For Suburban Papers, Digital All About Local

While its members might lack the marquee names of their big city brethren, these suburban papers have nevertheless been swept into the same digital revolution. They’re meeting this week in Phoenix to share stories of how they’re adapting and building up their own digital arsenals as they continue to make the platform transition.

John Humenik, SNA chairman of the board and publisher and president of the Arizona Daily Star, said he sees the digital era as one of boundless opportunity for suburban papers. From a sales vantage point, he said it offers an untapped portfolio of new opportunities for clients, provided that sales reps listen closely enough to what those clients really want.

In an interview with NetNewsCheck, Humenik discussed suburban newspapers’ innate local advantage, the importance of strategically using daily deals to maximize customer value and why digital makes his members more energized than afraid.

An edited transcript:

Taking the temperature among suburban newspapers right now, what are some of the foremost issues on your members’ minds as they meet here in Phoenix?

The transformation that’s going on right now in the digital space. Largely, newspapers that are a part of SNA are on varying levels of the digital space. Some are innovators and some are early adopters and others are just really getting into it. I think what they’re here for is to really have a sense of discovery. I think that’s what the power of a conference like this -- bringing all of the groups together and asking what you have been doing in your markets.

Economically, circumstances have changed since you met last year, so what would you say are the biggest outright challenges currently facing SNA members?

Well we heard this at the beginning with Chris Stegman [director of retail advertising for Republic Media], who said we’ve got to look at our sales forces differently. World class is attainable at any level for newspaper whether you’re the smallest or the largest. Everyone is trying to find a way to do it better and maximize the resources that they have, and it’s critical not to waste resources. These organizations have found ways to do that.

Now what they’re saying is we’ve got the digital talent now, so how do we transform that sales force into going out there and working with customers and clients in helping them grow their businesses through the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop. The next frontier is trying to get outstanding sales forces to present solutions to clients in ways that they’ve never seen before.

So first, it’s a question of asking what the customer wants to accomplish. In the past, maybe it has been a case of newspapers saying, ‘Here’s what you need to do.’ Once we understand what you are trying to accomplish, we can say, these are the spaces you need to be in. It’s having developed conversations where we say we understand the capabilities that we have and we can do what we say we can do. I think digital is just one of the pieces in the portfolio that makes us an industry of ‘Yes, we can do that’ and an organization of delivering exceptional value to these customers.

So by how much is digital growing for your members?

Digital is growing in the sense of new capabilities, new ways to reach customers and readers and we’re developing those capabilities. So in essence what we’re creating is an incredible digital tool box with a lot of opportunity. The bigger question is prioritization: What are the capabilities that are going to generate the best opportunities for the organization and for the customer, and we’ve got to focus on that.

The real secret sauce is we can have sales reps and sales managers to work with the customer to build a portfolio of solutions. There are some who get really excited about the innovation side for digital and want it to be something more than it currently is, but it’s a matter of do we want to drive this much more digital or do we want to drive this much more revenue? It’s about looking at the customer as a total customer and not a digital customer or a print customer. That’s where the conversation needs to be.

How are your members using hyperlocal? Are they better leveraged to do hyperlocal online because of the markets that they’ve traditionally served?

Local is the key. Local papers matter. And the more local you’re going to be, whether it’s local in presenting news and information or local in delivering solution-based advertising, that’s going to matter. The further you get away from the mission of local, you dilute the real advantage we have as an industry.

Everything is local. The members of SNA grew up with their communities and in some cases they’re older than their communities. They’ve been at the center of the community conversation, whether it’s news or advertising, for a long time. So when you look at the aspect of hyperlocal, that asset value is based upon being there and supporting that community for many, many years. Hyperlocal is just continuing that conversation.