How Hyperlocal Publishers Can Strengthen Relationships With Advertisers

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One of the key takeaways from the Street Fight Summit in New York was that the future of local lies in partnerships. Forging relationships with local businesses is absolutely necessary for any hyperlocal publisher hoping for long-term success. The question that remains is how, exactly, publishers should go about strengthening the relationships they’ve built with small business advertisers and other organizations in their communities…

Why Intuition Fails Us in Mobile Advertising

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When mobile was in its infancy, it was appropriate to use intuition and past experience as a guide for how to run mobile ad campaigns. However, the time has come for us as an industry to evolve and begin to use data and empirical evidence to guide our mobile advertising. We need to test and validate our intuitions with unique mobile data to optimize campaign performance…

How a Big Agency Merger Could Benefit Local Ad Sellers

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While I certainly believe that big data is our future, nuance at the local level is a part of accuracy when it comes to the providing of filters. This is an advantage that we have in local media, and we should not be shy about making that known to small and medium-sized businesses in the communities we serve.

Digital Pioneer David Cohn: Hyperlocals Need Passion AND Revenue

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David Cohn, founder of Spot.us, a nonprofit pioneer in community-funded reporting, has been hired by the UC/Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to help develop a sustainable business model for hyperlocals.  He will run three Ford Foundation-funded, student-staffed  hyperlocals in the Bay Area, with the aim of making them self-supporting. As he began his new assignment, […]

Case Study: Tracking the Success of an Online Ad

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For Richard Stromberg, owner of Chicago Photography Classes, hyperlocal news sites and blogs have taken the place of traditional print publications. To track the effectiveness of his online ads, he uses printable coupons that new clients are encouraged to bring to class for discounted rates...

Case Study: Connecticut Pub Casts a Wide Net With Patch Ads

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Like many entrepreneurs, Daneen Grabe, owner of Little Pub restaurant, has little time to research all the advertising platforms that are available in her town of Ridgefield, Conn. She now spends most of her marketing budget on ads in six local Patch sites, in the hopes of attracting some of the hyperlocal news network’s most plugged-in readers. Here’s why.

Case Study: Ads on Hyperlocal Blogs Reach Local Customers

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As the owner of Urban Ashes, a home furnishings company in Michigan that uses salvaged wood from local yards, parks and urban areas, Paul Hickman believes strongly in supporting local businesses and causes. This carries over to the way he markets his business: Hickman regularly advertises on hyperlocal news sites like The Ann Arbor Chronicle to connect with residents who are well-educated and want to support local enterprises like his.

In Hyperlocal News, Mom-and-Pop Shops Will Win

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Economies of scale do not apply in hyperlocal news. Rather than going up with scale, CPMs not only go down—they disappear. If Gap buys an ad across a network of hyperlocal sites, the CPM will likely be lower than if a local store advertises, because the Gap can buy that region from any number of sources. Conversely, the corner grocer will pay a comparatively premium CPM when they know for sure their ads show up in the right place.

Google+ is Part of Something Bigger — Much Bigger

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The much-ballyhooed launch this week of Google+, a social network that was created to go up against Facebook, has drawn tons of media attention. What most pundits seemed to miss in the all the noise is that Google is smartly positioning itself as a one-stop-shop for multiple facets of local advertising, all sold through its automated self-service sales machine. What’s more, they should all feed off each other…

Surveys All Say: Hyperlocal’s Taking Over Ad Spending. Duh.

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A new survey released this week by the hyperlocal network Topix says what is increasingly clear in every new data that emerges: ad dollars are shifting to local, and of that, most are going online. The Topix survey of ad agencies found 90% said they are buying more local ads (“geographically-targeted”) than they ever have.

B-Town Blog’s Schaefer: Hyperlocal Means Being ‘On the Ground’

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Scott Schaefer is the founder, publisher and editor of B-Town Blog, in Burien, Wash., which was named the best hyperlocal news Web site by the Society of Professional Journalists Pacific Northwest Chapter. B-Town Blog, one of six hyperlocal content sites operated by Schaefer’s LOL Dudez, aims to “report news from a ‘location-based’ perspective.” Schaefer recently spoke to Street Fight about how that “location-based” principle guides everything the site does.

Billboards Get Into the Hyperlocal Game

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The outdoor advertising industry has seen the writing on the wall, and it’s all about GPS.

At the Geoworld Summit Friday in Brooklyn, N.Y., the representatives of a dozen or more hyperlocal companies hashed through the potential and hurdles for reach the local advertising market.

Most of them sat squarely in the hyperlocal space, offering location-based data services to power publishers, marketers and deals, such as SimpleGeo, JiWire and LocalResponse. Others were there as publishers sharing their experiences, challenges and solutions, such as Baristanet and Gothamist. And mobile services and platforms naturally made up the dialogue, as well, including Goby and LoKast