Local Ad Agency = New Profit Center

Nov 21, 2008 by Mark Maier

Although this is not the first time I have heard the suggestion that a potential new revenue stream exists with becoming a local advertising agency for your clients, the way it is presented by the Mediashift article called "Should Newspapers Become Online Ad Brokers For Local Businesses?" provoked some thought.  My thoughts focussed on the relationships that Radio, Television and Interactive sites have with the advertisers that would also make the expansion of the business model possible, so I read the article with these three media services in mind. Mark Glaser points out that an opportunity exists...

"The difficult part is helping newspapers understand that if they want new business they need to get a new job done for businesses that they're not serving," Gray told me. "You can't just sell them the newspaper because you haven't been able to do that for 50 years. You need to have an offering to get that done."

So what kind of offering should newspapers have? Gray says they need to help local businesses connect to customers right at the point of interest in a product or service."

He goes on to say that become the ad agency can work because Google and Yahoo do not do a good job of working with small, local clients....

"[Newspapers] should become the leading local Internet ad agency, which goes against ancient newspaper instinct of not ever helping anyone who is your competitor," he said. "But the fact is that audiences have split in a million directions, so here we are in a local market and our job is to help businesses in our local market succeed. If that means we are placing ads on Google and Facebook for local businesses, so what? That's what it takes to succeed and ad agencies have been making a living off doing that for some time."

As an additional footnote, selling Google Adwords and Facebook advertising is not the only opportunities, local Theater advertising, Video production tied to online and broadcast advetising, podcasts, text and e-mail advertising can all be part of the offerings you could provide to local businesses.

So how hard is it to start with Google Adwords as a sales tool.  I googled just that, and they have a training and certification program that teaches you how to manage your own as well as other Google Adwords accounts. I am starting my certification program this weekend, here is what they say about it and it is free....

"Google Advertising Professionals Gain AdWords knowledge. Get Google recognition. Make more money. Designed for professionals who currently manage or want to manage multiple AdWords client accounts, the Google Advertising Professionals program can help you become a more successful ad manager ? for free.

Want to join the Google Advertising Professionals program?

Increase productivity with a more advanced AdWords account.  Manage multiple clients more efficiently through one interface. Build your expertise with training. Access our Learning Center, where you'll find training lessons chock-full of up-to-date information. Use these materials to expand and hone your AdWords knowledge so you can better serve your clients. Promote your business with Google's name recognition. Become Qualified at the individual or company level to distinguish yourself as a skilled professional. Plus, receive the Google Advertising Professional Logo and other benefits. Attract new clients with special promotions and features. Use program features, such as promotional credits and marketing tools, to help bring in new clients."

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