Davis Broadcasting’s Digital Manager Boosts Sales by $75K

In January, Davis Broadcasting, the largest Black-owned radio network in Georgia, hired Blue Bancer as its Digital Operations Director. Since mid-April, he’s helped to secure more than $75,000 in new digital advertising revenue. Bancer is transforming a legacy sales team into a digital one—and bringing Davis’ customers and clients with them. 

“If you’re not in digital or choose not to adapt, you’re going to get left behind,” Bancer said. 

Davis, in collaboration with Columbus, Ga.-based The Courier/Eco Latino, is benefitting from the first round of grantmaking from The Pivot Fund, including the dollars used to hire Bancer. The partnership has taken off since the Courier’s new editor, Janelle Williams, joined the team in September.

The Partnership

One of the oldest running African American-owned radio companies in the U.S., Davis Broadcasting operates nine stations in Georgia, six of them in the Columbus market. Together, Davis and the Courier are expanding their reach to new audiences and making news and information more accessible to Columbus residents.

Even before an investment from The Pivot Fund, Davis and the Courier worked together to produce events and specialty print products. 

Davis and the Courier deepened their relationship with help from one of Pivot’s strategic partners, the Center for Cooperative Media. With the center’s guidance, the two organizations were already sharing news, but a legal agreement solidified that partnership, and now the two entities are building on it by developing new digital products, creating a newsletter and hosting sponsored events.

How it works

When Bancer joined, he expanded key digital advertising components, including the deployment of targeted display ads, event targeting, social media ads, Google Ad Words, and streaming audio ads. The team now also offers Amazon ads, video production, and more. 

Bancer said he wanted to start small to avoid overwhelming Davis’ sales team and clients but plans to continue growing their product line to include search engine optimization and social media management.

The team relies on digital marketing software to take some of the guesswork out of digital advertising. The platform licensed by Davis uses AI to scour census data, analyze the performance of past campaigns, and provide pricing – giving staff a jumping-off point to build new digital campaigns. The software also leverages AI to design ads and provides a portal for clients to monitor their campaign’s performance. 

One of the learnings for Davis, and the media ecosystem at large, is that when it comes to digital transformation, not only do legacy media outlets often lag behind, so do many of their clients. 

In addition to retraining a sales team accustomed to selling ads over airwaves,  Bancer and his colleagues at Davis also discovered that many local mom-and-pop shops were not equipped to run digital advertising. They recognized an opportunity to help clients step into the digital space, increasing revenue for everyone and finding easier ways to create content local businesses need.

“We try to meet our clients where they are, but we were running into an issue finding consistent vendors that were in the price range of our clients. The software prevents us from holding up a client who wants to be served. While it’s generated revenue for us, it creates revenue for our clients, who can get to market quicker,” said Geniece Granville, vice president of Davis Broadcasting.

The Davis-Courier partnership echoes The Pivot Fund’s approach to grantmaking: We help local news organizations hire changemaking talent, and we embrace digital innovation – but we start by listening to what our grantees need and meet them where they are.