Jim Kerr
by Jim Kerr
One of the little known but important things about the Internet is that niche sites earn much higher advertising rates than mass-appeal sites. This is one of the reasons that social networking sites are struggling to grow revenue and Yahoo’s stock price is depressed despite its truly amazing suite of content sites. The real question is how narrow is too narrow? These are the kinds of things being worked out on the Internet as we speak.
This isn’t foreign to traditional media either, as the radio industry can attest. Radio has long ago addressed the struggle between formats that are too broad or too narrow. Interestingly, the narrow focus of radio formats also helps radio online. For advertisers looking for a specific audience, radio has the potential of filling a highly desired spot between niche and mass-appeal. Of course the key is in making a destination site that draws regular users.
Let’s take a look at a specific example in a highly coveted online category: Online dating. Online dating generates a tremendous amount of traffic and revenue online, and it is one of those industries that has been totally redefined by the Internet. The initial rollout of dating sites focused on large national sites that allowed local searching. Today, the top five sites dominate the space: Singlesnet, Plentyoffish, True, Yahoo Personals, and Match.
However, an interesting thing is happening: These sites are losing market share to niche sites. If you think about it, the losses can’t be applicable to functionality. If you are looking for a date in Manhattan, you can use any of the above five sites to cater your choices in any number of ways, from location to religion to political persuasion. Yet, niche sites are growing even though the niches are built right into the larger sites, with a potentially larger selection of partners!
Analyst Mark Brooks, writing on Techcrunch.com, outlined the year-to-year trends for the year ending in March:
Top five large dating sites: -5%
Top three gay dating sites: +54%
Top three African-American dating sites: +14%
Top three Religion dating sites: +69%
Top three Asian dating sites: +1%
Top three Latino dating sites: +2%
At first glance this makes little sense. As I mentioned, a site like Plentyoffish is not only free, it has a very good reputation , and — perhaps most importantly — allows filtering by all the growth niches listed above. And in all likelihood, the number of potential dates is even higher. Why, then, would a gay man go to a gay dating site to find a partner?
There are practical reasons. A specialized dating site can include more specific filters. A Christian dating site can include questions about church-going practices or even specific questions about how strict the person’s doctrine is. There is also the reality that niche dating sites include supporting content about the person’s lifestyle. For example, there are dating challenges unique to gay men, and gay dating sites frame the dating service with content that supports the people engaged in using the service.
Another answer is one that is top-of-mind when thinking of social networking, but rarely used about Web sites in general: The greater sense of community. A Latino woman would feel more at home at a site surrounded with the content and imagery that is similar to her own life than a generic page with stock photos of happy couples.
This goes even beyond the window dressing. The actual concept of a more personal and focused site is more “homey” than one with a larger, broader image or brand. This is why sports fans flock to local message boards even though sites like ESPN and RealGM provide message boards for their own team, often with greater traffic and more active commentary. The mere nature of the site as “local” means something to them.
This is both opportunity and pitfall for mass media sites like radio. On the one hand they have all the things that growth niche sites on the Internet aim for: Comfortable and friendly brand images, content that is local to a user’s lifestyle, and a built-in significant audience. The pitfalls are that, in general terms, radio and television sites are still broader than most successful niche sites, like technology and dating. Radio, television, and newspapers are in the lucrative but difficult-to-navigate place between large-scale and niche. More than anything, this position requires a real effort by the person who oversees Web site content to create platforms that can balance the content that draws large audiences and the different content that draws smaller more passionate audiences.
The mass-appeal site will never go away, not because advertisers love the concept but because consumers do. There will always be “hits,” and the Internet is no exception. In big picture terms, what will change is that the previous focus on the Internet as a digital place you visit will be replaced as a digital home where you “live,” and local media sites (as we’re seeing with niche dating sites) will be one of the early benefactors of that — for local media truly is closer to home.
Jim Kerr is Vice President/Digital Development of New Media at Pollack Media Group. Reach Jim at 214 324 9060 or Jim@pollackmedia.com.
