Local media’s efforts to boost digital revenue — which BIA/Kelsey last month said will rise faster than previously forecast — will be in the spotlight at the firm’s annual end-of-year Interactive Local Media conference. “Our goal with this conference is to look at how the impact of digital will be higher and faster and ways that it will beat this forecast,” says BIA/Kelsey’s Peter Krasilovsky.
Digital revenue is growing faster and becoming more varied, say the media analysts at BIA/Kelsey, and their annual end-of-year Interactive Local Media conference aims to tease out its fast-moving strands.
Last month, BIA/Kelsey up-revised its local ad revenue forecast, projecting an increase from $132.9 billion total in 2013 to $151 billion in 2017 — up from an initial 2017 forecast of $148 billion. Inside that figure, online advertising is expected to rise 13.8% per year from $26.5 billion this year to $44.5 billion in 2017.
“Our goal with this conference is to look at how the impact of digital will be higher and faster and ways that it will beat this forecast,” BIA/Kelsey’s Peter Krasilovsky, VP of conferences, says of the conference that kicks off next Tuesday in San Francisco.
Krasilovsky says it’s time to stop thinking about digital as just a piece of the sales action, but rather “how it builds the entire universe” for media and local search companies.
Trends such as the boom in local digital agencies, local online video and big data are now among a wide arsenal of digital tools available to help local and small business clients, he says, and will each get deeper scrutiny at the conference.
The growth of digital agencies, for instance, will be explored by panelists including Jeff Folckemer, who as president and CEO of Hearst Corp.’s LocalEdge is one of the leaders in the space. Krasilovsky said the digital agency business has been nothing short of transformative for local media.
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Many such companies are considering that “maybe what we really are is not a bunch of journalists that we sell advertising around,” he says. “Maybe we’re a consultative sales agent providing 14 different features to our advertisers. That’s a big sea change.”
Notable speakers will include Brendon Kraham, director of global mobile solutions and product strategy at Google; Blake Irving, CEO of GoDaddy; and Jody Ford, VP of marketing for eBay Marketplaces. The latter two companies, which have been ramping up their own local growth, speak to the growing complexities — and competitors — within the local ecosystem.
NetNewsCheck Publisher Kathy Haley will also interview California’s Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsome at Wednesday’s keynote, which explores the intersection of tech initiatives with local civic life.
Krasilovsky says the conference will spotlight “very practical, street level information on how you take your traditional media company and transform the way that you’re selling and bring in new features and products.”
NetNewsCheck will be there covering all of ILM’s major sessions next week.