This week LocalMediaInsider site is publishing four reports that explore tactics and strategies for running a large telesales department, including models for recruitment ads, sales-to-goal spreadsheets, compensation systems, products and pitches. We first ran across Deseret Digital Media's telesales department at SNA's Innovation Mission, and the harder we looked at how much they sell, the more convinced we became that telesales is an critical business model. So first, a shout out to Todd Handy, director of New Media Sales, for sharing so much of his expertise and best practices. We all are deeply indebted. It takes a lot of time out to help us put these reports together; thank you. Why focus so much telesales? A critical market remains in the vast unexplored wilderness of your DMA: Thousands of Mom-and-Pop businesses who were priced out of traditional media years ago, and are just now starting to buy and experiment. Other merchants simply dropped out of traditional advertising when the economy tanked... but still experiment with "internet marketing" under the guise of "investing in their web site"... or partnering with Google. more

After slogging through the management-intensive world of telemarketing last week, it's about time for a pizza contest. There's nothing like the staid, uber-dignified Washington Post Company trading pizza for e-mail names and, well, having fun doing it. This week's report is not only free of personnel issues (at least on the media side) but we have to report things like "prepare your merchant for too much success" under "lessons learned." Capital Deal's pizza contest report was only held up by a day due to "customer service" issues that happen when, like, more than 100,000 people are asked to use a promo code. more

For people in the media business, word choices are our stock in trade. Being fully immersed in digital media, however, means that our very language is moving around. I still need to change the word "online" to "digital" in my site's slogan. And then there is the issue, when writing about vendors and technology partners, which is which? The word "vendor" or "supplier" implies a kind of hierarchical relationship that is no longer applicable. "Technology partners" is too long to fit in a headline (or a nav bar in the case of this site). So for this week's report, I used "Twelve recommended vendors" from JRC, though the word vendors is "code" for the companies you want to partner with. more

I go to a lot of conferences. What I follow-up upon as reports for this site are ideas that are immediately usable. But often there is a concept or a theory that I find quietly nagging at the back of my mind. In the last few weeks, I've found myself pondering many of the ideas that were raised by Gatehouse Media president and COO, Kirk Davis, (featured in this week's two reports) at the SNA/Blinder Revenue Summit. As usual, I've summarized his "step-by-step" plans to be passed along as executive briefs (one of my members who couldn't find her password last week, needed the set of hiring questions for telemarketers before an interview she was conducting in ten minutes...that sort of thing). But some issues are difficult to address meaningfully in a "how to" or a snapshot because they emerge from amorphous areas and moving targets; no one pays for a site that warrants only that the subject is confusing and unresolved. One of these areas is the human infrastructure within our companies. more

Sometimes the most telling part of local advertising trends is how fast they are changing. One number in a recent survey stands out: 76% of local advertising prospects said they would run online advertising in 2011. What's interesting about this figure, is that it's up from 64% four months earlier. To be fair, I've flipped the numbers around a little: The actual question was whether businesses would NOT advertise online this year, including banners and directory listings. As of January, only 36% of businesses said they would not advertise online this year. In the new report to be released shortly, that number shrank to 24%. The question was asked of 9000 businesses in Borrell&Associates Local Advertiser Report. more

There were a number of great revenue ideas at the 2011 SNA/Blinder Revenue Summit, which we will be posting on this site in the next few weeks. Here are some general themes we saw at the conference: 1. Large scale cultural transformation in local media is underway - and working - in a number of organizations Several executives we've already written about here - like Deseret Media and Source Media - were under the microscope at the conference. But the good news is that there are more companies showing some tranformational backbone in the space: Gatehouse's President and COO, Kirk Davis, was especially inspiring in how he is driving recruitment into the company. The Oklahoman also has entered the group of "intentional" leadership, and a newspaper in Kingsport, Louisiana, walked us through its separate digital division that engages in the agency space. The audience was equally engaged from Dow Jones, to Black Press. SNA's Nancy Lane pointed out that in spite of Deseret's CEO's message to separate or perish, the "legacy group" (it's no longer politically correct to say "legacy" at Deseret) is fully integrated, in addition to the digital only division, to say nothing of the brilliant and JOA-run real estate brokerage promoted on their site. 2. Real transformation addresses products, training, recruitment, pricing and compensation - then accountability The days of living with inhouse naysayers is coming to an end at a number of companies. But the chicken/egg situation also means that key executive serious about transformation are aggressively addressing these other issues - product, compensation, training and organization - first. As Kirk Davis of Gatehouse Media put it, you can ask sales people to "take the hill" without a game plan and ammunition. But it's not fair. And it won't get the traction you need. more

There is a reason you don't read a lot about digital classifieds on this site. While classifieds continue to limp along in companies which used to have a substantial base, that ship has sailed. more

Group deals come with a built in Catch 22: What merchants want and what their deal promoting partners want are inherently at cross-purposes. Both want revenues, of course. Whether a 50/50 or 60/40 split, their interests are aligned. Not so when it comes to the ownership of the data. Most deal providers simply assume that they will own all the data generated by the deal. Merchants are left to come up with their own separate data collection strategy. more

It’s taken me a while to process all the information from NAA’s MediaXChange, including numerous follow-up calls. There were not a lot of “new toys” this year (last year Group deals … more

Borrell & Associates released an local online advertising study today that shows an interesting trend. Television sites gained about 1.1% market share of local online advertising dollars away from newspaper sites last year, and 22 broadcast sites are larger than print sites in the same market. more