• by Wayne Friedman , January 7, 2015

LAS VEGAS — New research suggests that traditional local media does drive substantially higher digital sales revenues — four times as much — when they have dedicated digital account ad executives, as opposed to those that have none.

A new study from Borrell Associates surveying some 322 local media advertising managers notes that those with digital-only executives pulled in an average of $216,750 in digital revenue in 2014 versus $54,800 that did not.

But Borrell cautions that just having more digital-only reps doesn’t mean an easy up-trending line of digital sales. For example, it notes that six companies reporting between $30 million and $37 million in digital sales had anywhere from three digital-only reps to 44 digital-only reps.

Borrell says its survey shows that 51% of traditional media companies have at least one digital sales specialist on staff.

Local TV stations have made the greatest effort around digital-only advertising reps — 70% of local TV stations had digital-only sellers, with just over 50% of newspapers having digital-only sellers and only 36% of radio stations.

Overall, 63% of local media companies had one to two digital reps, 21% had three to five; 4% had six to nine; and 12% had 10 or more. The most rapid growth appears to be coming from TV stations hiring their first digital-only advertising sales reps.

Of the 322 managers in Borrell’s October to November 2014 survey, just under two-thirds came from newspapers, 22% from radio stations; 16% from TV and 9% from online/print directories.