Nestoria Blog

For the August addition of the Nestoria interview series we speak with Tim Youngman, Head of Digital Marketing for Archant, the UK’s largest independently-owned regional media group (and recent Nestoria partner).

Tim has worked for Archant for 8 years most recently as Director of Marketing for the Archant London Newspapers division before moving to Norfolk to launch the three classified portals homes24, jobs24 and drive24. Previous to Archant, Tim worked in sales and marketing roles for IBM, Anglia Television and also United News and Media.

A graduate of DeMontfort University Tim also writes a media column for Britain’s biggest selling regional morning the Eastern Daily Press.

Tim, thanks for making the time to chat with us.

1. Archant manages 100+ regional brands across the UK. What advantages does local positioning offer in the age of growing global media brands like Google, Facebook, or MySpace?

For us, this is wrapped up in the marketing proposition for our sites which is “Look local at….”.

We know from Newspaper Society research that life is still very local. Yes we live in a global age, but when it comes to day to day life, that is still very much local. For example, on average we travel just 13.5 miles when we move house and the same when looking for a car and the average commute is just 8.1 miles.

We position ourselves as the number one local choice whether it is looking for a new house, job or car and with our papers, providing local news and local advertising. That provides us with a unique positioning against not only global brands but also national brands that can seem distant to someone looking for a local option.

2. Investor opinion of UK newspaper groups has been hit hard by the current economic climate. Is print dead?

Great question, to which the answer is a categorical no! However if you asked me if the current paid for print model dead I would say its on its way. When I worked in London, every morning I would see hundreds of commuters and school children alike make sure they had their morning Metro paper and one of the free London titles in the evening. They would then read them from cover to cover. The difference was that they did not have to go out of their way to get one and more importantly pay for it.

I believe that print is very much alive and will be for a very long time but the business model based on charging a cover price will die out over time. Here at Archant we have seen this trend and we have been publishing quality free newspapers for over 20 years and the last few years has seen more of our paid titles move to either a part paid part free model or a completely free model.

For me it is all about delivering audience to advertisers. Deliver a relevant, large audience to advertisers that respond to their advertisements and you have a sustainable business model whether in print or online.

3. The “Web2.0″ trend has unleashed a flurry of innovation in the “local” category, be it sites like Qype (web2.0 yellow pages) or services like the US’s outside.in. How do traditional local media view these developments?

I am always a bit amused by the web 2.0 phrase as it seems to cover so much today and is now a much abused term. In terms of the growth of user generated content however I once presented to a group of 60 newspaper editors at an editorial conference about how UGC will add new dimensions to what we can do online. Halfway through, one editor put his hand up and stopped me in my tracks with the line “we have been doing that for over 100 years - its called the letters page”

4. What are our thoughts on the property search space and its development in the last 1-2 years?

I think that the property search space has seen some exciting developments in the last 1-2 years. We have seen Rightmove continue to dominate but it now certainly has to look over its shoulder at a number of major players. We have seen the rise of vertical search sites such as Nestoria with completely different business models. Most recently we have seen consolidation in the marketplace with the formation of the Digital Property Group - FindaProperty and PrimeLocation and REA with PropertyFinder, HotProperty and UKPropertyShop but all still based on the traditional portal model.

The UK property market is certainly in the middle of a very difficult period but I still hold to my belief that those who will succeed will be those who prove that they can deliver response for estate agents. As for homes24, we will continue on concentrating on delivering relevant local audiences that delivers real response for our agents.

Thanks Tim. Interesting insights. We agree with your view that there is a lot of value in delivering users to relevant advertisers, and that there are difficulties with the old ‘pay to display’ model. I suspect we have more interesting months ahead.

past Nestoria interviews: Jesus Encinar, Ivailo Jordanov, and Salim Mitha.