CSO Insights recently completed its annual global sales force survey and has come to some interesting conclusions. While sales objective achievement has increased overall, 2012 sales objectives are being projected at their highest level in recent years coupled with the lowest confidence levels in actually achieving them. One of our core beliefs with sales objectives is you can’t expect increased performance without increased support. CSO Insights’ data seem to support this:

“Increases in revenue goals need to be backed by investments in sales rep efficiency and effectiveness,” added Jim Dickie, managing partner, CSO Insights. “The study uncovered a wide variety of factors that can positively impact sales performance including optimizing lead generation, better alignment of the sell cycle and the buy cycle, and leveraging CRM 2.0 technologies such as sales collaboration, sales management analytics, and sales intelligence. Best-in-class sales organizations that focus on formalizing their sales process and deepening their relationship with customers are significantly outselling their competitors.”

From our point of view, those organizations willing to provide updated training on a more consistent and effective sales process, coupled with better market intelligence, are the ones winning in the local media space. So much of what we are seeing are inconsistent sales methods, lack of central management control over the sales process, more managers who are player/coaches, and a void in preparing media salespeople to have a deep strategic discussion on how digital media works with their core media or how digital media supports a small and medium-sized businesses’ needs and goals.

Recently, BIA/Kelsey has developed many new tools and research to help support managers and salespeople with market intelligence, education on the value of digital media and, more important, how digital media and traditional media can be sold side by side. Our core philosophy is that media salespeople should be the value experts with any of their portfolio products. As the value expert, they need to understand the customer’s challenges and the industry’s challenges so they can translate their portfolio of solutions to the customer’s needs and goals.

Sales is becoming less about personal relationships and more about information relationships. There is too much information on digital media available for SMBs and even brands to process which means the salesperson has to fill the role of information interpreter to become the valued consultant. Translating the myriad technical functions and features of digital media into concrete value messages, supported by simple to understand facts and figures, is what SMBs crave.

So while contemplating how to move the sales needle, think about how best to support the sales team and what support is needed to achieve even higher goals in 2012.

For newspaper publishers and newspaper readers, iPad apps tend to be nice to have but not especially important. Given the choice of rich newspaper apps like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, I actually opt for the browser versions over the apps: I can see a lot more at once, they’re updated more often, and they load faster.

But I’ve found that newspaper apps for “lite” newspapers are much better. USA Today’s headline and short story format is perfect for the iPad. The Washington Post (not such a lite paper) has a great iPad app, too.

In early December, The San Diego Union-Tribune — a truly lite newspaper but with good local news and features — also launched an iPad app. The result is vastly superior to the print and browser version of the newspaper. More than 11,000 downloads have already taken place.

The U-T’s iPad launch coincides with the elevation of digital chief Mike Hodges to president and COO, and today, a rebranding of the newspaper company, which recently changed hands, to U-T San Diego. The new name also does away with the dated “Sign On San Diego” city guide moniker.

An announcement on the company’s website notes that “We will now use one company name and logo on all of our media products and communications: U-T San Diego. This change marks a new era in our company’s history. It will help us unify our print and digital products under a single brand with a clear and consistent expectation of quality. SignOnSanDiego.com is now UTSanDiego.com, to match the nameplate of the newspaper and our newly released iPad app.”

Hodges, a digital real estate marketing vet prior to joining Freedom Communications and then The U-T, has been responsible for several new revenue initiatives. These include a heavy emphasis on the local daily deal, bolstered by the acquisition of Discover SD, an events guide and deals platform for a younger demographic.

Hodges notes that the iPad app was specifically designed to have an entertainment orientation. “The primary time that people are looking at it is after 6 p.m., when people want to lean back after dinner and watch TV. They’re often reading the app as well,” he says.

The app, designed by MindGruve Interactive, is geo-enabled for traffic and Surfline surf reports. It features a FlipBoard-like news page, along with dropdown “sections” for easy access. The sections include a full graphic on the Daily Deal — it shows up very well. It also prominently highlights features that were obscured in print and on the website, including arts, photos and videos.

Notably, in an effort to keep it simple, The U-T App doesn’t offer newspaper content such as comics, a television programming guide, letters to the editor, user-generated content or local news — although Hodges says a major local initiative will launch in early January. Other Phase 2 items will include more in-depth, iPad-only content. It might also include more localized weather (the temperature in the San Diego region varies by as much as 15 degrees from one area to the next).

Much has been made of the iPad’s appeal for advertisers. The charter advertiser for The U-T’s free phase is Cadillac. When the app goes to a premium model next quarter after an introductory period, sponsorship will be available for multiple sponsors on a premium basis.

Pricing for the app, however, is still being finalized. When it is introduced during Q1, there is likely to be an a la carte three month subscription for users who just want the app, especially those outside the San Diego area. My guess is it might be priced in the neighborhood of $5 a month. But there will also be bundles for people who want seven-day delivery or three-day weekend delivery.

We’ll see whether The U-T pulls the trigger on a firewall for the app. Several other publishers have announced plans to charge but haven’t done so.

We’ve long known that coupons provide real traction for SMB advertising. Nothing beats a customer walking through the door with a coupon in hand. But a lot of SMB website publishers haven’t really focused on them.

DataSphere, on the other hand, has had a coupons product for some time. But it only recently has really zeroed in on their potential as “an adjacent space” to normal SMB activities, along with events, notes SVP Gary Cowan.

Coupons are actually easier to pull off than daily deals because “they don’t require the level of investment from partners,” he says. “They’re accessible to a wider set of companies. And they target advertising in a similar way.”

DataSphere, which is now in 85 markets with more than 300 sales reps, has taken an approach that more closely resembles “closed loop optimization,” adds Cowan. “We’re now helping businesses provide better content, and to make better offers. We tell them what the difference is between making an offer that is 10 percent off and 30 percent off.”

While coupons don’t drive the same volume as deal publishers such as Groupon, they lead to higher profitability because they feature smaller discounts, and have no commissions. They also typically run for longer time periods than deals.

DataSphere has also been focusing on exposing the coupons across a larger network of relevant sites, including Coupons.com. “There is no reason not to publish a coupon on several sites,” says Cowan. “It all goes to help the SMB advertiser in the end, and if they see more value, they’re more likely to stick around.”

With TV station partners such as Gannett and Fisher Communications, Cowan says the focus is on leveraging DataSphere’s increasing scale to “continuously evolve and add services with clear and demonstrable value for small local advertisers.”

Clear Channel, which has 850 stations in the U.S., was the first radio firm to “go really big” after the Telecom Act of 1996 deregulated the market. At one time, it had more than 1200 radio stations.  Clear Channel has had some measure of success but had a number of setbacks tied to various management problems (e.g., excessive expense cutting, endless reorgs, selling too much commercial time.)

After the exit of founder Mark Mays from the family business, Clear Channel has been in  pursuit of a permanent CEO that could lead a company with a lot of legacy media and propel it into its digital future.  Enter Bob Pittman, the co-founder of MTV who cut his teeth at Roberts Radio. After MTV, Pittman was CEO at Century 21, making it the first truly national real estate brokerage; CEO at Six Flags Entertainment; and President of AOL Time Warner, his highest profile position. Recently, he’s been a very active investor in both broadcasting and digital media. Some of his investments include Thrillist, Daily Candy, Group Commerce Inc. and others.

Since joining Clear Channel as an investor and chairman of its media and entertainment platforms, Pittman has focused on iHeartRadio, a Pandora rival.  Clear Channel used the incredible promotional power of its radio properties to bring to market a digital audio product that it believes will surpass Pandora.  The lead up to the event that launched the new service was all that radio has delivered for its clients for years but with a digital hook of their own at the end. 

With Pittman at the helm, Clear Channel now has a CEO that has the street credibility in the digital world that has to be taken seriously by all of Clear Channel’s competitors both locally and nationally.  That credibility should make it easier for Pittman to sell his vision to his internal team, too. 

“The problem is that advertising comes slowly to any new medium or product,” Pittman told The Los Angeles Times in May. “When I was at MTV, we projected $10 million in ad revenue for the first year. We did $500,000 and almost went out of business.”That’s how slow advertisers are to warm up to new media. But over time, it will grow.”

While this news has been out for a little while, we thought it was interesting that a company with powerful TV assets would initiate a deal with a company that provides high-quality, affordable video commercial content for local advertisers. After all, isn’t this what TV has been doing since the ’40s. What gives?

Anyone who’s ever sold or sold against TV operators knows the costs of commercial production can be a deal killer. TV sales executives try their hardest to find ways to bury the costs of production in their schedules, but that doesn’t always work. Other media reps also understand the process and sell against TV by scaring local advertisers about those production costs. It’s been going on forever. 

So, what’s new? TV stations are now involved in many more multiplatform selling opportunities than ever, and Fisher Communications is no exception. Video is a critical and highly seductive element in the minds of most advertisers and an enormously effective advertising tool whether used on air or online. Simply put, local production houses are not equipped to scale to meet the new demand for on-air and online video. The turnaround time and costs associated with doing local production are burdens for both the station and advertiser. The Fisher deal with SpotMixer allows their sales teams to put commercials together on their connected devices right in the showroom of the advertiser, if needed. 

For years, newspaper and radio reps have always been instructed about the power of the spec ad to close a deal. With this arrangement, TV and online reps working for Fisher have the same power at their disposal without costing the station thousands of dollars in time and effort, while providing a video that any business owner would be pleased to have carry his or her brand and identity.

Further, this lower cost option allows Fisher to extend the power of video to a lot of smaller local clients that might have had “video envy” over the years. Other local media companies have also been tying up with video providers over the past few years, but this is clearly local TV’s space to defend.

BIA/Kelsey moderated a panel on “the Out-of-Home User Experience” (click on image for link to streaming video) at MediaPost’s Digital Out-of-Home Forum (DOOH) in New York. DOOH is the third-fastest growing ad medium after mobile and online video.

Paul Lindstrom, senior VP, Nielsen OnLocation, kicked off the panel with data showing video engagement is about 80 percent correlated to advertising recall. Andy Stankiewicz, executive VP and chief communications officer, Akoo International Inc., and David Veckerelli, co-CEO, Digital Displays Network, spoke to how their systems engaged users in unique ways to create video-based user experiences that could drive point-of-purchase sales.

In Akoo’s case, its model is to have large displays in food courts and college student unions playing music videos. Users can interact with the videos using their mobile phones (text, browsers or apps) to select content and make other choices which increases dwell time and user engagement. DDN built and operates the 7-Eleven network of video displays and uses a strategy of mapping content, dayparts and featured products to drive sales lifts.

Generally, the mood of the DOOH Forum was quite positive. The technology has matured into a more capable, cost-effective and efficient buying platform that bridges the physical (i.e., place-based) world to both traditional and digital media. Planning and buying has become easier within vendor platforms but there are still a lot of vendors. Video screens that are connected with an Internet Protocol (IP) address can be interactive, targeted and provide engaging content.

DOOH leverages social context, physical location and user passion (health clubs, bars other places where users select to be based on personal interests). The challenge now is for buyers to become educated about how to understand how their brand strategies can be served by DOOH media in combination with other media. This is a matter of multiplatform planning, buying and creative execution that leverages DOOH’s many digital and interactive capabilities to drive user engagement with compelling experiences.

The San Diego Union-Tribune is buying DiscoverSD. com, a lifestyle website founded in 2006. The acquisition, in the works for six months, was made with an eye toward expanding the UT’s fast growing Daily Deal business arm, which is expected to generate $10 million this year in new revenues.

The merger of the two databases will give the company’s separate deals programs a reach of 230,000 people. The UT has migrated to its own deals platform after originally working with Shoutback. DiscoverSD will also be using the UT platform.

Besides deals, The UT and DiscoverSD will seek synergies on marketing and website development, while maintaining separate brands and operations. There won’t be news sharing. “We are a multi-platform company, and we need to be aggressive about growing in all of these areas, said Publisher Ed Moss, in a UT article. “[But] they’re positioned differently than our company, and we need to keep it that way.”

DiscoverSD.com reaches 200,000 unique visitors per month, compared with 3.3 million uniques for SignOnSanDiego.com, the Union-Tribune’s website arm. The UT’s audience tends to be older, while a third of DiscoverSD.com’s visitors are between 18 and 34.

In the first of many possible partnerships with local media companies, Centro has teamed up with Morris Digital Works to create a network that allows advertisers to place geo- and vertical- based ads across a broad spectrum of local and national sites. Other local media partners are likely to team with Centro on similar networks. The effort echoes earlier efforts of vertical players such as Cox’s Adify, which is now known as Cox Digital Solutions.

Centro’s network enables advertisers to place follow-on ads on other sites after they hit a consumer with an impression on one of the Morris sites, such as Augusta.com. The network can also be used when a local media site’s geo-impressions are sold out, but more local consumers are sought.

The network includes 16 prepackaged geo and vertical categories, such as sports, travel, real estate, seniors, etc. Custom categories can also be created (i.e., hunting, running, military).

Morris, as the local partner, participates in healthy markups in the 60 percent to 120 percent range, said Morris Digital Works President Michael Romaner, who was speaking at the recent Borrell conference in New York. As a secondary effort, Morris and Centro are also creating The Spectrum Network, which is limited to high-quality news sites.

SMB reseller WebVisible went through difficult changes last year, downsizing from 320 to 130 employees and retreating from an ambitious direct marketing program. But it has kept core partners intact; key members of the CEO’s installed executive team have stayed intact; and the company has aggressively ramped up its technology program. It is now poised for sustainability and growth, according to CEO Ron Burr, who took over from co-founder Kirsten Mangers last September.

“We made some expensive mistakes on the direct business,” says Burr, former head of NetZero, who joined WebVisible last year. “We took our eye off the ball on our partner business. But now we are refocusing on our channel partners.” In addition to keeping key accounts such as McClatchy and BT, WebVisible recently won the account for Recruit, a $10 billion Japanese company with 12 media properties.

Burr notes that all through the strife, the company has maintained revenues of roughly $25 million. Roughly 70 percent of revenues were U.S. based, and 30 percent were international. This year, the ratio should be 60 percent U.S., and 40 percent international. There should also be 10 percent revenue growth in 2011.

The growth is partially attributable to the rollout of a more efficient, cloud-based tech platform, and new technology that allows the company to “understand the effectiveness of particular keyword structures in a campaign, and how they concert to action by consumers, whether phone calls or clicks. The tech results in a 30 percent increase in effectiveness,” says Burr. WebVisible is also focused on providing customers a centralized database for local advertising, whether it is tracking Groupon, clicks or e-mail marketing. “It all needs to co-exist,” says Burr.

“The interesting thing about the pure plays in this space … ReachLocal, Yodle and WebVisible … is that nobody’s made it to profitability,” adds Burr. “That’s the tack we are taking now. Run this company profitably with a viable business strategy.”

Local sales leaders are now jumping into the deal-a-day phenomenon. Yesterday, Citysearch said it would push deals hard to its thousands of advertisers. Today, ReachLocal announced that it was buying DealOn Media. Specific terms weren’t disclosed, but ReachLocal is valuing DealOn at $10 million. DealOn will be keeping its name for now, and CEO Rich Razgaitis will become GM of Reach’s new deals division.

DealOn operates in 18 markets and is based in New Jersey. The 30-person company — of whom 20 have been sales — provides white-label services for publishers and has done especially well with restaurants, powering Zagat Exclusives and Nation’s Restaurant News, among others. It recently launched an exchange for offers that permits publishers to pick and choose the best offers for their users. More than 20 partners were using the exchange after its launch in December. Exchanges are clearly hot right now, and becoming central to the strategy of several white-label providers.

The deal with DealOn continues Reach’s evolution beyond being a simple search reseller. Suffering from high churn last year, it began an effort to provide its advertisers with a variety of engagement tools via its acquisition of SMBLive, and social networking tools via Bizzy. The connecting point is Reach’s 700-person-strong sales team.

ReachLocal CEO Zorik Gordon told ClickZ that he expects that the company’s deal flow will be helped via partnerships with pure plays such as AOL, Yahoo, Google, Yelp, OpenTable and travel sites. Traditional publishers, however, are less likely to participate, he says, as they still see ReachLocal as direct competition.