NBC is launching new local sites in cities across the United States, targeted at “locals only” to help them stay connected with what is going on in their respective cities.
“These sites are a departure from what we’ve done in the past and the next step in our mission to provide truly relevant local content to consumers on the media platform of their choice,” said John Wallace, President, NBC Local Media. “Our goal was to create a new type of user experience that’s less an extension of our TV stations and more of an online destination for the latest local news, information and entertainment. These sites are about putting consumers first and giving them the content they’re looking for from the best available sources.”
NBC Universal is really diving deep into the online pool these days between its stake in Hulu (even offering premieres of shows before they aired on tv), its online Olympics coverage, starting a new online Saturday Night Live video site, and now this effort to bolster the company’s presence in local areas with exclusive local content from not only local NBC stations, but from outside bloggers and consumers as well.
Small businessses should take note of this project to keep an eye out for potential ways to reach local audiences. This is perhaps the most important market to a small business, possibly containing their best customers, as I talked about here. In fact, Mike Sachoff pointed to a study earlier this year indicating the importance of local media to advertisers:
Trust is a major factor that creates advertising success, and consumers express significant loyalty in advertising on local sites. Newspaper sites lead the way, with 56 percent of visitors indicating they trust the advertising found on local sites, followed by TV sites and portals.
Local magazine, newspaper and TV sites attract solid percentages (48%, 40% and 39%, respectively) of people who spent more than $500 online in the past year.
When you start talking about opening up a site to the community as NBC is, you open the door to new ways of marketing to a local audience as well. There’s going to be a local social aspect that isn’t necessarily always present with local television sites today.
They’ve begun to roll out different city versions starting today with Chicago. This will continue throughout the month with Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Dallas, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Hartford named so far.
