I love following the news business as much as the next guy, but sometimes it’s nice to catch up on other industries such as — oh, I don’t know — organic dairy farming.
In Dutchess County, NY, small-scale organic dairy farmers have formed a nonprofit cooperative that allows them to bypass the middle man and market their goods directly to retailers in New York City. So far, the arrangement has allowed eight family-owned farms to earn more than the going rate while staying competitive with industrial farms, The New York Times reported earlier this month.
That got me thinking: If a hard-hit industry like family farming can make money through a cooperative, then why can’t hyperlocal news outlets do the same?
For example, several extremely good hyperlocal sites dot the Washington, DC region. As independent operations, they would probably do alright in terms of advertising sales, assuming they have the sales staff and the interest to follow that revenue stream. (Some of them do not host ads. Whether that’s by choice is not known.)
But if these organizations were to form a collective advertising venue, they could probably draw large sponsors — regional chains come to mind — and charge higher ad rates for the wider distribution. The effort required to sign those sponsors can be shared, with a finder’s fee going to whomever seals the deal and a standardized rate for those who host the ad.
At the same time, the individual outlets can avail themselves to neighborhood mom-and-pop shops and charge a lower rate for hyperlocal distribution. In this case, there would be no profit sharing among members of the cooperative.
Of course, advertising networks catering to hyperlocal outlets are already out there. At least three of them contacted me yesterday after CUNY J-school’s Jeff Jarvis retweeted a link to this blog. I don’t know how these networks operate, though I’m sure they’d be happy to explain. But if hyperlocalists can cut out the middle man, then why not snip away.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user scpgt.
Gawker’s network of blogs seems to be successful with a similar approach. From what I can tell there are eight main blogs, all focused on different, almost niche, topics. Today they have deployed an ad campaign across multiple blogs for The Ricky Gervais Show. The execution is prominent and integrated into the layout. However, on other blogs there are categorically more relevant ads. There is one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Deadspin.com. Your suggestion would be to switch the relevance from categorical to geographical. I couldn’t agree more with this approach.
This model reduces the importance of mass traffic and increases the importance of quality traffic.
I’m all about quality traffic. The fact is, some hyperlocal beats are so small, they’d never be able to draw sponsors on readership numbers alone. (I once had a metrics expert laugh in my face about my audience size.) But if a hyperlocalist demonstrates a target audience, then it’s easier to convince mom-and-pop shops of a greater return on their ad investment.
The advertising cooperative is where hyperlocalists can capitalize on sponsors who prefer mass traffic, like regional chain stores and restaurants that cater to a wider demographic range.
Brilliant. I wish this existed for my new hyperlocal, DC-area blog.
When I was working at a local TV station I actually pitched this idea to some of the top brass — get a whole bunch of local blogs together and form an ad network, selling for the little guys and keeping half the cash. Their reaction: crickets.
just discovered this great site. thanks for starting this conversation. personally, i spend a lot of time looking for ways to partner with other hyperlocals for ad sales (I am outside NYC) , but have not found the magic formula yet.
Thanks, Scott and Polly, for joining the party!
Starting a hyperlocal ad network can start with two outlets, but the partners should have compatibility on some level. I’m not sure if that means sharing the same editorial philosophy, content style and voice, medium (eg, online, broadcast, print, etc), or a combination of things.
Whatever that compatibility is, it should be there, as with any business partnership.