Along somewhat similar lines, Craig McMullin, Executive Director at the Association of Free Community Papers (AFCP), provides perspective from the publishing side:
Whether publishing a newspaper or shopper, breadth of coverage has always been a key ingredient. We cover a community and we realize that our community consists of people interested in a wide variety of news and advertising information.
And, we know that if we publish a paper with a wide variety of news and/or advertising information, something in our paper is going to be of interest to each and every person in the market. It will be something different for any two people, but there's going to be a hook that engages each person and that will make them want to read my paper.
You don't know which hook brought a reader to your paper, but there was a hook somewhere. Our readership scores prove it!
And in the community paper field, our publications are small enough that you can bet nearly everyone flips through the entire paper looking at each page. That's enough to assure that ads work regardless of where they were placed.
Joe may have been interested in tires and he knows from previous experience with the Buyers Guide that he'll find tire ads, so he reads the Buyers Guide. While flipping through the pages, he sees that the local Mexican restaurant has a "kids eat free on Tuesday" promotion going. So, he finds his tires and tells his wife that the family should go out to eat next Tuesday.
It's a winning recipe and it serves us well. And, it will continue to serve us well in the future. But, outside influences are cutting into our margins and we need additional revenue to keep our businesses solid.
So, why is online cutting into our margins?
Online habits vs. print habits
People use the Internet in completely different ways than print. While Joe was looking for tires, he took the time to flip through the Buyers Guide and found an ad for a Mexican restaurant that caught his eye.
When Joe searches for tires on the Internet, he's using search tools to look for tires and only tires. He doesn't randomly flip through pages of your website to see what else is for sale. He looks for tires, makes a decision and goes about his life.
That's good for the tire guy, but not so good for the Mexican restaurant guy.
And that has a dramatic impact on how we sell advertising.
Craig points out an important point - readers searching through a print publication see ALL the ads in any particular section as they look for something specific. They may skim the ads, but they are guaranteed to at least appear on the page. Online searchers have the option of bypassing everything they are not interested in, giving them a faster search but limiting the newspaper's cross-selling abilities.
Some smaller community newspapers don't have the enhanced online capabilities of larger publishers, such as search tools, print ads appearing online, interactive features, and forums. Because of this, print ads in these newspapers are a valuable asset for local readers.
More about AFCP:
The Association of Free Community Papers was formed in 1951 to provide a forum for free paper publishers across the country to come together, share best practices, exchange ideas and build a stronger free paper industry. Since those early days, AFCP has grown to represent nearly 3,000 individual publications delivered to more than 45 million homes across the United States. AFCP also provides The National Advertising Network, Inc. (NANI), the largest national classified advertising network in the country, offering advertisers a convenient, one-stop opportunity to advertise products and services in local community papers.
To learn more about Association of Free Community Papers, click the title above, or visit www.AFCP.org.
To learn how to advertise in NANI, contact me by email or by phone toll-free at 866-612-0034 x115.
1 comment:
Association of Free Community Papers(AFCP)has innovative ideas for online publishing.
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