Which websites users go to for health information

You’ve had a headache for about two days straight, and you think you have a slight fever. Are you getting sick? What are your options- go to the doctor? Go to a friend for health tips? Go to a minute clinic? Go online? For those of you who chose going online with your symptom inquiries, what website did you use? If you are like 53% of respondents from the Makovsky Health and Kelton research survey, you went to WebMD.

According to eMarketer, a recent study of US internet users went to WebMD as the major online resource for health information. Following the health website was Wikipedia with 22%, health magazine websites at 19%, advocacy group websites at 16%, YouTube at 12%, blogs with 10%, Facebook at 10% and lastly, pharma company websites with 9%.

The survey focused on pharma company websites a bit further. A common reason for a user to navigate to this website is to research drugs/procedures following a diagnosis. This goes in line with the earlier results that few users seek these types of websites for health information and diagnosis.

Health care advertisers should take note in where potential patients get information. 

Helpful tips to sales representatives to make media buyers and clients happy

Normally, this blog is intended to report and explain media research, new devices, gizmos, and general media news. This week, we are going to take a step back and talk about the human factor to advertising. Specifically, the sales representatives that help media buyers/planners and advertising agencies alike turn the clients’ expectations into reality.

It’s been said numerous times that word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising, which is true also in working relationships and reputations. A good word-of-mouth can help sales reps insure a loyal and long-standing working relationship with most media buyers out there. Let’s face it, we’re a particular breed. If we find a sales rep we like, we are not going to let them go for anything… even added value.

Here are a few tips from one media buyer to make the relationship mutually exclusive and mutually beneficial.

1.      Respond back to messages: Whether we call you, email you, or meet you in person, please respond back to us within 24 hours. We typically are working under a deadline, and need to make sure whatever we were asking for is on your radar. Even a message back saying, “I received your request, and I am working on it,” will earn you a few brownie points. Having to track down a person multiple times without a response will just make buyers grumpy. We know you are busy; we just don’t want to be forgotten.

2.      Be honest: Buyers know that sales reps need to reinforce the product with all of the good sales points, but please just be honest with us. If we want to buy a certain percentage of your inventory, and you don’t think it will actually run, let us know. We would much rather be told, “No, there’s not enough inventory to cover what you want. So, let’s look at other options…” vs. “oh, sorry, it didn’t run because there wasn’t enough inventory to support your buy.” What?!?! Now, we get the job of telling the client it didn’t work, which makes buyers grumpy.

3.      Manage expectations: Please try to under promise and over deliver vs. the opposite. Again, it makes the buyers grumpy.

4.      Write important dates down: If a buyer asks for recaps for a promotion or campaign by a certain date, write it down in your calendar. If we have to follow up multiple times, we get grumpy.

5.      Don’t blame others: Mistakes happen. We get it, but if you were to blame, own up to it. Please don’t blame traffic, corporate, your replacement while you were out, etc. It gets old, and it makes us grumpy.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Buyers can get grumpy for a variety of reasons, which isn’t helpful for the buyer/sales rep relationship. Likewise, we buyers know that we need to work on giving you more realistic deadlines and be patient when mistakes happen. We make them, too.

At the end of the day, a buyers main goal is to make the client happy. As such, we can only do that if we have a good team that consists of the buyers, sales reps, traffic department, and creative department. If we all work to make the clients’ goals our goals, there will be less grumpiness. Who doesn’t want that?

Local newspapers' classified revenues decrease

Media is not a constant, unchanging thing; it is something that is ever-evolving with existing vendors while new vendors enter the scene. What advertisers and media must do alike is figure out how each platform is unique and communicate that to the end user- the customer. MediaPost recently reported about how the free online classifieds site Craigslist has affected local newspapers’ own classified revenues.

A new study, “Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers,” was created by the professors at NYU Stern School of business and Harvard Business School. Results showed that local newspapers reported a $5 billion loss in classified ad revenue between the years 2000 – 2007 when Craigslist came into the marketplace.

Observations of the papers that heavily relied on classified ad sales showed a chain reaction based off of diminishing revenues. These papers attempted to increase subscription prices to make up for the lack of classified, which in turn lead to lower subscribers. This led the papers to really rely on display ad rates.

While this can be taken as a strike towards local newspapers, it can really be the starting ground to refocus on what consumers want from a news product. Advertisers will have to work with news vendors to come up with cost effective and mutually advantageous opportunities to reach target audiences. 

Online ad revenue grows for local radio

Local radio stations have been working to incorporate the digital platform into its arsenal of options for listeners and advertisers alike. Overall, online ad revenues have increased for local radio stations, but how does that compare to terrestrial radio revenues?

MediaPost reports that experts are suggesting a 14% increase from 2012 for online ad revenue for local radio stations. The Radio Advertising Bureau arranged the report, and Borrell Associates lead the study. In 2012, online ad revenues reached almost $371 million, and estimates place the end of 2013 seeing revenues of up to $420 million.

While traditional ad formats were decreasing in value for radio stations, there has been growth in other formats like social media, audio, video, and email. Approximately 20% of all digital revenue came in the form of streaming audio ads.

Digital continues to grow in radio; however, it is important to note that it remains a small portion of overall revenue. Local radio stations’ online ad revenue only contributes 2.5% of total earnings.