Tips for Marketing and Design
April 10, 2012 Leave a comment
February 22, 2012 Leave a comment
The addition of digital agency services is something that every local media company should consider in 2012.
- “The Local Digital Ad Agency: Emerging Opportunity for Innovative Media Companies,” the Local Media Innovation Alliance, December 2011
To better serve local advertisers and compete for online advertising dollars, adding digital agency services is a major opportunity for news publishers, but achieving profitability is the real challenge.
Some newspapers are trying to build the internal capability and capacity to provide a range of digital production services. Many are discovering this is quite expensive operating overhead to carry and it just doesn’t make economic sense. Publishers find it is extremely difficult to outlay new capital to fund the production resources needed, and to do it in such a way that yields positive operating margins.
Another important consideration is that SMB advertisers are highly price sensitive and the price points required to sell high volumes of online marketing services must be extremely competitive.
Despite these challenges, newspapers have had no choice but to plunge into digital services: display ads, iPad ads, websites, mobile, social and video services to balance declining revenues from print. They have to juggle two roles: that of news and content provider to their readers (whether via print or online media) and that of marketing agencies to their customers, providing both digital and print services and helping small-business owners find their way in online marketing.
August 26, 2011 Leave a comment
After years of cost cutting, why are some newspaper publishers actually staffing up their in-house digital production operations and investing in technology and tools for new interactive services like video advertising, deals-of-the-day, social media services, etc.? As newspapers rethink and reinvent their business model, they should engage business process outsourcing to generate profitable revenues that will sustain their businesses and pay for quality journalism well into the future.
In 2010, advertising revenues for newspapers continued to fall, about 6.3% for the year. Print circulation also continued to decline (5% daily and 4.5% for Sunday), according to The State of the News Media 2011, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. On top of that, the past year saw a surge in expenses, which puts limits on funding both for experiments and for maintaining editorial quality in print and digital formats. Read more of this post
July 12, 2011 4 Comments
A couple of years ago, we articulated the core values of Affinity Express:
- We are passionate about efficiency and measuring continuous improvement.
- We work hard and exceed expectations—our own and our clients.
- We harness our creativity, dynamism and innovativeness to make our clients look good.
- We are team players who are honest and transparent with each other.
- We conduct ourselves with the highest standard of ethics and integrity.
These are values our company stands on, and we wanted every employee of Affinity Express to live and work by them.
February 7, 2011 2 Comments
Google predicts the display ad market is set to go through an “amazing revolution” in the coming years, estimating the market will be worth $50 billion worldwide in 2015. In addition to the growth in volumes, there is a plethora of formats with 18 different “standard” display unit sizes in the AIB guidelines. That’s before you count the multitude of options for video and rich media. In a survey of major brands, 56% have rich media, video or interactive features in their ads.
At the same time, the use of simple static banners is not disappearing, contrary to all dire predictions. Just take a look at Facebook’s use of simple and small formats, which is helping to keep traditional display ads alive.
This tremendous growth in volume and variety of display ad formats begs the question: how is this creative production, and for that matter versioning and online ad maintenance, going to get done quickly and economically? And if it is being created by an internal team or an outside third-party agency, I have to ask at what cost to the advertiser?
January 4, 2011 1 Comment
As we head into 2011 and our eleventh year in business, the Marketing Team asked me to provide a view of Affinity Express from my vantage point, give insight into my management approach and talk about what I see coming in the future.
Since 2008, when I first became CEO of Affinity Express, my vision was to develop a top-performing, global team with a burning desire to continually improve everything they do for clients and employees; a team who could work with me to build a fast-growing, early mover business process outsourcing (BPO) company in the media production industry. I realized at the time that this was no small task, but believed strongly in our potential.
A relatively short time later, in 2010, we received an indication that we are well on our way to realizing this vision. Affinity Express was named to the Global Services 100 list, which recognizes companies that define global outsourcing. Many major corporations in more established outsourcing categories were featured, yet Affinity Express was the only provider of advertising and marketing production solutions on the list. This is a wonderful honor and I consider it a testament to the passion and teamwork of all our talented people. Read more of this post
December 1, 2010 Leave a comment
As we enter the last month of 2010, I have been thinking about what we have achieved this year and how we can do better next year. 2010 was particularly good for Affinity Express. I’d like to share with you some of what we have accomplished.
August 4, 2010 1 Comment
I was recently privileged to be invited to a networking dinner hosted by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPA/P). This Global Sourcing Meeting held on July 29 in New York was part of a larger event, the World BPO Forum.
Affinity Express has a close relationship with the Philippines, not only because we have one of our large offshore production centers located in Manila, but also because our parent company, Ayala Corporation, is one of the oldest and largest conglomerates in the Philippines. I was excited that this event would allow me to network with other people who have business interests—or are interested in doing business—in the Philippines.
The event started with a welcome address by the Consul General of the Philippines. We then had a presentation by the CEO of the BPA/P on “Why the Philippines?” Of course, I’m already sold on this topic, but I attended with interest nonetheless.
Later on, I was invited to address the gathering. It was exciting to stand in front of a hundred or so senior business executives and talk about Affinity Express and our presence in the Philippines, hoping that our experience would be of some use to others. Read more of this post
June 8, 2010 2 Comments
Being an outsourcing provider isn’t easy: you constantly struggle to prove value to your customer and to stay ahead of all your competitors. In terms of quality, an outsourcing provider must be capable of delivering similar or better output than clients’ own internal resources at a competitive cost.
From the buyer perspective, trust in the quality and responsiveness of an outsourcing company is essential if clients are to free themselves from behind-the-scenes operational details. That’s why providers have to earn their clients’ confidence day in and day out—providers are only as good as the last file delivered!
From the outsourcing company perspective, quality and rework costs spiral out of control, services levels and morale sink and the ability to meet contractual obligations suffers when its employees fail to execute as needed.
If you are planning to outsource a mission-critical function, here are some suggestions on what to consider. Read more of this post
May 17, 2010 1 Comment
Welcome to the Affinity Express blog! We launched this new vehicle as another means to dialogue with our clients, prospects and employees. In our posts, you will learn more about our services, trends in the industries we serve, and our people.
If you are not yet familiar with Affinity Express, you should know that we are blazing a trail by addressing the need for advertising and marketing production solutions for a variety of market segments. Today, we have well-known newspaper, direct marketer, yellow pages, marketing services, retailer, promotional products, digital media agency and corporate clients.
Our vision to provide high volumes of digital files in fast turn times, with excellent technical quality at a cost-effective rate. Affinity Express clients lower costs, generate higher profits and gain a competitive edge, without having to invest in building and maintaining these capabilities internally.
We currently offer a full range of services, including print ad production and digital ad production, execution of marketing campaigns, pre-press services, page building and document creation, HTML email and web design, online content publishing, image editing, vector artwork, and embroidery digitizing among others.
Affinity Express has been successful because of our unique offshore, onshore and onsite business model, state-of-the-art technology and best practices in quality and productivity. As a result, we have established a niche in the business process outsourcing industry for print and interactive production services and become the leading provider.
