Owner of the Dallas Morning News Acquires New Local Digital Companies as Print Rev Continues to Decline

If you didn’t know this in 2014, know it in 2015: the ways you reach consumers through marketing are changing, and changing fast. That is very important for anyone selling real estate — agent, broker or homeowner — to understand. Social media and online portals are flying light years over print for advertising new listings, especially in areas like our’s, where inventory is low.

So it is interesting to see that A. H. Belo Corporation, owner of The Dallas Morning News, just rang up three Dallas-based marketing companies: Distribion, MarketingFX and Vertical Nerve.

Looks like these companies —Distribion anyhow — creates ways of simplifying all the myriads of marketing channels small businesses have to navigate in marketing. That would be social media, online, even print for the following fields:  insurance, financial services, telecom, technology, biopharmaceuticals, hospitality and travel, business services, and franchises. Say they show results, too.

This kind of perked my interest to see if any of this could apply to Real Estate.

“The addition of these three new companies to our portfolio represents an opportunity for our advertising clients to take advantage of data-driven marketing automation technology and services,” said Jim Moroney, publisher and chief executive officer of The News.

Smart move for Belo, and interesting to see how the company will integrate existing clients. The acquisition is yet another way  A.H. Belo is diversifying, edging into the digital world and whittling down newspaper holdings. You may recall that in 2012, The News acquired Pegasus News and Speakeasy, a social media marketing company, as well as other digital marketing companies aimed at small local businesses.