Small Digital Newspaper = Big Ad Revenue
There is nothing worth believing unless you can experience positive results for yourself, especially in terms of implementing digital tools into your overall yearly business model. Having a digital version of your newspaper may seem like a novelty item until you uncover the value in what it can provide for your readers and your advertisers.
That’s why we want to share real stories with you of how local papers around the country are taking their digital editions to the next level of revenue enhancement using their digital editions.
Here is how one community paper, courtesy of Metro Creative Connection, discovered how their digital edition was worth its weight in gold as they opted to coordinate their niche print and digital sections into a powerful revenue-driving combination:
Jay Valencourt, Advertising Sales Operations Manager for the Worcester Telegram and Gazette in Worcester, Massachusetts, opted to implement coordinated print and digital sections in an effort to test how their digital editions could pay off. They decided to create 15 e-sections, one of them for their wedding section.
Their digital wedding section was the source of their experiment during July, one of the toughest advertising months of the year. Using their digital platform, they gave their advertisers the option to choose where their ads would run and showed them the increased visibility they could potentially receive. They ran a link to their section on their site for a month, and gave their advertisers incentives to run their ads beyond that one month period.
To their own surprise, they sold out their 16 digital ad positions to a wide-range of businesses, from area golf courses to a local plastic surgeon. All the advertisers were drawn to the digital section because of its unusual timing and because they could preview their content and select ad positions accordingly. Valancourt explained that “several of the ‘Weddings’ advertisers took us up on the offer, which was great because these folks don’t typically do digital advertising with us and this made it easy for them to transition from print to digital.” The Telegram and Gazette used this same approach in the Fall with their auto themed digital section and had just as much success.
The power of this story is how they were able to help their advertisers see the value in paying for digital, with ROI’s that were more than double what they had anticipated. In addition, choosing niche sections to capitalize on proved a win-win situation for everyone involved- the paper, the advertisers and the readers- by providing additional value throughout the year they would not be able to offer with their print version alone.
When given the opportunity, your advertisers can delightfully purchase ads from you that give them a chance to shine in ways they can’t normally find in your traditional print ads. Even if you or your staff are not tech savvy, you can create a simple digital edition that, when hosted on an interactive platform that allows you to add interactive features, can increase your revenue while transitioning your advertisers into the digital space with ease.
To create a free digital version of your newspaper in three simple steps click here: