Death of an ad salesman

I've commented before on figures that show falling adsales for newspapers and how some think that means the end of the industry. Figures from this week show that advertising sales are continuing to fall.

I've never really understood why so much emphasis is placed on advertising in the newspaper business model - alright I know why, I just think that the emphasis is misplaced. On a very basic level it makes up for all the times as a journalist I was told by ad salesmen that they "pay my wages" with a superior air. All my spluttering anger trying to justify that it was my fantastic words that sold the paper or magazine are now coming back to haunt them.

Because if anything is proven by the downward spiral of ad revenues it is that content matters.

Papers aren't precious, but journalists and other content creators are. It is time for publishers to realise that there's nothing wrong with the reading public, just the publishers' business model.

While ad revenues drop for newspapers, the picture is different for business to business magazines. However, there aren't many media correspondents or pundits that focus much attention on the b2b number sector. In fact, the number of new magazines remains stable with a slight increase. While ad revenue is falling, b2b magazines are actually increasing revenues when you include online, trade shows and other spin-offs.

To underline: yes, paper editions may soon be lining the bottom of the budgie's cage. However, the content lives on is RSS feeds, on blogs, in databases, on social bookmarking sites.

Now who's paying whose wages?

This just in...

from the doom and gloom department.

Newspaper ads are continuing to fall - therefore print is dead. Yay, all the geeks cheer.

Old-fashioned PR with a web spice

Heather Yaxley has a great post on her blog about why Social Media isn't the be all and end all of PR.
I have to admit to moment of euphoria where my enthusiasm with the social media release tends to overshadow everything.
Today was a good counterpoint to that. Today was a good solid - traditional - grind of a day building up a media list of relevant journalists for a new client. Where I have bought in lists in the past for some clients, this time it is all handbuilt and checked with phone calls to the editors to check if they are interested - before the release goes out.
Although I haven't been able to get through to everyone and have reverted to emailing some of the really busy ones, it has been a good learning experience in an industry that I don't know well enough yet. Chatting to editors, if you can get their attention, is a rewarding experience and best done before the "are you going to use it?" phone call - which incidentally I hate (along with all other PR practitioners I should imagine).
While this part of the job hasn't changed for years, I did it by cross-referencing database info with internet searches, and logging the time and contacts with two different web-based applications. Which brought it home to me how social media really is important but still just one tool in the toolbox.