DotConnect Media's president David Teitler discusses how to communicate with your customer on a personal and local level.
Much has been written about the value of local advertising and the impediments that prevent it from realizing its potential online. If it were possible, every brand marketer would like to look their customers in the eye, shake their hands and say "thank you for your confidence and support of my product or service." Even better, knock on the door of every consumer that fits their product profile but uses a competitive product for "five minutes of their time."

In reality, local merchants look their customers in the eye every day. Even though an ever increasing number of "local" businesses are owned by regional/national conglomerates, the benefit of one-on-one sales has never been questioned. At issue is the efficiency of the transaction.

As every person reading this article already knows, the internet made transactional relationships close to real time and opened the candy store to whatever a consumer's heart desires without leaving the comfort of their mouse pad. Box stores are slowly taking the "mom and pop" out of the local lexicon. The promise of the internet is being fulfilled. Its capabilities are moving far beyond commerce to real time entertainment, news, games and most anything else we do to occupy our time. The paradigm shift in how we communicate is in full force.

With Skype and services like it, we can converse/negotiate and create a conversational relationship with consumers, even though Customer Service might be half a world away. Social groups such as MySpace and YouTube, and the evolution of social networking in general, brings us closer to enabling a human touch to internet based conversation and ultimately transaction. What a terrific time to be a brand marketer! The concept of only paying for the "10 percent of advertising that works" is finally a reality.

The issue is that we still have not replaced the base human need for contact to establish trust. An argument can be made that if I buy a product and it meets or exceeds my needs/expectations, customer satisfaction grows organically with every transaction and you have created a "brand" that establishes trust, lifetime relationships, etc. The thing that's missing is that looking in the eye part. The question is, is it necessary? Ultimately, I believe it is.

Look at the trend that first became apparent in Japan where teens were challenged to converse face-to-face. Dating became a chore and secondary to looking at a screen. Where Japan goes, are we in the U.S. ever far behind? Relationships amongst our youth have become "functional." Don't get me started about "friends with benefits." Is this our future? Do we want all human interaction to be based on a screen, keyboard and mouse pad?

At our core, we as humans are social creatures. Interpersonal communication is a basic instinct. The benefit of newspapers is that, while a mass medium, it remains a trusted part of the social fabric and dialect of people's neighborhoods. This aspect of local communication has yet to be replicated and has proven to be impractical to do so in spite of significant efforts and resources expended by others.

National news, sports, entertainment and business are available in any number of sources, but the voice of local media is still prized. If you believe that all transactions are local, this is a significant benefit. "New Yawkers" know Phil Mushnick and buy the New York Post because he walks, talks, eats and sleeps the Yankees and can give them a personal perspective they cannot get from ESPN. The same is true for local news about the school budget or local business about the possible closing of a manufacturing plant or even the local high school or college star athlete making good. What makes local online newspapers particularly impactful relative to other local information/entertainment sources is their brand. Consumers don't watch NBCTV, they watch "Law and Order;" people in Houston go to the Houston Chronicle because it's the "Chronicle" or they go to its online counterpart, Chron.com.

Fact is, newspapers need to change some of their core business practices to remain relevant in today's digital society. Online newspapers offer the same content, just in a different delivery system. Due to the threat to their Classifieds business early on, newspaper companies invested heavily to create well designed extensions of the newsprint versions. Back in the dial-up days, this gave them a significant lead in the "hearts and minds" department. Online newspapers also have the advantage of the significant heritage and infrastructure behind them to remain relevant in their local marketplaces. Lastly, the growing ubiquity of broadband has created the opportunity for online newspapers to finally compete head to head with the branding attributes of sight, sound and motion.

The internet has had no less an impact on society as the printing press, radio and television before it. Communication has now become both mass AND one-to-one. Civilization found a way to have it both ways thanks to technology and innovation-- real-time two way conversation. I was hooked on media as a profession when I became a DJ in college -- speaking into a microphone (like a conversation) and being heard by thousands of people -- and they could communicate back to me by phone. Now it is possible to have personal conversations with the world in virtual real time.

The question is, where will it all lead? If all interaction becomes a series of "transactions," we lose something as a society. As a kid, I could leave my house in the morning and be told, "come home when the street lights go on." Our parents could do that because we had a collective parent or guardian at different points in the neighborhood looking after us without us knowing it. My fear is that if we are all hell bend for leather to bury the local voice or at least replace it with an electronic one without compassion or heart, where do we go from there?

I believe there will always be a place for a safe local "haven" where not only does everybody knows your name, but cares about you beyond whether or not you're going to buy something from them.

David Teitler is president of DotConnect Media which was acquired by Lee Enterprises from PowerOne Media in March 2006. David has been with PowerOne, and its predecessor AdOne, since 1998. The foundation of DotConnect Media's national footprint is based on the 1,500 newspaper web sites hosted through TownNews. DotConnect Media's consultancy includes online/newsprint convergence. David is a seasoned professional with 20 years of traditional sales, general management and marketing experience across the online, newspaper and magazine industries.