Note: My friend and former colleague Bill Day is one of the sharpest sales-side guys I ever worked with. He’s adept at dealing with traditional, agency-driven advertisers and their massive buys – and maybe even better at bundling together innovative ideas like events, direct marketing and promotions to tap revenue from people who rarely advertise with local media. Bill has sold and serviced tens of millions of dollars in print ads – and quite a bit of online revenue for me, too.
He offers this guest post, from his seller’s perspective, on the publishing-industry frenzy over Apple’s iPad.
By Bill Day
Much is being made of the iPad as a vote of confidence from Apple for traditional publishers like The New York Times. Boosters point to the resurrection of the music industry on the backs of iTunes and the iPod. They predict a similar resurrection for publishers with the pending release of the iPad.Â
Poynter has an interesting take on the potential impact of the iPad on publisher subscription models here. It’s kind of like the cell phone loss-leader model – giving away flashy tech toys for long-term subscription revenue. It’s not a terrible idea. It just misses the point.Â
What’s lost in these discussions is a firm grasp of the mechanics of revenue generation for old-line media. As in “what’s the advertising model?†Continue reading →
