Transitioning for the Multimedia Audience CNPA

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Transitioning for the Multimedia AudienceCNPA

• Linda Fisk
• Vice President, Marketing and Ad Products
• Freedom Interactive

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Key Drivers of This Multimedia Revolution

• The emergence of communitainment

• The increasing popularity of U sites

• Mainstreaming of the Internet

4. Declining usage of traditional media
5. Fragmentation of content consumption
6. Evolution of User Generated brands
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Emergence of Communitainment

• Community Communication Entertainment
• These three areas have collided together,
  generating a new type of activity -
  communitainment.
• The common thread between communitainment sites
  is that users communicate with each other, use
  the site as a source of entertainment, and tend
  to view the site as a place where they can
  socialize or hangout.

Source MySpace and Youtube Web Sites
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Emergence of U sites
Not just a review site, members can post profiles
about themselves and connect with friends

• Not simply user generated content
• Members connect with other members or locals to
  discuss/share opinions

Other users can also participate by scoring
another members postings
Localized Communities
Source Yelp Sites
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Video Will Speed Up the Mainstreaming of the
Internet

• Proliferation of video content will play an
  important role in the continued mainstreaming of
  the Internet

Source Harris Interactive
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Fragmentation of Media Consumption

• Proliferation of media options
• The users are increasingly less loyal to
  established brands
• Users are going to an increasingly larger number
  of content sources
• Proliferation of content consumption empowers
  consumers

Source Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet
and Multimedia On-Demand Media Explodes and
comScore Networks
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Growing and Serving Our Audience

• We have to know what our audience wants, what
  they expect and how they typically use our sites
  and our competitor sites.
• We have to know where our audience is, and how to
  reach them effectively.
• And, we have to provide immediacy, interactivity
  and a personal, relevant experience.
• If they dont have a good experience with us, our
  competitors are only a click away.

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Marketing Goals and Deliverables
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Getting to Know Our Audience

• Studied Web Analytics
• Conducted Program of Research
• Implemented Online Feedback Programs
• Reviewed Industry Research

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Our Sites Attract a Desirable Audience
Median age is 44 younger than peer newspaper
sites with 25 in 35-44 bracket
Professionals and executives make up 40 of our
audience
Stronger than peers in relatively high HHI levels
- 39 in 50,000 - 100,000 bracket
Stronger female skew than peer newspaper sites
with 60 women
Top content areas are local in nature local
news, local weather, local crime, etc
Favorite activities include attending movies,
church, national and state parks, concerts,
amusement parks and outdoor activities
Popular ads include coupons for local
restaurants, grocery stores and retail stores
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Important Audience Markers

• Key personas
• A woman in her early 40s, who went to college and
  is now married with children and owns her home.
• She is employed and works in a professional
  environment allowing her family to have a
  comfortable living.
• She is conservative, active in her church, and
  spends free time with family activities.
• She wants to be well-informed about her community
  and relies on the newspaper web site on a weekly
  basis.
• She trusts the newspaper web site and is
  interested in local news, breaking news, weather,
  local crime and safety issues as well as school
  closings.

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Expand Our Audience

• Implement SEO and SEM Programs
• Implement Social Bookmarking Strategies
• Experiment with Social Networking Widgets
• Conduct Sweepstakes
• Consider Usability-Inspired Site Design

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Interactive Marketing Communications Model

Site Specific Banner Campaigns
Awareness
Ad Networks
Contextual Ads
Blogs
Search
Action
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Marketing Trend Shift to Relevance

• Mass Marketing
• Networks
• Portals

• Relevance Marketing
• Search
• Behavioral
• Contextual

• Personalized Marketing
• Email
• RSS

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Expand Our Audience

• SEO and SEM Programs

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SEO and PPC Symbiotic Relationship

• Key Benefits of Natural Search
• Generally cheaper source of traffic
• No pay per click charge
• Users deem results as more pure
• Casts a wide net for consumers
• Key Benefits of Paid Search
• Control of placement of ad on page
• Control of creative messaging
• Control of destination
• Real-time activation and optimization

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SEO (Natural) and PPC (Paid) Search
Paid Search Listings
Natural Search Listings
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Multiple Placements Dominate Results
Own More Shelf Space!
PPC
PPC
SEO
Our goal is to dominate search real estate and
move competitors down in rankings!
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How Do I Get Into the Search Results?

• Google/Yahoo Paid Search
• Bidding Systems

The Web
Every 4 to 6 weeks
XML Feed
Updates in Real Time
Updates in 48 hours
Natural Search
Paid Inclusion
Paid Search
Search Results
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Review - Purpose of SEO

• Search engine optimization involves architecting
  our site structure, content, display, and links
  in such a way that we generate as much traffic as
  possible from search engines while maximizing the
  utility of our sites.

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Our SEO Goals

• Get as many of our pages indexed in as many
  search engines as possible
• Ensure that indexed pages rank as highly as
  possible for as many desirable keywords as
  possible
• Generate qualified links into targeted areas of
  our site
• Gain increased visibility across all search
  engines for the rich content we offer across our
  network

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SEO Project

• TECHNICAL OPPORTUNITIES
• Site Maps
• Create and/or submitted sitemaps to encourage
  spider crawl
• Search Engine Robot Control
• Managed robots.txt file to direct bot where to
  crawl
• Domain URL Management
• Ensured site has optimal URL structure

• CONTENT OPPORTUNITIES
• Keyword Research
• Identified the most relevant keywords by
  category
• SEO Copywriting
• Wrote copy and tags to encourage
  ranking for keyword phrases on relevant pages
• Page titles, meta tags
• Meta tag description
• H1 header/description

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Search Engine Optimization Highlights
Developed a SEO Program that Drove a 49 Increase
in Unique User to Our Network of Sites in Four
Months!
Benchmark Change 211,096 35 650,677
28 2,160,277 33 40,828,107 26 3,733,034
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• Indexed Pages
• Inbound Links
• Referrals
• Page Views
• Unique Users

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Pay Per Click Highlights Audience Growth
On average across the 4 months, the highest
percentage of overall UU that PPC drove to any of
the 5 sites is 20, followed by 15.
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Pay Per Click Highlights Audience Growth
On average, PPC drove 12 of total unique users
across five sites and four months with a high of
15 in the third month.
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PPC Page View Growth Performance
Produced 77.37MM Page Views in Four Months!
Month Four 5.48 of all Page Views to the Site
were Driven from SEM
Month Four Drove over 1.1 MM Page Views via PPC
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Expand Our Audience

• Social Bookmarking

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Taking Advantage of Social Bookmarking Sites

• Examples of social bookmarking sites include
  Digg.com, Del.icio.us, Newsvine, Furl, Wink,
  StumbleUpon, BlinkList, Mag.nolia.
• Can submit articles and story descriptions, as
  well as links back to stories, from all over the
  web.
• Vote for submitted stories worthy of being read.
  Top-rated stories end up on the homepage and on
  the 1st page of the category pages.

An article of high interest can generate high
quality back links meaning lots of traffic!
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Social Bookmarking and Linking

• BENEFITS
• Get credit for our content.
• Content is promoted across the web.
• Help people find our content and our sites.
• Content is distributed to a wide audience.
• Increase our traffic.

• STRATEGIES
• Submit content to social bookmarking sites to
  increase visibility and drive additional traffic
  to our sites.
• Generate quality links into sites to increase
  visibility and drive additional traffic.

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Submitting Content to Digg.com

• Submitting content to Digg.com can be done in 5
  simple steps.
• Sign up for an account
• Begin story submission to Digg.com
• Submit the story link
• Submit title and description
• Check duplication and submit

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Results from Social Bookmarking

• Better SEO Results
• Search Engines count links as votes for a page
  and assigns link scores
• Search engines assign trust scores through
  quality of links
• Better Visibility Across the Web
• Wider Distribution of Content
• Wider Net to Catch New Audiences
• Increased Audience
• Better Distribution of Content More Audience
• Better Search Engine Scores More Audience

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Expand Our Audience

• Experiment with Widgets

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Taking Advantage of Social Networking Sites with
Widgets Facebook

• People use Facebook to keep up with friends,
  upload photos, share links and videos, and learn
  more about the people they meet.
• Facebook's Platform enables anyone, anywhere, to
  build sharing applications across Facebook. The
  possibilities are endless.
• People define their experience on Facebook by
  choosing widgets that are useful and relevant.
• Create a Facebook site for your brand to
  introduce your brand to new audiences and extend
  the value of your product.
• Add a link or button to your Facebook site to
  make it easier for your content to be shared on
  Facebook!

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Examples of Widgets to Share
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Entertainment News
News on the War
Photo Galleries
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Breaking News - with Sponsorships!
Quizzes and Polls
Local Reviews - with Sponsorships!
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Social Media Widget Recommendations

• Tap into Lifestyles, Hobbies and Passions
• Sports
• Cooking
• Use Interactivity
• Polling
• Sweeps/Contests
• Keep It Simple
• RSS Fed Headline Applications
• Photo Galleries
• Consider a Utility Play
• Weather
• Traffic

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Expand Our Audience

• Conduct Sweepstakes

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Sweepstakes

• Sweeps promotions are turnkey solutions designed
  to drive customer acquisition, brand engagement
  and referrals
• Provide a platform to forge and maintain your
  brands relationship with customers
• 68 of consumers actively participate in
  promotions
• 88 of consumers are seeking out more promotions
  than last year
• Sweeps promotions are cost effective to develop
  and can be launched quickly

Jupiter Research 2006, Source IMI
International PROMO EXPO Consumer Insight
Update,
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Sweepstakes

• A Sweepstakes provides an opportunity for a big
  hook prize to drive increased visitation and
  registration.
• 80 of consumers have entered an online
  sweepstakes
• 70 of consumers say theyre influenced by
  promotions
• 81 of consumers say they have made a purchase
  due to a promotion
• Promotional incentives can more than double email
  open rates and improve click-through rates by as
  much as 1000

Jupiter Research 2007, Source IMI
International PROMO EXPO Consumer Insight
Update, Advertising.com
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Sweepstakes

• RESULTS
• Sweeps generated nearly 500,000 unique
  visitors to our network of sites.
• Sweeps participants tended to skew slightly
  older and female.
• Participants increased their visitation to our
  sites 4X over average in 30 days.

• STRATEGIES
• We implemented three network-wide sweepstakes in
  2007 with on-site and newspaper promotion.
• Tapped into broad categories of wishes with big
  money giveaways, fantasy travel trips, and
  complete personal makeovers.
• Worked with ePrize to launch sweepstakes programs
  that were exceptionally generous to create buzz
  and excitement.

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Dream Vacation, Online Entry Form
Dream Vacation, Print Ad
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Expand Our Audience

• Usability-Inspired Design

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Site Redesign Based on Usability Tests
Added a breaking news bar that is only visible
when there is breaking news.
Moved up weather and traffic and increased
visibility dramatically.
Tabbed top stories highlights the most viewed
sections prominently and allows easy access to
users favorite content.
Created a fixed promotional rotator for contests,
sweepstakes, product introductions, and promotions
Added a video player that features both
user-generated and professionally produced
content.
Included a Community area to drive
interactivity with photos, polls, online
exclusives, games and user-generated content.
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Site Redesign Strategies and Results

• RESULTS
• Repeat visitation was up 8 on average after
  launch
• Average page views per visit were up 14 on
  average after launch
• Customer satisfaction reports were overwhelmingly
  favorable

• STRATEGIES
• We listened to our audience and incorporated
  their ideas and suggestions.
• We tested the design with consumers monitoring
  feedback and behavior online.
• We made tweaks through the process in a process
  of continual improvement.

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• Questions?