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In this week’s edition of Five on Friday, eMarketer shares some surprising facts about how we spend time with media, Media Post reports on Gannett’s shift toward membership, member James Hammond is appointed CEO of New Generation Research, Amazon plans a push into digital advertising in the New Year, and CMS Wire offers marketing automation trends to watch in 2018.
How We Spend Time with Media: Three Surprising Facts
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How consumers use media changes over time, and eMarketer has captured some recent trends in a January 2 article, ‘Six Surprising Facts about the Way We Spend Our Time with Media,’ by Mark Dolliver. Here are three fun facts from that article:
- In 2017, adults spend an average of 1 hour and 26 minutes limited to nondigital radio. By comparison, the average daily usage for social media was only 40 minutes on mobile devices and 11 minutes via desktop or laptop.
- The usage by U.S. adults on Facebook is increasing slightly. In 2017, the average time spent daily was 25 minutes. It is expected to grow to 26 minutes this year, and 27 minutes in 2019.
- Adults are spending more than two hours more time watching linear TV than digital video on streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.
Read the full article at eMarketer here.
Gannett Makes the Shift Toward Memberships
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Gannett is the latest publisher to put its money on memberships, shifting its focus away from transactional subscriptions and emphasizing paid membership products instead, reports Media Post. In October, for example, Gannett released an ad-free mobile membership for USA Today. For $2.99 a month, members can access an ad-free version of USA Today on its mobile app.
CMO Andy Yost told Media Post, ‘Subscription sounds transaction, membership sounds like a two-way relationship that gives you access to things you can’t get elsewhere.’
Because many readers are accessing publishers’ sites via social media sites, it is important to try to capture those readers and convert them into paying subscribers, but you need to target those readers by appealing to their particular interests. If a reader visits a sports article, for example, perhaps a sports-only membership product would be of interest, or maybe it is Gannett’s Insider Loyalty Program which gives subscribers access to premium content along with deals and other promotions.
‘We need to really lead with why our brand has what you need from a benefits perspective, and that’s a way to help us more effectively convert our audience to a paid subscriber,’ Yost said.
James Hammond Appointed CEO of New Generation Research
Congratulations to long-time Subscription Insider member James Hammond, who has been named CEO of New Generation Research, the publisher of The Turnaround Letter and Bankruptcy Data. Hammond, who will be based in the company’s Quincy, MA headquarters, has extensive experience building and selling products in the niche publishing and electronic business information industries.
Source: New Generation Research
Hammond joins New Generation Research from emerging markets business news provider BNE Intellinews, where he was a Publisher and CEO. Prior to BNE IntelliNews, Hammond served as EVP of Product and Marketing for Euromoney Institutional Investor’s EMIS service (fka ISI Emerging Markets).
New Generation Research’s Founder and Publisher, George Putnam, III, notes, “We are pleased to bring Jim into the business. His unique background in investment information, specialized publishing and electronic data dissemination offers an ideal match for our bankruptcy, distressed debt and value investing-based offerings.”
Hammond comments, “New Generation Research has a superb roster of customers, extraordinary data assets in the bankruptcy information space and a top-flight reputation as a provider of actionable investment ideas. It is a privilege to be able to work with George and his team as we bring this company to the next level.”
Hammond received his MSM (1996) from Hult International Business School in Cambridge, MA and BA, Philosophy (1987) from Columbia University in the City of New York and also serves on the Investment Committee of non-profit financial advisory services provider Lowell, Blake & Associates.
Amazon Increases Its Push into Digital Advertising in 2018
Source: Amazon
According to a recent report by CNBC, Amazon plans to make a push into digital advertising in the New Year. The retail giant has been experimenting with different ad products already. The ads will go beyond Amazon sites and products, reports CNBC. Sources say that Amazon is working with third-party mobile ad companies on multi-platform ad strategies.
Why does Amazon want in? According to media buying research firm Magna Global, digital advertising was a $209 billion industry last year, and it is estimated it will grow to $237 billion this year, a 13 percent increase. While Amazon is still a huge digital advertiser in the U.S. (eMarketer says they are the fifth largest), it is well behind tech giants Google and Facebook.
Read more about Amazon’s advertising plans for 2018 on CNBC here.
Two Marketing Automation Trends to Watch
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In ‘4 Marketing Automation Trends to Watch in 2018‘ on CMS Wire, Brian Wallace shares that an estimated $32 billion will be spend this year on marketing automation for services like HubSpot, Marketo and Autopilot that help companies streamline their marketing operations. Here are two of those four trends highlighted by Wallace:
- More than 2 billion people worldwide use social media, making social media platforms an ideal spot to identify leads. Social media automation tools like SocialDrift help brands target and engage social media users to get them to follow their pages, visit their website and other calls to action.
- Another growing trend is using machine learning to enhance lead scoring, helping companies better identify the prospects that are most likely to become customers. This predictive lead scoring can cut weeks or months off the standard sales funnel, says Wallace.
