
